Mac screen recording has no sound: find the missing source and fix it.

The recording workflow

1. Rule out playback

   Open the file in QuickTime Player with headphones on and the Mac volume up. If you hear sound now, the recording is fine and the player or the output device you used before was the problem.

2. Name the missing source

   Your voice missing and app sound missing are two different faults. A video where you talk over a YouTube clip and only your voice survived is not a microphone problem.

3. Open Options and read the Microphone line

   Press Shift-Command-5 and click Options. Under Microphone, a checkmark next to None means no audio was recorded at all. Select the microphone you speak into.

4. Check your macOS version

   Apple menu > About This Mac. On macOS 27 Golden Gate or later, Options also has Include System Audio. On macOS 14, 15, and 26 that line does not exist, so app sound cannot reach a built-in recording without a workaround.

5. Check the input device and level

   System Settings > Sound > Input. Select the microphone you actually use and drag the input volume slider up if your voice is faint.

6. Record ten seconds and play it back

   Say a sentence, play a sound from the app you want to capture, stop with Command-Control-Esc, and listen with headphones before you start the real take.

Silent screen recording on Mac: symptom, cause, fix

Find the row that matches what you hear. Menu paths are from Apple’s support article on screen recording (published September 14, 2026) and the Mac User Guide pages for the Microphone and Screen & System Audio Recording settings. BlackHole and OBS rows are from each project’s own documentation.

No voice: the microphone was not recorded

The most common cause is one line in a menu. Apple’s Mac User Guide puts it plainly: to turn off the microphone you select None, and to use one you select it so a checkmark appears. The setting stays where you left it, so one silent tutorial is often followed by another.

If the microphone is selected and the voice is still missing, work down this list.

• Wrong input. System Settings > Sound > Input lists every input your Mac can use. Select the one you speak into and raise the input volume slider.
• External display in the chain. Apple’s Mac User Guide notes that with a display connected, a headset can take over input from the display’s built-in microphone (and the other way round). Unplug the headset, make the selection, then plug it back in.
• Permission, for third-party recorders. Apple’s article “If you can’t record audio from an external source on Mac” describes the symptom exactly: no sound and no moving meters. Its fix is to quit the app, turn it on under System Settings > Privacy & Security > Microphone, and open it again.
• Recording indicator. While a microphone is in use, an orange dot appears next to Control Center in the menu bar. No orange dot during a take means nothing is listening.
• Another app holding the microphone (Zoom, Teams, Discord) is a commonly reported cause that Apple does not document. Quitting the call app with Command-Q before recording costs nothing and rules it out.

No app sound: internal audio depends on your macOS version

Many pages still say a Mac cannot record its own sound. That stopped being true with macOS 27 Golden Gate: Apple’s screen recording article now lists Include System Audio in the Options menu. On macOS 14 Sonoma, 15 Sequoia, and 26 Tahoe, the same menu offers a microphone and nothing else, and QuickTime Player’s File > New Screen Recording opens that same toolbar.

On the older three versions you have two free routes. BlackHole, a virtual audio driver, makes app sound look like a microphone to the built-in recorder. OBS Studio captures desktop audio directly on macOS 13 or later with its macOS Audio Capture source. Our guide to screen recording on Mac with audio has the full setup for both.

If you already use BlackHole and the recording went silent, the BlackHole project’s own Multi-Output Device notes name the usual reasons.

• The built-in speakers or headphones must be the top (primary) device in the Multi-Output Device. In any other order, audio may not play at all.
• Drift Correction must be enabled for every device in the list except the primary one.
• The volume keys stop working with a Multi-Output Device. That is expected; set levels per device in Audio MIDI Setup.
• Options > Microphone must point at BlackHole 2ch. While it does, your real microphone is not recorded.
• Skip any advice to install Soundflower or reset NVRAM. Neither is needed on a current Mac.

No sound when recording Zoom, FaceTime, Meet, Teams, or Discord

A call has two halves. The other person’s voice is system audio. Your voice is the microphone. On macOS 14, 15, and 26 the built-in recorder keeps only your half, which is why a recorded Zoom call plays back as you talking to silence.

The same logic covers a PowerPoint or Keynote deck with embedded audio and a YouTube tab in Chrome: whatever the Mac plays is system audio.

Before you reach for a screen recorder, check the call app’s own Record button. It captures both sides and follows the host’s settings; whether participants are notified depends on the app and its settings, so check its help pages. Recording people without their consent is illegal in many places. If a FaceTime call was on an iPhone, none of this applies: that is iPhone screen recording, a different tool.

Quiet, echoing, or delayed audio in a screen recording

Sound that is present but bad has different causes from sound that is missing.

• Too quiet: raise the input volume under System Settings > Sound > Input. Apple’s guide describes this slider as the way to compensate for a source that is too loud or too quiet.
• Echo: your microphone hears the speakers. Apple’s screen recording article gives the fix for audio feedback in one line: lower the volume or use headphones with a microphone.
• Thin, low-quality sound with Bluetooth headphones: Apple’s article on reduced Bluetooth sound quality explains that Bluetooth drops to a lower-quality mode whenever the headphones’ own microphone is in use. Record with the Mac’s built-in or a USB microphone and keep the Bluetooth headphones for listening.
• Audio drifting out of sync with the picture: Apple documents no cause or setting for this in the built-in recorder. Record a one-minute test with other apps closed before you blame the microphone.

Before you re-record: can a silent recording be fixed?

If the source was never captured, no. A file recorded with Microphone set to None has no voice in it, and no repair tool, converter, or editor can add sound that was not recorded. The same is true of app sound on macOS 14, 15, and 26.

Check what you actually have before you redo an hour of work.

1. Play the file in QuickTime Player with headphones and the system volume up, in case the problem was the player.
2. Try a second player or another device. A file with several audio tracks, such as an OBS recording, plays only one track in standard players.
3. If your voice is there and only the app sound is missing, decide whether you need it. A narrated tutorial often works without it.
4. If your voice is missing and the picture is good, add a new voiceover in a video editor instead of repeating the whole screen session.
5. Fix the cause from the table, then record ten seconds and play it back before the long take.

How Qreata catches a silent source before you record

Qreata cannot repair a silent file made in QuickTime or any other app. It does not import outside video at all. What it changes is when you find out.

Before a recording starts, the Active source check tests live data from each source: screen, camera, microphone, and system audio. If a source delivers no data, recording is blocked, so a dead microphone shows up before a 20-minute walkthrough and not after it. During the take, a health display shows the state and audio level of each track.

System audio is always captured with the screen on macOS 14 or later, with no audio driver to install and no output to switch. Microphone and system audio are saved as separate tracks, each with its own Mute and a Volume from 0 to 200%, so a quiet voice can be raised afterwards without raising the app sound. If a Qreata take was recorded with no microphone at all, “Record voiceover · keep video” adds a voice track over the picture afterwards, range by range. There is no noise reduction and no way to record the sound of a single app.

Qreata is a Mac app for Apple Silicon, currently in beta. The trial runs 7 days with no watermark, and the license is $49 once for three Macs.

Questions about this workflow