How to Screen Record on Mac with Internal Audio AND Your Mic (No BlackHole, No OBS)

TL;DR

• You can't screen record on Mac with internal audio and microphone using QuickTime or the Cmd+Shift+5 Screenshot toolbar — both can only capture the mic, never system/internal audio. This is a deliberate macOS limitation, not a bug.
• The two classic workarounds — installing the BlackHole virtual audio driver or wiring up OBS — both work, but they're fiddly: kernel-level audio routing, Multi-Output Devices in Audio MIDI Setup, no monitoring of your own output, and a real chance of silent recordings you only discover after the fact.
• Clipy's Mac app captures system audio + your mic natively on Apple Silicon — no virtual driver, no OBS, no sign-up. You get an instant shareable link with an auto transcript and AI summary the moment you hit stop.
• If you only need a browser tab with its audio, the Chrome screen recorder handles tab audio without any of this. For full-desktop system audio, you want the Mac app.
• Jump to the QuickTime vs BlackHole vs OBS vs Clipy comparison table if you just want the verdict.

Why can't QuickTime record system audio on Mac?

This is the single most common Mac recording frustration, and almost every search for "quicktime can't record system audio" lands on the same wall: you start a screen recording, you play a video or a call, you stop — and the audio track is either silent or only your microphone.

It's not a setting you missed. macOS does not expose system (internal) audio as a recordable input. QuickTime, the Cmd+Shift+5 Screenshot toolbar, and the macOS screen-capture APIs that most apps build on can only see microphone-class input devices. The audio your Mac is playing out — a Zoom call, a YouTube video, a Spotify track, a game, a notification ding — never appears as something QuickTime can tap.

Apple did this on purpose. Letting any app silently record everything your speakers play is a privacy and copyright minefield, so the OS simply doesn't ship a "record what I hear" toggle. The result: if you want to screen record on Mac with sound — meaning the actual sound coming out of your machine, not just your voice — the OS gives you nothing out of the box.

The mic-only limitation is exactly why people end up tool-shopping. You don't go looking for a virtual audio driver because it's fun. You go looking because you recorded a 20-minute tutorial walking through an app, played reference audio the whole time, and got back a video where none of it is audible.

What QuickTime can and can't do with audio

• Can: record the screen, record your built-in or USB microphone, record a webcam separately.
• Can't: record system/internal audio (app sound, call audio, video playback). No checkbox, no workaround inside QuickTime itself.
• Can't: record system audio and mic at the same time into one file — even with hacks, mixing the two is the part that breaks most often.

So the real question isn't "which QuickTime setting" — there isn't one. It's "what do I install to get around the OS," and that's where the pain starts.

What is the BlackHole workaround, and why is it painful?

BlackHole is a free, open-source virtual audio driver. It installs a fake audio device on your Mac that does nothing but pass audio from one app to another. The idea: route your system audio into BlackHole, then point your recorder at BlackHole as if it were a microphone. Now QuickTime (or anything) can "hear" your system audio.

It works. It is also one of the most error-prone setups in the Mac creator toolkit. Here's the actual sequence to record system audio on Mac with BlackHole:

1. Download and install the BlackHole driver (a system-level audio extension — you'll approve a security prompt and usually reboot).
2. Open Audio MIDI Setup and create a Multi-Output Device so audio goes to both your real speakers/headphones and BlackHole — otherwise you record sound but can't hear it yourself.
3. Set that Multi-Output Device as your Mac's system output.
4. In QuickTime, choose BlackHole as the recording "microphone." Now you get system audio — but not your own voice.
5. To get system audio and your mic together, create an Aggregate Device that combines BlackHole + your real microphone, and record from that instead.
6. Remember to switch everything back when you're done, or your next call has no audio because output is still pointed at a virtual device.

Every one of those steps is a place to silently fail. The classic BlackHole failure mode: you nail the routing, record a flawless 30-minute walkthrough, stop — and the file is silent because the Multi-Output Device drifted, or macOS reset the default output after a Bluetooth headphone reconnected mid-recording. You don't find out until playback. There's no "is audio actually being captured" indicator anywhere in the chain.

It's a genuinely clever tool for audio engineers who live in Audio MIDI Setup. For someone who just wants to record screen on Mac with internal audio and microphone and move on, it's a tax you pay every single recording.

