How to Record System Audio in OBS on Mac (It's Complicated)

The title isn't a joke. This genuinely is complicated, and it's worth being upfront about why before you waste an hour looking for a setting that does not exist.

Open OBS on a Mac. Go to Settings → Audio. Look at Desktop Audio. It says Disabled, and the dropdown is empty.

There is no device to select. You did not misconfigure anything. macOS does not provide one.

Why Apple did this

On Windows, capturing system sound is straightforward: the OS exposes WASAPI loopback, an API that hands any app a copy of the audio being sent to a speaker. OBS uses it, and Desktop Audio "just works."

macOS has no equivalent. CoreAudio has never exposed a system-wide loopback to third-party applications.

This is a deliberate design decision, not an oversight. A general-purpose "give me everything this machine is playing" API is a genuinely powerful capability — it would hand any app the ability to silently record your calls, your DRM-protected media, and every notification. Apple's position is that an app should capture audio it owns or audio the user has explicitly routed to it, and never the system mix by default.

Reasonable. Also, for you, extremely annoying.

So every method below is a way of manufacturing a path that macOS doesn't give you. There are three, and they are not equally good.

Method 1: macOS Screen Capture with audio (the modern answer)

Requires macOS 13 Ventura or later, and OBS 29+. If you have those, use this and skip the rest. No third-party drivers, no system extensions, no kernel anything.

Apple's ScreenCaptureKit framework — the same one that powers the native screenshot tools — can capture display or application audio alongside the video. Crucially, it's scoped: it captures a display or a specific app, not the entire system mix. That's the compromise that got it past Apple's security model.

How to set it up:

1. In Sources, click + → macOS Screen Capture. Name it and click OK.
2. In the properties window, set Method to ScreenCaptureKit.
3. Set Capture Type:
   • Display Capture — the whole screen, and all audio playing on it.
   • Application Capture — a single app. Choose this when you only want your browser's audio and not your notification chimes. For tutorials, this is usually what you want.
4. Tick the "Capture Audio" checkbox. It's near the bottom and it's easy to miss. This is the entire trick.
5. Click OK.

A new meter appears in the Audio Mixer that bounces whenever your Mac plays sound.

Two things to check:

• Grant Screen Recording permission. System Settings → Privacy & Security → Screen Recording → enable OBS. Then fully quit and relaunch OBS — the permission doesn't apply to a running process.
• You will not hear it in your headphones through OBS, and that's correct. You're already hearing it from the app. The meter moving means it's being recorded.

The limitation: the audio is tied to the screen-capture source. You can't capture system audio without also capturing that display or app as a video source. For screen recording that's exactly what you want. For a podcast where you only need the audio, it's awkward — use Method 2.

Method 2: BlackHole + a Multi-Output Device (the classic)

If you're on macOS 12 or older, or you need audio without a video source, you need a virtual audio driver — a fake output device that other apps can capture from.

BlackHole is the free, open-source, actively maintained one. (Soundflower, which older guides still recommend, is dead — it relied on kernel extensions that modern macOS blocks. Don't install it.)

The catch: if you just set BlackHole as your Mac's output, all your audio goes into the virtual device and you can no longer hear anything. So you have to build a Multi-Output Device that sends sound to two places at once — your ears and BlackHole.

Setup:

1. Download and install BlackHole 2ch (free).
2. Open Audio MIDI Setup (Cmd+Space, type it).
3. Click + in the bottom-left → Create Multi-Output Device.
4. Tick both your real output (e.g. MacBook Pro Speakers or your headphones) and BlackHole 2ch.
5. Important: the device listed first is the clock master. Put your real hardware first, and tick Drift Correction on BlackHole (not on the master).
6. Set your Mac's system output to this new Multi-Output Device (click the volume icon in the menu bar).
7. In OBS: Settings → Audio → Desktop Audio → BlackHole 2ch.

Now the gotchas nobody warns you about:

• You lose your volume keys. A Multi-Output Device does not support system volume control. Your F11/F12 keys and the menu-bar slider stop working. You must set volume inside each app. This surprises everyone and it is not a bug you can fix — it's a limitation of the device type.
• Drift. Two devices, two clocks. If you don't set Drift Correction on the non-master device, your audio will slowly desync from your video over a long recording. Step 5 exists for a reason.
• It doesn't always survive a reboot. macOS sometimes resets output to the built-in speakers. Check your output device before every session.
• Multi-Output is not Aggregate. Audio MIDI Setup offers both, and people pick the wrong one constantly. Multi-Output = send one output to several devices (what you want). Aggregate = combine several inputs into one device (what you don't).

It works. It's just a lot of scaffolding to hold up.

Take stock of what Method 2 actually costs you: a kernel-level audio driver, a synthetic output device, a permanently broken volume key, and a clock-drift setting you have to get right or your audio slides out of sync over a long take. All so a Mac can record its own sound. Cubix Capture is Mac-native and captures system audio with none of it — no driver, no Multi-Output Device, no lost volume control.

Method 3: Loopback or Audio Hijack (the paid, painless one)

Rogue Amoeba's Loopback is the commercial version of this idea, and it is genuinely excellent: a proper GUI for building virtual devices, per-application routing, and no Multi-Output volume weirdness. Audio Hijack is its sibling for recording and processing app audio directly.

It costs real money (around $99-$149). If you do this every week and Method 1 isn't available to you, it's worth it. If you do this twice a year, it isn't.

Which one should you use?

The decision is simple: if you're on macOS 13 Ventura or newer, use Method 1. It's free, native, has no side effects, and takes two minutes. The only reasons to use BlackHole in 2026 are an old macOS version, or needing system audio with no video source attached.

Many people are still following BlackHole guides written in 2021 and installing a virtual audio driver they no longer need. Check your macOS version first.

While you're here: pin your mic

Whichever method you choose, don't leave Mic/Auxiliary Audio on Default in Settings → Audio. Select your microphone explicitly by name.

The moment you connect AirPods, macOS may re-point the default input — and if it does, you'll record a tutorial through your AirPods' mediocre mic instead of the good one on your desk. It happens more often than you'd think, and you only find out on playback.

The honest summary

Recording system audio in OBS on a Mac is a solved problem — but it's solved by working around an OS that deliberately doesn't want you to do it, and you're the one who has to know that.

You have to know Desktop Audio is greyed out because Apple designed it that way. You have to know ScreenCaptureKit is the modern answer, that the checkbox is at the bottom of a properties panel, and that half the guides online will still tell you to install a virtual audio driver you don't need.

That's a lot of specialised knowledge to record a product demo.

Cubix Capture was built Mac-native and captures your screen, microphone, and system audio together with nothing to install and nothing to route. It also auto-frames your zooms from your cursor and clicks, so the recording is finished when you stop — which was presumably the reason you opened a screen recorder in the first place.

Related: record system audio on Mac without BlackHole · how to record screen on Mac with internal audio