When you use macOS Catalina's built-in screen recording you'll get audio only from the microphone. If you want to record the audio coming out of the system and apps, you'll need to install a third-party extension. One company provides an extension for free that you can use with their software or just with macOS QuickTime screen recording.
You can also watch this video at YouTube.
You can also watch this video at YouTube.
Video Transcript
Hi this is Gary with MacMost.com. Today let me show you how to do a screen recording while also capturing the audio from your Mac.
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So a very common request is how to do screen recording while also capturing the audio coming out of your Mac. For instance if there's an alert sound that plays it's captured as part of the screen recording. Or if there's a video or something else going on on your Mac that's also captured as part of the screen recording. Normally when you do a screen capture say using QuickTime Player or a lot of third party apps you don't get any of the audio from the Mac. Instead you get the audio just from your microphone. It makes it very useful to be able to narrate what's going on but if what you're recording also really requires the audio as well as the screen then you're out of luck.
Now professional screen capture software will do this. But if you're looking to do it for free using the QuickTime player on your Mac to do the capture then you're usually out of luck. However there is one third party extension that you could get for free that allows you to get the audio along with your QuickTime screen recording.
So in order to record the audio of your Mac you need a system extension that's going to take the audio output of your Mac and pipe it into your screen recording software. Now there used to be an extension that everybody used called Sound Flower. But unfortunately that doesn't work with Mojave or Catalina and it's no longer developed. However the developer, ShinyWhiteBox, which creates this screen recording software here has an extension that does that. Now they created that for their own software. But they made it a separate thing and they've allowed people to download it and use it with their own screen recording software if they want. They just don't support it if you don't buy their own software. Of course why would they. So you may consider getting their software if you want pro screen recording software. I haven't used it. I use ScreenFlow to make these tutorials which is pro level software that includes the ability to record the audio from your Mac. So I don't really need this kind of thing. I already have it in my screen recording software.
But if you want to do it for free using the QuickTime Player
and just record your screen and get that audio you can take the iShowU Audio Capture extension, get that for free, and then configure it so it works with QuickTime. I'll include a link to this page at this post at MacMost.com. But you can just search for iShowU Audio Capture and it should take you right here. Then you should click on the Catalina Go Here button and download it.
So let's grab that and now look in the Downloads folder and there it is. I'll open up the disk image and there's the Installer. I'm going to run the installer. It's going to ask me for permission. I'm installing a third party app here so it's going to ask me for all sorts of various permissions. So I'm going to say OK and Continue. Then I'm going to continue with the installer and just keep going through the steps until I've installed it. It's going to prompt me for my password because of course I need to give permission for this third party extension to install. When I'm done it's going to ask me to Restart. So I'll hit that to restart.
You may also be asked to go into System Preferences and then to Security & Privacy. Then under General, here where it says Allow apps downloaded from, you may have a little warning here about running the installer. If you get that click on the padlock there, authenticate, and then you'll be able to click a button here to grant permission. This happens while the installer is running. I didn't have to do it this time because this is the second time I've installed it. The first time I did it to test and the second time I'm doing it to show you.
So now it should work, right? If you go to QuickTime player and you do a new screen recording. You could go down here in the Options and select the Microphone and iShowU Audio Capture is there. You would think switching to that would then record the audio from your Mac. But that won't work because you haven't yet connected the audio output from your Mac into this extension. To do that you're going to have to run an app called Audio Midi Setup. Audio Midi Setup is an app that comes with your Mac so you already have it. So just search for it and it will run.
Now we have to create an audio device that is basically taking the output from your Mac and piping it in as an input. So we're going to hit the Plus button here at the bottom. Say Create Multi Output Device and by default it's going to show your output. Here I have my built-in digital output since that's what I'm using on my Mac. You'll also see iShowU Audio Capture. I'm going to check that one as well. So now both of them are there.
Now in this list this is setup as multi output device. I'm going to go here and change it to Screen Recording and then I'm going to close Audio Midi Setup. So the next step is to go into System Preferences and go to Sound and choose Output. You can see it's set to your default output. In this case it's Digital Out for me. It could be your internal speakers or whatever. Now look for Screen Recording and select that. So that's going to send the output to both the speakers and to the iShowU extension. Once you have that turned on now we can go and do a screen capture.
So I'm going to run QuickTime player here as one way to get into the screen recording. Go to File, New Screen Recording and I have some options here for the microphone. I'm going to choose now iShowU Audio Capture which is now getting the output from the computer. So all the computer sound is being piped to it. Now I can hit Record and I should be able to record some sound.
So I'm going to hit Record. Record Display 1. I'm going to switch to Safari and I have a video here I can play it. (playing video). I should have recorded the audio in addition to the screen. I'm going to stop the screen recording there and it's going to open it up in QuickTime player. Let's test it out. (playing video). So you can see there it recorded the audio with the video.
This will take care of your basic needs. Of course if you want more advanced functionality you may want to look into that Screen Capture software there or use ScreenFlow like I do.
Updated method:
How To Record Your Mac Screen With Audio, December 2020.
Link: iShowU Audio Capture
Gary .. I have been trying to install iShowU and am sure I have followed you directions but it does not show up under options in Quicktime. I am running Catalina 10.15.4. I'm pretty sure I have followed the steps in your video. I do have Soundflower on this Mac then I have used before. could this be why iShowU is not showing Up?
Jim: I don't think having SoundFlower before would make any difference. I'd just make sure you follow the steps at their website exactly to get things installed properly.
I followed your video "How To Record Your Mac Screen With Computer Audio" to the letter, but when I choose the option Screen Recording, no audio is recorded.
I have the latest Mac Os Catalina
Jan: Nothing to do but to go over the steps carefully, make sure the extension is installed and working, etc.
