How to Screen Record on Mac With Audio (Mic and System Sound)

To screen record on Mac with audio from your microphone, press ⇧⌘5 (Shift-Command-5), click Options, choose your mic under Microphone, then click Record. That built-in toolbar records microphone audio only. It cannot record the sound your Mac plays, such as app sounds, videos or the other people on a call. To capture that system audio, or your voice and system audio together, you need either a loopback audio driver or a recorder that captures system audio itself. Screen Bolt, our recorder, uses the second approach.

Screen recording on Mac with audio: mic vs system sound

Your Mac handles two kinds of sound:

• Microphone audio comes in through an input device: the built-in mic, a USB mic or a headset.
• System audio is what your Mac plays out: a YouTube video, an app's alert sounds, voices on a call.

The Screenshot toolbar (⇧⌘5) and QuickTime Player can only record from input devices. macOS has no built-in input that carries what your Mac is playing, so the Microphone list shows only real microphones. If it's set to None, the recording is silent. If you choose a mic, you get your voice plus whatever the mic hears in the room. That can include your speakers, but it will sound thin and echoey.

Apple's ScreenCaptureKit framework lets apps capture system audio directly. Recorders built on it can record Mac sound with no extra driver. That's why many guides still send you to a loopback driver such as BlackHole, while others don't need one at all.

Record your voice with Shift-Command-5

This is the fastest way to get a screen recording with narration, and it needs no extra apps.

1. Press ⇧⌘5 to open the Screenshot toolbar.
2. Click Record Entire Screen or Record Selected Portion. For a portion, drag to set the area.
3. Click Options.
4. Under Microphone, choose your mic (for example your Mac's built-in microphone or a USB mic). If None is selected, no audio is recorded.
5. Click Record.
6. To stop, click the stop button in the menu bar or press ⌃⌘Esc (Control-Command-Escape). The recording is saved as a .mov file on your Desktop by default. To change that, pick another folder under Save to in the same Options menu.

What it can't do: record system audio, keep your mic and system audio on separate tracks, or show a level meter before you start.

Record your voice with QuickTime Player

QuickTime Player uses the same tool. Open QuickTime Player and choose File > New Screen Recording, and the Screenshot toolbar appears. Follow the steps above, including choosing a mic under Options > Microphone. The result is the same: microphone audio only.

QuickTime adds basic trimming afterwards (Edit > Trim). For more on this route, see our guide to QuickTime screen recording.

If you only need an audio file of your voice with no video, use File > New Audio Recording in QuickTime.

Record system audio on Mac: driver or direct capture

There are two ways to get Mac sound into a recording.

Option 1: a loopback driver

A loopback driver such as BlackHole creates a virtual audio device. You send your Mac's output to it, and the Screenshot toolbar can then select it as if it were a microphone. The usual setup:

1. Install BlackHole.
2. Open Audio MIDI Setup (in Applications > Utilities).
3. Click + at the bottom left and choose Create Multi-Output Device. Tick your speakers or headphones and BlackHole, so you still hear the audio.
4. Open System Settings > Sound and set the output to the new Multi-Output Device.
5. Press ⇧⌘5, click Options, and choose BlackHole under Microphone.

This records system audio but not your voice. To get both, you also have to build an Aggregate Device in Audio MIDI Setup that combines your mic and BlackHole. While a Multi-Output Device is your output, the volume keys don't change its volume. To undo the setup, set the output back to your speakers or headphones in Sound settings. Our guide to recording internal audio on Mac covers this route in more detail.

Option 2: a recorder that captures system audio itself

Some recorders use ScreenCaptureKit to capture system audio directly. There's nothing to route and no output device to switch back afterwards. Screen Bolt works this way; the next section has the exact menu choices.

If you want a free tool, OBS Studio is free and open source as of November 2026, runs on macOS 13 or newer, and is built for recording and live streaming. See obsproject.com for its current Mac audio options; we don't cover its setup here.

Record mic and system audio together in Screen Bolt

Screen Bolt is our Mac screen recorder (macOS 14 or later). It records your microphone and system audio at the same time and keeps them as separate tracks, so after recording you can turn the background audio down without making your voice quieter, or drop one track entirely.

