How do you screen record on a Mac with clear voice audio?

You record a four-minute walkthrough of a bug for a colleague. Shift-Command-5, Record, you talk through every click, Command-Control-Esc, send. Ten minutes later the reply comes back: "There's no sound." Or worse, there is sound, but the keyboard is louder than your voice, the demo video you were pointing at plays in silence, and you sound like you recorded from the next room.

Both failures come from the same place. A Mac records audio with the screen only when you tell it which audio to take, and it takes exactly that: one microphone, chosen in a menu most people never open, plus system audio only on the newest macOS. Everything about how the voice sounds is decided before you press Record.

This guide covers both halves: how to screen record on a Mac with audio using the tools already installed, and how to make the voice in that recording clear. If you only need a voice file without a picture, a podcast take or a voiceover, the guide to recording audio on a Mac is the better page for you; this one is about video of your screen with you talking over it.

Does Mac screen recording record audio?

Yes, but not by default and not everything. What ends up in the file depends on your macOS version and on one setting in the Options menu. As of October 2026, Apple's own support page describes it like this:

So if your recording came out silent, the toolbar was most likely recording picture only. And if you are on Tahoe or earlier and wanted the sound of the video you were demonstrating, the built-in tools could not capture it at all. Nothing is broken. That is how those versions work.

How to screen record on a Mac with audio: the Screenshot toolbar

The Screenshot app is the screen recorder every Mac already has. On current macOS it is also what QuickTime opens, so learn this one first.

1. Press Shift-Command-5. A toolbar appears at the bottom of the screen.
2. Pick what to record: Record Entire Screen, Record Selected Window (macOS Tahoe 26 or later), or Record Selected Portion, where you drag the borders of the area.
3. Click Options. Under the microphone section, choose the mic you will talk into. This is the step that decides whether there is any voice in the file.
4. On macOS 27 Golden Gate or later, also tick Include System Audio if you want the sound from apps and videos.
5. While you are in Options: Show Mouse Clicks draws a black circle around the pointer on every click, which helps viewers follow a walkthrough. Save to changes where the file lands; by default it goes to the desktop.
6. Click Record (or click the window, if you chose Record Selected Window).
7. To stop, click the Stop button in the menu bar or press Command-Control-Esc.

The file is saved as a .mov named "Screen Recording [date] at [time]". Click the thumbnail in the corner before it disappears if you want to edit it straight away.

The toolbar has two limits. It shows no level meter and has no input volume control, so the recording level is whatever the Mac's input level is (more on that below). And some apps, Apple's TV app among them, may refuse to be recorded at all, so a black window in the result is not your fault.

QuickTime screen recording with audio

People search for "QuickTime screen recording with audio" because QuickTime used to be the only way. It still works. On current macOS it simply hands off to the same toolbar.

Open QuickTime Player, choose File > New Screen Recording, or press Control-Command-N. Then one of two things happens:

• The Screenshot toolbar appears. On current macOS this is what you will see. Follow the steps above: Options, pick the microphone, Record.
• A small Screen Recording window appears. That is the older QuickTime recorder. Click the arrow next to the red Record button, pick your microphone from the list, and tick Show Mouse Clicks in Recording if you want it. Click Record, then click anywhere to record the whole screen, or drag to select an area and click Start Recording inside it.

The older window also has a volume slider. Apple describes it as a way to hear the audio while you record, not as a recording level. If you hear a howl or an echo when you raise it, lower it or put on headphones. Once you stop, QuickTime opens the recording so you can play, edit or share it.

Apple lists no audio quality option for screen recordings in either version. The only audio decision you make in the app is which microphone.

How to record screen and audio at the same time on a Mac

"Audio" means two different things here, and most broken recordings come from mixing them up. Your voice comes in through a microphone. The sound of a YouTube clip, a Zoom call or an app's alert is system audio, which never passes through any microphone. Recording both needs the Mac to take two sources at once.

On macOS 27 Golden Gate or later

This takes two settings. In Options, choose your microphone and tick Include System Audio. Wear headphones while you record. If the system audio plays through the MacBook speakers, the microphone hears it too, and the file ends up with every sound twice: once clean from the system, once a split second later through the air with the room's echo on it.