Why BlackHole recordings go silent (the part nobody warns you about)

If you only take one thing from this post, take this: the BlackHole setup doesn't fail loudly. It fails silently, and you find out at playback. The most common reasons a BlackHole-routed mac screen recording with internal audio comes back with no sound:

• Output device reset mid-recording. A Bluetooth headphone reconnects, you plug in a USB-C dock, or macOS "helpfully" switches the default output. Your Multi-Output Device is no longer the active output, so nothing reaches BlackHole. The screen still records fine, which is why you don't notice.
• You recorded the wrong device. BlackHole 2ch vs 16ch, or the Aggregate Device vs raw BlackHole — pick the wrong one and you get either silence or mic-only.
• No self-monitoring, so no feedback. Because you can't hear whether capture is working (there's no level meter for a virtual driver in QuickTime), you have zero signal that anything is wrong until it's too late to re-record the meeting.
• Sample-rate mismatch. If the Aggregate Device members run at different sample rates, the combined audio drifts or drops entirely.

None of these are exotic. They're the normal Tuesday of a Mac with Bluetooth audio and a dock. That's the real cost of the workaround — not the 20-minute setup, but the recordings you have to redo because the setup quietly came apart.

Is OBS a better answer for Mac system audio?

OBS Studio is the other usual recommendation. It's powerful, free, and genuinely great for streamers. But for "I just need a Mac screen recording with internal audio," OBS is a heavy answer to a light question.

• OBS still needs a system-audio source. Older OBS builds on macOS also required BlackHole or a similar driver for desktop audio. Newer OBS has a macOS screen-capture audio source via ScreenCaptureKit, but it's version- and macOS-dependent, and plenty of users still end up back at a virtual driver when it doesn't behave.
• It's a studio, not a button. Scenes, sources, audio mixer, encoder settings, output paths, bitrate. To record one screen with sound you configure a display-capture source, an audio source, an audio-input source for your mic, and then find the file on disk afterward.
• No instant sharing. OBS gives you a local .mkv or .mp4. You still have to remux, upload it somewhere, host it, and send a link. That's the part that actually eats your afternoon.
• It's overkill for a 3-minute Loom-style clip. If you're not streaming to Twitch, you're using maybe 5% of OBS to fight the same system-audio problem you'd have anyway.

OBS is the right tool if you're producing a livestream. It is the wrong tool if your goal is "record this bug with sound and send my teammate a link in the next two minutes."

How does Clipy record internal audio and mic natively — with no driver?

Clipy's native Mac app takes the whole problem off the table. It's built for Apple Silicon and uses the modern macOS capture stack to record system/internal audio and your microphone at the same time, into one file, with no virtual audio driver and no OBS.

Concretely, that means:

• No BlackHole. No kernel extension, no Audio MIDI Setup, no Multi-Output Device, no Aggregate Device, nothing to reset afterward. You don't touch your audio routing at all.
• System audio + mic together. The app and call audio your Mac is playing and your voice are both captured. This is the exact thing QuickTime structurally cannot do and BlackHole only does after a multi-step setup.
• No sign-up to record. Open the app, pick screen + mic + system audio, hit record. There's no account wall in front of the record button.
• Instant shareable link on stop. The moment you stop, Clipy gives you a hosted link you can paste into Slack, a ticket, or an email. No exporting from a studio, no manual upload, no finding a file on disk.
• Auto transcript + AI summary. Every recording comes back with a searchable transcript and an AI-generated summary, so a 12-minute walkthrough also becomes skimmable text. BlackHole and OBS give you a raw video file and nothing else.
• Free and native. No watermark, no driver hacks, built for Apple Silicon — not a cross-platform wrapper bolted onto a virtual driver.

The mental model shift is the point. With QuickTime + BlackHole, "mac screen recording with internal audio" is a routing project you redo every time. With Clipy it's a checkbox you tick once and forget, because the capture happens at the OS layer the right way instead of being faked through a loopback device.

What if I only need a browser tab with its audio?

Worth saying plainly: if your recording is entirely a browser tab — a web app demo, a dashboard, a web-based call — you may not need the desktop app at all. The Clipy Chrome screen recorder captures a tab with its audio directly, no driver involved, because Chrome can hand the recorder tab audio that macOS won't hand QuickTime.

