QuickTime Screen Recording on Mac (With Audio)

To make a QuickTime screen recording, open QuickTime Player and choose File > New Screen Recording (⌃⌘N, Control-Command-N). On current macOS this opens the Screenshot toolbar. Pick Record Entire Screen or Record Selected Portion, choose your microphone under Options, then click Record. To stop, click the Stop button in the menu bar or press ⌃⌘Esc (Control-Command-Escape).

QuickTime records your microphone but not your Mac's own sound (app audio, browser audio, notification sounds). It also can't pause or zoom. The sections below cover each step, what to do about system audio, and when another tool makes more sense.

Start a QuickTime screen recording

QuickTime no longer has its own screen recording window. It opens the same Screenshot toolbar you get with ⇧⌘5 (Shift-Command-5). The steps are the same on macOS 14 Sonoma, 15 Sequoia and 26 Tahoe.

1. Open QuickTime Player from your Applications folder or with Spotlight.
2. Choose File > New Screen Recording, or press ⌃⌘N.
3. In the toolbar at the bottom of the screen, click Record Entire Screen or Record Selected Portion.
4. If you chose a portion, drag the frame to cover the area you want. Drag its edges to resize it.
5. Click Options to set the microphone, timer and save location (covered below).
6. Click Record. For a full-screen recording, you can also click the display you want when the pointer turns into a camera, which is the clearest way to pick a screen if you have more than one. There is no option to record a single window. You can only record a full display or a rectangle you draw. If you need one window, see how to record a single window on Mac.

Choose a microphone and show clicks

Everything you can change lives in the Options menu of the toolbar.

To record your voice:

1. Click Options.
2. Under Microphone, pick the input you want. A checkmark shows the current choice.
3. Start recording and talk.

If Microphone is set to None, the recording is silent. Check this first when a recording has no sound.

Show Mouse Clicks helps viewers follow along in tutorials. It's a plain circle: no click sound, and the toolbar has no color or size settings for it. For more options, see how to show mouse clicks in a Mac screen recording.

Why QuickTime can't record system audio

The toolbar's Microphone list only shows input devices. There is no entry for the sound coming out of your Mac, so a video playing in your browser or a sound from an app won't be in the recording. Turning your speakers up and letting the mic pick them up gives you room echo and fan noise, and it doesn't work at all with headphones.

You have two real options.

Route audio with a loopback driver

A virtual audio driver such as BlackHole from Existential Audio creates a fake audio device. You send your Mac's output to it, and QuickTime records it as if it were a microphone.

1. Install the driver and restart if the installer asks you to.
2. Open Audio MIDI Setup (in Applications > Utilities).
3. Click + at the bottom left and choose Create Multi-Output Device.
4. Check both the loopback driver and your speakers or headphones, so you still hear the sound.
5. In System Settings, search for "Sound" and set the output to the new Multi-Output Device.
6. In QuickTime's Options > Microphone, pick the loopback driver.

This records system audio only. To get your voice too, you need a second device in Audio MIDI Setup (Create Aggregate Device) that combines your mic and the loopback driver. While a Multi-Output Device is your output, the volume keys don't change its volume. To undo all of this, set your Sound output back to your speakers or headphones.

Use a recorder that captures system audio itself

Some Mac recorders capture app audio directly through Apple's ScreenCaptureKit, with no driver setup. Screen Bolt, which we make, does this: the Audio menu in its recording bar has Record system audio from all apps, and your mic is saved as a separate track so you can set each volume later. Our guide to recording internal audio on Mac compares both approaches in more detail.

Stop, trim and save

Stop the recording

Use any of these:

• Click the Stop button in the menu bar.
• Press ⌃⌘Esc.
• Press ⇧⌘5 to bring the toolbar back, then click its Stop button.

The last option helps if your menu bar is hidden or the Stop icon is tucked behind the camera notch. More options are in how to stop screen recording on Mac.

Find the file

Recordings are QuickTime movie files (.mov) named "Screen Recording" followed by the date and time. They go to the location set under Options > Save to, which is the Desktop unless you've changed it.

