Record your Mac's screen with its own sound

Updated October 25, 2026

On macOS 27 Golden Gate, Apple's Screenshot app records system audio with the screen: choose Include System Audio in its Options. On macOS 13 Ventura to 26 Tahoe, Screenshot and QuickTime Player record only a microphone, so use a recorder built on ScreenCaptureKit, such as OBS Studio 30 or later, which can capture all of the Mac's sound or a single app's.

What each macOS version can do

From Apple’s guide: in the Screenshot app, “To record system audio with the screen recording in macOS 27 Golden Gate or later, choose Include System Audio”, and Record Selected Window is “available in macOS Tahoe 26 or later”. For QuickTime Player the guide offers only “choose a microphone”. Apple’s ScreenCaptureKit framework has had an audio capture option since macOS 13, which is why third-party recorders can capture app audio from Ventura on.

On macOS 27: the Screenshot app

1. Press Shift-Command-5.
2. Choose Record Entire Screen, Record Selected Portion, or Record Selected Window.
3. Click Options and choose Include System Audio. Choose a microphone too if you want your voice.
4. Click Record. Stop from the button in the menu bar.

System audio is everything the Mac plays, so notification sounds land in the video too. Turn on a Focus, or quit chatty apps, before a take.

On macOS 13 to 26: OBS Studio

OBS’s own guide says: “When using OBS Studio 30 on macOS 13 (Ventura) and higher, you can use the new macOS Audio Capture Source. You can choose to capture all desktop audio or just a certain application.”

1. In OBS, add a macOS Screen Capture source for the picture.
2. Add a macOS Audio Capture source and pick the application whose sound you want, for example Teclo. Only that app’s sound is recorded.
3. The first time, macOS asks to allow OBS under System Settings, Privacy & Security, Screen & System Audio Recording. Allow it, then restart OBS if it asks.
4. Record.

OBS’s forum has reports of an app’s capture going silent after that app is quit and reopened; picking the app again in the source fixes it.

The old way: a loopback device

Before ScreenCaptureKit, people sent the Mac’s sound into a virtual device that a recorder can use as a microphone. BlackHole, an open-source driver with nearly 20,000 stars on GitHub, describes itself as “a modern macOS audio loopback driver that allows applications to pass audio to other applications with zero additional latency”. It needs a Multi-Output Device set up in Audio MIDI Setup so you can hear the sound while it records. On macOS 13 and later, the options above are simpler.

Keyboard sounds in particular

• Keep Teclo’s volume slider low for recording and raise the level in your editor afterwards; typing ASMR on a Mac explains why, and which packs suit it.
• Recording only Teclo’s sound means you can type on any keyboard, even a loud one, without it reaching the video, as long as no microphone is on.
• Teclo’s pet appears in a full-screen recording. Hide it from Teclo’s Pet page, or record a single window.
• To hear the sounds before you set anything up, play every pack here, and see how to make your Mac’s keyboard sound mechanical to install Teclo.