The decision is simple:

• Whole desktop, multiple apps, a native (non-browser) call, game audio, or system sounds? Use the Mac app — that's the only path to true full-system internal audio.
• One Chrome tab and its audio? The Chrome recorder is faster and there's nothing to install.

Either way you skip BlackHole entirely. You can compare both capture options on the Clipy screen recorder overview.

QuickTime vs BlackHole vs OBS vs Clipy: how do they actually compare?

Here's the honest side-by-side for the one job everyone actually wants: screen record on Mac with internal audio AND microphone, then share it.

The pattern is consistent: BlackHole and OBS can get you system audio, but only after work, and they leave you holding a raw file you still have to host and share. Clipy collapses "screen record mac with sound → host → transcribe → share" into one stop button.

Step by step: record Mac internal audio + mic with Clipy

1. Get the app. Download Clipy for Mac. It's a native Apple Silicon build — no driver, no extra installer.
2. Open it and grant Screen & System Audio Recording permission. This is a standard one-time macOS permission prompt (System Settings → Privacy & Security). You are not installing an audio driver — you're approving Clipy itself, the normal way every Mac recorder is approved.
3. Pick your sources. Choose the screen (or window), turn on system audio, and turn on your microphone. Both at once is the default, not a workaround.
4. Record. Do your demo, play the video, take the call — whatever needs the sound. There's no Audio MIDI Setup in the loop, so nothing can drift mid-recording.
5. Stop and get a link. Clipy uploads and hands you a hosted shareable link immediately. Paste it into Slack or a ticket.
6. Use the transcript + summary. The recording page includes an auto transcript and an AI summary so viewers can skim or jump to the relevant moment.

That's the entire flow for a true mac screen recording with internal audio — no BlackHole, no OBS scene graph, no "why is the file silent" surprise at the end.

Frequently asked questions

Can QuickTime record system audio on Mac at all?

No. QuickTime can only record microphone-class inputs. macOS doesn't expose system/internal audio as a recordable source, so there's no setting in QuickTime that captures the sound your Mac plays. "Quicktime can't record system audio" is a hard OS limitation, not a missing toggle. You either install a virtual driver like BlackHole or use an app that captures system audio natively, such as the Clipy Mac app.

How do I record system audio on Mac without BlackHole?

Use a recorder that captures system audio through the OS instead of through a loopback driver. Clipy for Mac records system/internal audio and your mic together with no virtual audio device, no Audio MIDI Setup, and no reboot. If your content is just a Chrome tab, the Chrome screen recorder captures tab audio with nothing to install.

Can I record internal audio and my microphone at the same time on Mac?

Not with QuickTime alone, and only with extra Aggregate Device setup if you go the BlackHole route. Clipy records both into one file by default, so a tutorial where you're talking over app or call audio just works without any device juggling.

Is BlackHole bad? Why not just use it?

BlackHole isn't bad — it's a solid tool for audio engineers. The problem is fit. For "record screen mac internal audio and microphone then send a link," you're maintaining kernel-level audio routing for a 3-minute clip, and the most common outcome is a silent recording you discover during playback. Clipy removes the routing entirely, so there's nothing to misconfigure.

Do I need OBS for Mac screen recording with sound?

Only if you're livestreaming. OBS is a production studio; for a quick recording with system audio it's heavy, and on macOS it frequently still wants a virtual audio driver. For a fast share-a-link workflow, a purpose-built tool like Clipy is the lighter, more reliable path.

Is Clipy actually free for this?

Yes. Recording screen + system audio + mic on the Mac app is free, with no watermark, no sign-up to record, and an instant shareable link plus transcript and AI summary on every recording.

The bottom line

The reason "how to screen record mac with sound" is such a persistent search isn't user error — it's that macOS deliberately hides system audio from QuickTime, and the standard fixes (BlackHole's virtual driver, OBS's full studio) solve it by adding a fragile, multi-step routing layer you have to babysit every recording. They work, but they're a tax.

If your job is "record this with the actual sound and send someone a link," skip the routing project. Clipy for Mac captures internal audio and your mic natively on Apple Silicon — no BlackHole, no OBS, no sign-up — and hands you a shareable link with a transcript and AI summary the second you stop. For Chrome-tab-only recordings, the Chrome screen recorder does it with nothing installed, and you can see both options on the screen recorder overview.

More Mac recording guides and comparisons are on the Clipy blog.