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How to Record Audio on Mac

Soundflower was a free audio driver that many people used to record the sound of the Mac. Its last release is 2.0b2 from December 2014, and Homebrew disabled it in November 2025 because it is not maintained. Recordia records the sound of the Mac without a driver. To send the sound of one app to another app, like for a stream, use the free BlackHole driver, which is maintained.

With Recordia

  1. Open Recordia. Its icon is in the menu bar.
  2. Click the icon, and below “Audio Source”, choose “Microphone”, “System Audio” (the sound that plays on your Mac, also called internal audio), or “Microphone + System Audio” (both in one file). For the microphone, choose the microphone below “Input Device”.
  3. Click “Record”.
  4. To stop, click the icon, and choose “Stop”. Then choose where to save the recording.

Recordia saves an M4A file (AAC, 256 kbps, 48 kHz), which works in most apps. For uncompressed WAV, turn on “Lossless quality” in the settings. More about the audio format. Recording the sound of the Mac needs macOS 26 or later. How to record system audio.

Tips

  • To start and stop a recording from any app, set a keyboard shortcut for “Start/stop recording” in the “Shortcuts” settings.
  • To save all recordings in one folder without a question, choose a “Default output folder” in the “Advanced” settings. iCloud Drive is good to sync them to your other devices.
  • Recordia does not transcribe. To get the text of a recording, use Aiko. When Aiko is installed, click the icon, and choose “Previous Recording › Transcribe with Aiko”.

Get Recordia

Quickly record audio

Download on the App Store

Free

Platform
macOS
Requires
macOS 26.6 or later
Category
Productivity
Released
September 2020
Privacy
No personal data collected
Updated
November 2026
Version
2.12.1
Size
8 MB

More about Recordia

Without an app

macOS has three ways to record audio:

  • Voice Memos: Open Voice Memos, and click the record button. It records the microphone. It can also show a transcript of the recording.
  • QuickTime Player: Choose “File › New Audio Recording”, and click the record button. It records the microphone.
  • Screen recording: Press ShiftCommand5, choose “Record Entire Screen” or “Record Selected Portion”, and in “Options”, choose a microphone and “Include System Audio”. It saves a video, not an audio file. To get only the audio, open the video in QuickTime Player, and choose “File › Export As › Audio Only”.

Voice Memos and QuickTime Player are good for a quick voice memo. They cannot record the sound that plays on your Mac, like a call or a video, and the screen recording gives a video file. Recordia records the sound directly to an audio file, and starts from its menu bar icon, or with a keyboard shortcut that you set in its settings.

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