On macOS Tahoe 26 or earlier: BlackHole

BlackHole is a free, open-source virtual audio driver. It shows up on the Mac as both an output and an input: whatever apps play into it comes out of it as if it were a microphone. That is how you smuggle system audio into a recorder that only accepts microphones. The full comparison with paid tools is in our BlackHole and Loopback guide; here is the short version of the chain.

1. Install BlackHole 2ch (installer from existential.audio, or: brew install blackhole-2ch)
2. Audio MIDI Setup > + > Create Multi-Output Device
     Tick: your headphones (or Mac speakers) + BlackHole 2ch
     Primary Device: your headphones or built-in output
     Drift Correction: on for every device except the primary
3. System Settings > Sound > Output: choose the Multi-Output Device
     (you keep hearing the sound, and a copy goes into BlackHole)
4. Audio MIDI Setup > + > Create Aggregate Device
     Tick: your microphone + BlackHole 2ch
5. Shift-Command-5 > Options > microphone: choose the Aggregate Device
6. Record 30 seconds, play it back on headphones, then record for real

If you only want system audio and no voice, skip step 4 and pick BlackHole 2ch directly as the microphone.

Three practical snags, all documented by BlackHole's developer or its users. macOS cannot change the volume of a Multi-Output Device, so the volume keys stop working while it is the output; set the levels of individual devices in Audio MIDI Setup instead. AirPods should not be the primary or clock device in a Multi-Output or aggregate device, because their mic runs at a lower sample rate. And channel mapping can surprise you: the BlackHole issue tracker has a user report of QuickTime recording BlackHole input in mono only. This is why step 6 exists. A 30-second test costs nothing; a 20-minute tutorial with a missing voice track costs the whole afternoon.

When you are done recording, switch System Settings > Sound > Output back to your normal device, or every sound on the Mac keeps going through the multi-output chain.

The free alternative: OBS

If the aggregate device feels fragile, OBS Studio does the same job inside one app. It is free and open source. On macOS 13 and later its macOS Screen Capture source records the picture and the audio of the whole desktop or a single app, and OBS 30 and later add a separate macOS Audio Capture source for sound alone. Your microphone is a separate source with its own fader, so you can balance your voice against the system sound before you record, which neither QuickTime nor the Screenshot toolbar can do.

OBS needs to be allowed under System Settings > Privacy & Security > Screen & System Audio Recording. If the preview stays black or the audio meters stay flat, that permission is the first thing to check. For the audio side of OBS, the OBS audio settings guide has the exact values.

So which one? For a quick walkthrough with your voice only, the Screenshot toolbar. For voice plus system audio on macOS 27, still the toolbar. For voice plus system audio on Tahoe or earlier, or anything you will record regularly, OBS: it is more setup once and less fiddling every time after.

Why your voice sounds bad in a screen recording

Now the "clear voice" half. Once the audio is actually in the file, a screen recording fails in a few predictable ways, and almost none of them are fixed in the recorder.

The wrong microphone is selected. The Options menu lists the inputs the Mac can see: the built-in mic, your USB mic, AirPods, BlackHole if you installed it. If you plugged in a good mic yesterday but Options still points at the built-in mic, the good mic is not being used. Check the name every time; it takes two seconds.

The level comes from System Settings. The toolbar has no gain control, so the input volume in System Settings > Sound > Input is the level. Too low and the voice is thin and buried under the system audio. Too high and loud words crackle. Speak at presentation volume and watch the input meter there: it should move well into the middle and not slam to the end on your loudest syllables. Some USB mics have a gain knob on the body, which comes first in the chain. If the mic stays quiet even at the top of the slider, the guide to Mac microphone settings goes through every place a level hides.

Bluetooth headsets limit the mic. Bluetooth caps how much detail a headset mic can send, so a voice recorded through AirPods tends to sound like a phone call. For a screen recording you can use the AirPods for listening and select a different microphone in Options.