Fantastic! Can't wait to try it. I am helping seniors with Apple devices and now, in these days of quarantine, this will allow me to create videos with accompanying audio in order to help them deal with problems on their devices.
Same problem as Jim Bembenk except I have Audiojingle instead of
SoundFlower I reinstalled the iShowU Audio Capture extension, and restarted a second time. It does not show when selecting Microphone options using Quicktime New Screen Recording or in Mid-Output Device.
Oh, gosh. So disappointed (2015 iMac/Catalina). I paused your video as I watched it, am positive I am following your instructions to the letter and it does not record the sound. After trying this, I wanted to be sure my speaker output was working & so I launched Music and hit play. No sound. When I tapped the keyboard key to increase sound, at the very bottom of the icon that appears at tap of the key was a tiny circle with a diagonal line. To be continued...
(continuing) I had to go into Sys Prefs/Sound and turn on Internal Speakers to get my sound back. Then tried to play the recording I made following your instructions again and again, no sound. I have never had anything like Sunflower installed on this iMac ever. Do so hope you can sort us out as it would be so useful.
gina: Not for you to do but to go back carefully through the steps and make sure it is all done exactly.
I am surprised not to see in my Applications folder an iShowU Audio Capture.app. Instead I see only Uninstall iShowU Audio Capture.app. Never seen this before. Is it worth trying to run the uninstall.app then try it all over again???
gina: I would first assume that the install went fine. Start with the steps following that.
Went through the whole process a second time and once again it did not record any sound. It was a great idea but so far, Jim, Jan, Roger, and I cannot get it to work. Four failures is too many; something is wrong here. Hope it gets sorted out.
gina (and others): Have you looked carefully at all the steps on the site? https://support.shinywhitebox.com/hc/en-us/articles/204161459-Installing-iShowU-Audio-Capture-Mojave-and-earlier-
Seems like the installer for catalina is "desecrated" and not to be used anymore - they want you to buy their program which is proprietary - that's why everyone is having a problem
Victor: Definitely not true. Well, they do want you to buy their app -- that is their business after all so of course -- but you definitely don't need it to use the extension.
⚠️ gina (and others): One thing that worked for a YouTube commenter was to make sure that in System Preferences, Security & Privacy, Privacy, for "Microphone" make sure QuickTime Player is checked. That solved it for them.
Hi, Gary: excellent video, except you do need to flag your last comment about checking QT in the microphone preference. I'm still using Mojave and it gave me an incomprehensible error message until I read your last comment. Now I'm recording even better than with SoundFlower!
Thanks much!
Daved: Thanks for letting me know. So that's now 2 people that were able to get it working with that one setting change.
I followed your directions using Blackhole as the audio capture software (also free) and it didn't allow me to hear sound in two places. I finally found an obscure note that when you set up the Multi-Output Device, you have to list the audio capture as the second choice and not the first. That solved the problem.
In the Midi Audio Devices window, on your video I see your Sample Rate is 48.0kHz whereas mine is set to 44,100Hz. Could that be a factor in these instructions not working for me and others? Guess I answered my own question: changed it for iShowU but it still failed to capture audio
gina: Did you try my suggestion for you above? The one with the ⚠️ next to it?
OMG. Yes, and the second time around I got it right and now it works just fine. Thanks ever so much for your patience. You have been very helpful, as always. Stay safe/stay healthy 'cause we need guys like you. :-)
I suspect some people are not using either the Record Entire Screen or Record Selected Portion before hitting Record but are using one of the Screen Capture options in QuickTime
Hi Gary - I've been using iShowU for years in order to capture videos online that I need for resume purposes. With this latest upgrade of iMac, it still works fine but I was looking into using QuickTime because of other audio conflicts, in order to disconnect from iShowU. So in my case, I have all the elements (assuming yes) but I cannot get QT to function and record the browser audio. My case is slightly different than the others. Should I review another tutorial?
Rebecca: So it works in iShowU but not in QuickTime Player? Try going through the later steps in the video to set it up so you can see it as an option in QuickTime Player.
Very nice! And hopefully iShowU keeps working with future versions of MacOS.
Thank you very much, Gary.
Hi Gina,
I am having the same issue as you before as I can't find the app at all after installing it numerous times. IN Midi Setup I only have built in Mic and built output. Can you advise how you manage to solve this installation issue?
I just upgraded to Catalina and have a 2016 MacBook Pro. This is exactly what I'm looking for, works like a charm! Thank you so much!
Thank you very much! I was having the same issue and turning on the mic for Quicktime solved it! Thanks again!
Thanks for the tutorial. I now can record audio as well as video. The limitation is that the audio does not include what I say, speaking into my microphone. The use case: I do zoom calls and have participants role play. I record the role play and then show it so we can review it together. My problem is that if I speak during the role play, my voice is not recorded. The zoom recording feature does not do what I need, as you have to wait until after the call to access it. Ideas?
Bob: If you are using Zoom, why not just use Zoom's built-in recording? Otherwise, maybe try the updated method: https://macmost.com/how-to-record-your-mac-screen-with-audio.html
Just want to say that I followed your instructions and everything went perfectly. Thank you.
Thanks for this great video, Gary. I can get all the way through your steps except for the last. When I have the screen record menu open (by pressing command + shift + 5) and I go to "Options", the "screen recording" output that you had us create does not show up as an option under "Microphone." Any ideas on how to get the new midi output we created to show up there?
Bob: You'll have to recheck everything or start over. If it isn't showing up there, you missed a step or didn't do everything just right.
Ah-ha! I see now that you first have to select the “screen recording” output in sound presences, but then in the screenshot/quicktime recorder, you have to select the IShowU Audio Capture for microphone. The multi-output name of “screen recording” does not show up, but iShowU does. And then it works! Thanks a bundle for this neat free option!