The Personal Safety app on Google Pixel phones receives a useful update that offers emergency recording capabilities.

The Pixel phone has previously included the Pixel Personal Safety app, which offers users features such as Car Crash Detection, which calls 911 if you crash your car and cannot dial it yourself. A new emergency recording mode can record up to 45 minutes of footage, which is uploaded to a Google account and shared with emergency contacts.

First discovered by XDA Developers, the latest addition to the personal security app turns on when you activate the "Emergency SOS" feature on your phone - this can be done by pressing the power button five consecutive times.

The emergency recording feature can be turned on in the Personal Security App settings if you have already set up an emergency SOS. Once enabled, recording will start automatically and will not stop until you tell it to or until 45 minutes have elapsed. Recordings are then automatically uploaded to your Google account and stored for 7 days.

The app also includes a setting to automatically share uploaded videos with your emergency contacts. This way, in the unlikely event of an emergency and you are unable to contact them yourself, they will know what happened to you. However, this setting must be enabled by you, but you can choose it as an option during the setup process so you won't miss it.

When an emergency is happening, it is obvious that every second counts and you may not have the opportunity to manually open the camera app and start recording. Therefore, the fact that the Pixel's Emergency SOS feature now automatically records and uploads video is most welcome.

Naturally, all previous SOS features, such as calling 911 and sharing information with emergency contacts, remain available within the Personal Safety app. Therefore, make sure to configure the settings in a way that you find easy to use.

The update has not yet been rolled out to everyone, as evidenced by the fact that it is not available on my Pixel 4a, but should be available fairly soon.

The Personal Safety app is exclusive to Google Pixel devices, but other models (Android and iOS) have their own emergency SOS feature. Be sure to check out our guide on how to use the SOS emergency feature on your iPhone, Android, or smartwatch, just in case.