The keyboard is right next to the mic. On a MacBook the built-in mics sit close to the keys you are typing on during the demo. Every keystroke lands in the file at the same distance as your mouth. A mic on a stand or a clip-on mic moves your voice closer and the keyboard further away.

The room. A bare room with a desk against a wall adds echo that makes speech harder to follow, especially on the laptop speakers your colleague will probably play it on. A rug, curtains, a bookshelf behind you help more than any setting.

Mic Mode. macOS offers Mic Modes (Standard, Voice Isolation, Wide Spectrum) to apps that support them. Apple's rule of thumb: if the Mic Modes icon is not in the menu bar while an app is using the mic, the feature does not apply to that app, and switching it will not reach your recording. Glance at the menu bar during your test recording to see which case you are in.

Here is the quick map from symptom to fix:

Before you record anything long, listen to a short test the way the viewer will. Our guide to hearing what others hear explains how to do that test properly, with headphones, for calls and recordings alike.

Where TunedMic fits, and where it does not

Everything above is free and it fixes the routing: which source, which level, which room. What it does not change is the sound of the microphone itself. A MacBook mic in a bare room will still sound like a MacBook mic in a bare room, just at the right level. If you record screen walkthroughs, tutorials or course videos regularly and the voice is the weak part, that is the gap TunedMic is built for.

TunedMic adds one more microphone to the Mac, also called TunedMic. It takes the sound from your real mic (built-in, USB, a headset or AirPods), processes it on the Mac in real time, and any app that lets you choose a mic can pick it. The Screenshot toolbar is one of those apps: in Options you choose TunedMic instead of your real mic, and the recording gets the processed voice. Zoom, Meet, Discord and OBS can pick the same mic, so you sound the same in a recording as you do on a call.

The setup is a one-minute Sound Check: you read a short passage aloud and TunedMic takes more than 30 measurements of your voice, your mic and your room. It then builds nine profiles from that, in three families; the Creator family (Balanced, Broadcast, Crisp) is meant for videos and streams. With headphones on you can flip between the raw mic and the tuned sound while you talk. Optional manual controls cover noise, room echo, clarity, loudness and a 12-band equalizer, if you want them. Processing stays on the Mac and the voice is never uploaded.

The limits, plainly. TunedMic handles your voice only: it does not capture system audio, so on macOS Tahoe or earlier you still need BlackHole or OBS for the sound of the video you are demonstrating, and on macOS 27 you still tick Include System Audio. It needs a Mac with Apple silicon (M1 or newer) and macOS 14 or later; there is no Intel or Windows version. It does not remove every noise or turn a cheap mic into a studio one. A Bluetooth mic sends it less detail to work with than a wired or USB mic does.

It costs $19 once, with a free 7-day trial that starts at first launch, opens every feature and needs no card or account. There are no refunds, so decide with the trial.

A checklist to run before you record

Before pressing Record
[ ] Shift-Command-5 > Options: microphone name is the one you mean
[ ] macOS 27+: Include System Audio ticked only if you need it
[ ] System Settings > Sound > Input: meter reaches the middle when you talk
[ ] Headphones on if any system audio will play
[ ] Mic 6 to 12 in (15 to 30 cm) from your mouth, not next to the keyboard
[ ] Notifications off (Do Not Disturb), so alert sounds stay out
[ ] 30-second test recorded and played back on headphones
After stopping
[ ] Output switched back from the Multi-Output Device (BlackHole setups)

The test line is the one people skip, and it is the one that saves the take. Thirty seconds of you saying what the video will cover, played back on headphones, tells you whether the voice is there, whether it is loud enough against the system audio, and whether it sounds like you.

Your next step

Press Shift-Command-5 now, open Options, choose the microphone you will actually use, and record thirty seconds of yourself explaining what is on the screen. Play it back on headphones. If the voice is missing or quiet, the fixes in the tables above will sort it in a few minutes. If the voice is there and loud enough but still sounds thin, distant or noisy, watch the 38-second video on the home page: all the setup asks of you is a minute of reading aloud. Then try the same thirty seconds through TunedMic during the free trial and compare the two files. If it earns its place, pricing is here.