How to screen record on Mac with audio, including system sound.

The recording workflow

1. Open the Screenshot toolbar

   Press Shift-Command-5. In QuickTime Player, File > New Screen Recording (Control-Command-N) opens the same toolbar, so there is no difference between the two routes.

2. Choose what to record

   Pick Record Entire Screen or Record Selected Portion. On macOS 26 Tahoe and later there is also Record Selected Window, which keeps the rest of your desktop out of the video.

3. Choose a microphone

   Click Options and select your microphone under Microphone. If it says None, the recording will have no voice. While you are there, turn on Show Mouse Clicks if viewers need to see where you click.

4. Turn on system audio if your macOS has it

   On macOS 27 Golden Gate or later, choose Include System Audio in the same Options menu. On macOS 14, 15, and 26 that option does not exist: use the BlackHole or OBS route below.

5. Record, then stop

   Click Record. To stop, click the Stop button in the menu bar or press Command-Control-Esc. Esc cancels before the recording starts.

6. Check the file before the real take

   A thumbnail appears in the corner of the screen; click it to open the recording, or leave it and the file saves to your desktop. Play ten seconds with headphones and confirm you hear every source you meant to capture.

Which macOS versions record system audio

Apple’s support article on screen recording, published September 14, 2026, adds one line that most guides have not caught up with: on macOS 27 Golden Gate or later you can choose Include System Audio in the Options menu. Before that release, the built-in recorder offers a microphone and nothing else.

Check your version under Apple menu > About This Mac, then use the row that matches.

One thing Apple’s article does not cover is whether macOS 27 saves system audio and the microphone as separate tracks. If you need to rebalance them later, record a ten-second test with both and open it in your editor before you commit to a long take.

How to record internal audio on macOS 14, 15, and 26 with BlackHole

BlackHole is a free, open-source virtual audio driver. It works on Intel and Apple Silicon Macs, needs no kernel extension, and gives the built-in recorder something to listen to: your Mac plays sound into BlackHole, and the recorder picks BlackHole as its microphone.

The setup below follows the BlackHole project’s own Multi-Output Device instructions. The trade-offs listed after the steps are documented by the project too, so read them before you rely on this for client work.

1. Quit your audio apps and install BlackHole 2ch. With Homebrew the command is brew install blackhole-2ch. Restart the Mac when the installer asks.
2. Open Audio MIDI Setup (search for it in Spotlight). If no window appears, choose Window > Audio Devices.
3. Click the + button at the bottom left and choose Create Multi-Output Device.
4. Tick your speakers or headphones and BlackHole 2ch. Keep the built-in output at the top of the list as the primary device, and enable Drift Correction for every device except that one.
5. Right-click the Multi-Output Device and choose Use This Device For Sound Output. You now hear the sound and BlackHole receives a copy.
6. Press Shift-Command-5, open Options, and choose BlackHole 2ch under Microphone. Record as usual.
7. After recording, switch sound output back to your normal speakers or headphones.

• The volume keys stop working. macOS cannot change the volume of a Multi-Output Device; you set each device’s level in Audio MIDI Setup.
• Order matters. If the built-in output is not the top (primary) device, audio or video playback may fail.
• Skip Drift Correction and you risk audible glitches in the recording.
• The Microphone menu now points at BlackHole, not at your microphone. Third-party guides solve this with an extra Aggregate Device that combines the two, which is one more virtual device to build and keep working.
• You have to remember to switch output back afterwards, every time.

OBS Studio: the free way to record screen, system audio, and microphone

OBS Studio is free, open source, and needs no audio driver on a modern Mac. The current stable release, 33.0.1 from October 29, 2026, supports macOS 13.0 and newer and ships separate installers for Apple Silicon and Intel.

OBS is a recording and streaming tool. It gives you the cleanest free capture, with up to six audio tracks, and then hands you a file: trimming, zooms, and fixing a mistake happen in a separate editor.

• Screen: add a macOS Screen Capture source and choose Display, Application, or Window capture. It carries audio on macOS 13 and later.
• System audio: in OBS 30 and later, add a macOS Audio Capture source. It can take all desktop audio or the audio of one application.
• Microphone: add it as its own audio source so it stays separate from desktop audio.
• Separate tracks: assign each source to a track in Advanced Audio Properties, then enable those tracks under Settings > Output in Advanced mode.
• File format: OBS recommends MKV because an interrupted recording does not corrupt the whole file. Remux to MP4 afterwards if your editor needs it.
• Expect one surprise: standard video players play only one audio track at a time, so a multitrack file can sound incomplete until you open it in an editor.

Built-in vs BlackHole vs OBS vs Qreata: which method to use

All four routes produce a usable recording. They differ in how much setup you repeat and how much control you have after you press Stop.

• Stay with the built-in recorder if you only narrate, or if you are on macOS 27 and a single soundtrack is enough.
• Use BlackHole if you need app sound a few times a year and can live with switching sound output before and after.
• Use OBS if you want free multitrack capture and already have an editor you like.
• Use Qreata if you record narrated walkthroughs with app sound every week and want to rebalance voice and app sound after the take, in the same app you edit in.

Why your Mac screen recording has no sound, and how to fix it

First work out which source is missing: your voice, the app sound, or both. Then find the row. Permission paths are from Apple’s Mac User Guide; the BlackHole and OBS rows are from each project’s own documentation.

Where Mac screen recordings save, and in what format

Built-in recordings save to your desktop by default as a .mov file named “Screen Recording [date] at [time].mov”. Change the location under Options in the Screenshot toolbar.

On macOS 26 Tahoe and later, supported Macs offer a capture format choice in Options: SDR (Most Compatible), which records H.264, or HDR, which records HEVC. Pick SDR for anything you plan to upload or send to someone else.

To tidy the file for free, open it in QuickTime Player. Apple’s QuickTime guide lists trim, split into clips, rearrange clips, rotate or flip, add a clip, and remove audio or video. Edit > Trim and the yellow handles cover the most common job: cutting the first and last seconds.

Record microphone and system audio as separate tracks in Qreata

The free routes get sound into the file. What they do not give you is a second chance at the balance. If a notification chime lands on your key sentence at 2:14 of a mixed recording, the fix is another take.

Qreata records screen, camera, microphone, and system audio as four separate tracks in one project. System audio is always captured together with the screen: there is no switch to remember before the take. Microphone and system audio each have their own Mute and a Volume from 0 to 200%, so afterwards you turn the app sound down, or off, and your voice is untouched. No virtual driver, no output switching.

It also checks before you start. The Active source check shows live frames and live audio for each source, so a dead microphone shows up before a 20-minute walkthrough and not after it. During recording Qreata watches disk space and stops automatically before the disk fills, and it writes the take in five-second chunks with a recovery journal, so after a crash it restores what was already saved.

Limits that matter here: Qreata is in beta, runs on Apple Silicon Macs with macOS 14 or later, and exports one MP4 (H.264, 30 fps, up to 4K). It records all system audio as one track; you can’t pick the audio of a single app, which OBS can. Exporting each raw track as its own file is not possible, and there is no noise reduction. It costs $49 once for three Macs, with a full 7-day trial and no account needed to record.

A ten-minute test for the trial: play a video in your browser, talk over it for 30 seconds, stop, then mute the system audio track. If your voice plays clean on its own, you have the control the built-in recorder cannot give you.

Questions about this workflow