1. Download Screen Bolt and open it. A floating recording bar appears.
2. Click Display, Window or Area to choose what to record. macOS asks for Screen Recording access before your first recording. On macOS 14, quit and reopen Screen Bolt after allowing it.
3. Click Mic and choose your microphone. Your default mic is marked "(default)". Picking one turns the mic on.
4. Click Audio and choose Record system audio from all apps.
5. Click the red record button. The first time you record with the mic on, macOS asks for Microphone access. Click Allow.
6. When you're done, click Stop in the bar. You can also press ⌃⌘↩ (Control-Command-Return), but only while Screen Bolt is the active app. By default the editor opens next. Open the Audio panel (⌘4) to find two volume sliders, System Audio and Microphone, each from 0 to 100%. From there:

• Listen to one track alone. Each audio row on the timeline has an S (solo) button.
• Remove a track. Right-click the system audio row and choose Remove System Audio, or right-click the microphone row and choose Remove Microphone.
• Save audio as a file. Right-click a row and choose Export System Audio… or Export Microphone Audio… to save the raw track as an .m4a file.
• Clean up your voice. Audio Enhance in the Audio panel offers Noise Reduction, Volume Normalization and Voice Clarity. They run on your Mac and apply to the microphone track only. See removing background noise from a screen recording for when each helps.

Menu choices for each situation:

Limits to know:

• No per-app capture. Record system audio from selected apps currently records all apps, and there is no app picker. If you want one app's sound only, quit or mute the others first.
• Window mode still records every app's sound. Recording a single window doesn't limit the audio to that window's app. Turn on Do Not Disturb so notification sounds stay out of your video.
• Free version limits. The free version records with no time limit, but exports are capped at 3 minutes and 720p and carry a "Made with Screen Bolt" watermark. A license removes those limits; see pricing.

Compare the methods

Pick the built-in toolbar if you only need narration. Pick a loopback driver if you want to stay with built-in tools and don't mind switching your output device. Pick Screen Bolt if you regularly need both sources and want to balance them after recording.

Check your levels before you record

A 10-second test recording catches most audio problems, but you can check the mic before that.

• Built-in check: open System Settings, click Sound, and switch to the Input tab. Select your mic and speak. The input level meter should move, and you can adjust the input volume there.
• Browser check: our free microphone test shows whether your mic picks up sound and how loud it is.
• In Screen Bolt: while the mic is on and you're not recording, a thin level meter shows at the bottom of the Mic button. If it stays still when you talk, you've picked the wrong mic.

A few habits make the audio cleaner:

• Wear headphones when recording both sources. Otherwise the mic also picks up your speakers, and viewers hear the same sound twice, slightly delayed.
• Think twice about AirPods as the mic. Using Bluetooth earbuds as the microphone usually lowers their playback quality. See using AirPods to record screen audio and choosing a microphone for screen recording.
• Voice Isolation and Screen Bolt. If macOS Voice Isolation is on when you start recording, Screen Bolt notes it and skips its own noise reduction for that recording, so your voice isn't processed twice. More in using Voice Isolation on Mac.

Fix a silent recording

The toolbar's Microphone was set to None. Press ⇧⌘5, click Options, and choose a mic before you record.

You expected system sound from ⇧⌘5 or QuickTime. They don't record it. Use a loopback driver or a recorder that captures system audio, as described above.

Microphone permission was denied. Open System Settings > Privacy & Security > Microphone and turn on the app you're recording with. In Screen Bolt, this shows as "Microphone access is required to record mic audio." and the recording doesn't start.

The mic is busy or unplugged. If Screen Bolt can't open the mic, it keeps recording without it and shows an amber banner beginning "Recording without microphone" with the reason, for example that the mic may be in use by another app. Quit the other app, or choose a different mic in the Mic menu.

Screen Bolt won't record at all. Without Screen Recording access, Screen Bolt can't record video or system audio, and a red banner such as "Failed to start recording" appears. Open System Settings, go to Privacy & Security, and turn on Screen Bolt under Screen Recording (called Screen & System Audio Recording on newer macOS versions). On macOS 14, quit and reopen Screen Bolt afterwards. Help > Screen Bolt Help (⌘?) shows the status of every permission.

The audio is there but you can't hear it in the editor. Check the System Audio and Microphone sliders in the Audio panel, make sure no track is soloed, and check the preview volume and mute toggle in the playback controls. If the panel says "No system audio track in source.", system audio was off for that recording.

For more causes, see Mac screen recording has no sound and the Screen Bolt troubleshooting docs.

FAQ

Can I record audio from just one app on a Mac? Not with the built-in tools. In Screen Bolt 1.11.5, Record system audio from selected apps still records all apps, so mute or quit the apps you don't want in the recording.

Where are my recordings saved? The Screenshot toolbar saves to your Desktop unless you change Save to in Options. Screen Bolt keeps each recording as a project in ~/Screen Bolt Projects, and edited exports go to your Desktop by default. More in where screen recordings go on Mac.

Is the audio uploaded anywhere? Screen Bolt processes recordings locally and never uploads them, and the built-in tools save to your Mac. One catch: if iCloud Drive syncs your Desktop and Documents folders, anything saved to the Desktop syncs to iCloud like any other file.

If you're new to screen recording on Mac in general, start with how to screen record on Mac.