Record your Mac screen with [audio]

When you record your screen with the built-in tools, macOS captures whatever your microphone hears. It does not capture the audio your Mac is playing back.

That means a video call, a track in a browser tab, a game, an app alert, or a demo with sound will all be silent in your recording unless the mic happens to pick them up through your speakers. Apple treats system audio as protected: the ⇧⌘5 Screenshot toolbar and QuickTime Player can both record the microphone, but neither can tap the internal audio stream on its own.

There are three honest ways around this. You can record the mic and accept that limit, you can install a virtual audio device to trick macOS into routing system sound into a recordable input, or you can use a native app that captures both tracks directly. We will walk through each one, then compare them side by side.

The fastest built-in option. It records your screen plus your microphone, which is all you need for a talking-head walkthrough or a tutorial narrated live. It will not capture system sound.

1
Open the Screenshot toolbar
Press ⇧⌘5. A capture toolbar appears at the bottom of the screen with photo and video controls.
2
Choose a recording mode
Pick Record Entire Screen or Record Selected Portion from the toolbar. For a region, drag out the frame you want to capture.
3
Turn on your microphone under Options
Click Options. Under the Microphone heading, choose your input, such as MacBook Pro Microphone or an external mic. A checkmark shows which one is active. Options is also where you set the save location, a timer, and whether clicks are shown.
4
Record and stop
Click Record. When you are done, click the stop button in the menu bar or press⇧⌘5 again and stop. A thumbnail appears in the corner so you can trim before saving.

QuickTime Player does the same job with a window instead of a toolbar. It is handy when you want the recording open in an editor right away, but it shares the same limit: it can record the mic, not internal audio.

1
Start a new screen recording
Open QuickTime Player, then choose File, then New Screen Recording.
2
Pick your microphone
Click the small arrow next to the round record button and select your microphone from the list. If you leave it on None, the recording will be silent.
3
Record the screen or a region
Click to record the full screen, or drag to select a portion, then press Start Recording.
4
Stop and save
Click the stop button in the menu bar, then choose File, then Save. QuickTime writes a .mov file.

QuickTime is a solid choice for narrated captures. It is the wrong tool the moment you need the sound your Mac is actually playing, like the other side of a call or audio from a web app.

To capture internal audio with the built-in tools, you have to give macOS a recordable input that carries system sound. A free virtual audio device like BlackHole does exactly that: it is a driver that appears as both an output and an input, so audio sent to it can be recorded. This works, but it is fiddly, and it is easy to end up hearing nothing while you record.

The rough shape of the setup

1
Install BlackHole
Download and install BlackHole (the 2-channel build is enough). It adds a virtual audio device to your system, but produces no sound of its own.
2
Build a Multi-Output Device
Open Audio MIDI Setup, create a Multi-Output Device, and tick both your real speakers or headphones and BlackHole. This is what lets you still hear the audio while a copy is routed into BlackHole for recording.
3
Send your Mac output to that device
In System Settings, set the Multi-Output Device as your sound output so app and browser audio flows into BlackHole.
4
Record BlackHole as the input
In QuickTime or the ⇧⌘5 Options, choose BlackHole as the microphone. Now the recording captures the system audio passing through it.
5
Add your voice as well (harder)
To capture system audio and your mic at the same time, you have to build an Aggregate Device that merges BlackHole and your microphone, then record that. This is where most people give up, because the levels and channel mapping have to be right.

Kapshot is a native macOS recorder built for exactly this problem. It captures the sound your Mac is playing and your microphone at the same time, with two toggles and no virtual device to install. There is no Multi-Output Device to build, no routing to remember, and no watermark stamped on the export.

1
Open Kapshot and start a recording
Launch Kapshot and choose to record the full screen, a window, or a region.
2
Turn on both audio sources
Flip on system audio and microphone. Both are captured directly, so a call, a browser tab, and your voice all land in the same file.
3
Record, then stop
Record what you need and stop. Auto-zoom follows your cursor so the important area is always framed, and the export is clean video with real audio, ready to share.

Kapshot is not the built-in tool and does not pretend to be. It is a pay-once app that is faster and nicer than the workaround, aimed at anyone who records with sound often enough that the BlackHole dance stops being worth it. It runs on macOS 26+, everything stays on your Mac, and there is no account or subscription.

The honest trade-off is setup versus capability. The built-in tools capture the mic with no setup. A virtual device unlocks system audio but adds real friction. A native app gives you both with neither.

If you only ever narrate over your screen, the ⇧⌘5 toolbar or QuickTime is genuinely all you need. The moment you have to capture the audio your Mac is playing, and especially if you want it alongside your voice, a native recorder saves you the entire virtual-device detour.

Recording is only half of what a good capture tool does. The same app that records your screen with audio also handles screenshots: Kapshot wraps a raw grab in a clean background, a proper macOS window frame, and a real shadow, so a quick capture looks designed instead of dropped on the desktop. If your work moves between short recordings and polished stills, it is worth having both in one place. For the screenshot side on its own, the guides below cover the shortcuts and the framing.