With Show Floating Thumbnail on, the file isn't written until the thumbnail slides away or you click it. If you can't find a recording, wait a few seconds or turn the thumbnail off. See where screen recordings go on Mac for every location.

Trim the start and end

1. Open the recording in QuickTime Player.
2. Choose Edit > Trim (⌘T, Command-T).
3. Drag the yellow handles to cut the dead time at the start and end.
4. Click Trim.
5. Choose File > Export As and pick a resolution to save a new copy, or close the window and save the changes. Trim only removes footage from the two ends. To cut something out of the middle, use Edit > Split Clip, select the part you don't want and delete it. Export As also helps with file size: QuickTime records at your display's full resolution, and exporting at 1080p gives you a smaller file. There's more in how to trim a screen recording on Mac.

QuickTime's limits

QuickTime is fine for a quick clip with your voice. These are the things it can't do:

• No system audio. Microphone only, unless you set up a loopback driver.
• No pause. You stop, start a new file, then join the files later. There's no pause button in the toolbar or menu bar. See how to pause a screen recording on Mac for workarounds.
• No zooms. On a large or Retina display, small text and buttons are hard to read at video size, and you can't zoom into the area you clicked.
• No window-only recording. Full display or a drawn rectangle.
• One audio track. One input, mixed into the file. You can't lower one sound and raise another afterward.
• No webcam overlay. A common workaround is to open File > New Movie Recording, choose View > Float on Top, and leave that camera window on screen while you record. It works, but the camera is baked into the recording: you can't move, resize or remove it afterward.
• Basic editing. Trim, split, rearrange clips and rotate. No text, arrows, blur, background or cursor styling.

When to use something else

Stay with QuickTime if you're recording a short clip with your voice, nobody needs to hear app audio, and the viewer will watch it full screen.

Use a dedicated recorder if you need app audio without driver setup, want to pause mid-take, or the video will be watched small (in Slack, a docs page, a landing page), where full-screen footage becomes hard to read.

Screen Bolt covers those gaps. It's a native Mac app for macOS 14 or later that records a display, a single window or an area, with your mic and system audio on separate tracks. The recording bar has Pause and Resume buttons. When you stop, the editor opens with zoom regions already created from your clicks (you can adjust or delete them in the Zoom panel), a smoothed cursor and a background behind the recording. Recordings are processed locally and never uploaded. For a broader look at the options, see our QuickTime alternatives for Mac and how to screen record on Mac.

If it doesn't work

The recording has no sound. Open Options and check that Microphone isn't set to None. If the right mic is selected and it's still silent, open System Settings, search for "Sound", and watch the input level while you talk, or try our free microphone test. If you expected to hear app or browser audio, that's the system audio limit described above. Our no-sound fix guide goes through every cause.

You can't find the Stop button. Press ⌃⌘Esc, or press ⇧⌘5 and use the Stop button in the toolbar.

The file isn't where you expected. Check Options > Save to. If the floating thumbnail is on, the file appears only after the thumbnail disappears.

The wrong display was recorded. With more than one display, choose Record Entire Screen and then click directly on the display you want when the pointer turns into a camera.

The file is huge. Choose File > Export As in QuickTime and pick 1080p or 720p.

FAQ

Can QuickTime record system audio on Mac? No. It records a microphone input only. You need a loopback driver set up as the input, or a recorder that captures system audio itself.

Is there a time limit on QuickTime screen recordings? Apple doesn't document one. The practical limit is free disk space, since full-resolution recordings grow quickly. See how long you can screen record on a Mac.

Is QuickTime screen recording the same as ⇧⌘5? Yes. Both open the same Screenshot toolbar with the same recording options.

Can I record my screen and webcam together in QuickTime? Not as separate tracks. You can float a New Movie Recording window on top of your screen and record both together, but the camera can't be moved or removed in the final video.

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Want system audio, pause and auto zoom without setup? Screen Bolt has a free version with no time limit; free exports carry a watermark and are capped at 720p and 3 minutes.