OBS Recording Has No Audio - Complete Fix Guide

This is the exhaustive version: every known cause of a silent OBS recording, ordered so that the highest-yield checks come first, with the exact clicks for each.

Work top to bottom. Do not skip ahead — the checks are ordered by how often they're the answer, and step 3 alone resolves this for most people.

If you'd rather understand why OBS does this before you start clicking, read OBS no sound in recording: why it happens first. This page assumes you just want it fixed.

Before you start: one question

Did the green level bars in the Audio Mixer move while you were recording?

Write the answer down. It splits the checklist:

• Bars moved → your problem is in steps 1-6 (routing and output). Steps 7-10 are unlikely to help.
• Bars did not move → skip to steps 7-11 (device and permissions). Nothing in 1-6 will save you.

Step 1: Check the obvious mute

Thirty seconds, and it's embarrassing how often it's this.

In the Audio Mixer panel, for each source:

• Is the speaker icon greyed out or crossed through? Click it to unmute.
• Is the volume slider dragged to the far left? Push it up.
• Is the source greyed out entirely in the mixer? It's hidden in the active scene — click the 👁 eye icon in the Sources list to show it.

A source hidden in the current scene contributes no audio, even if it's visible in a different scene.

Step 2: Fix Audio Monitoring

Mixer → click the ⋮ (three dots) next to a source → Advanced Audio Properties.

Look at the Audio Monitoring column. If any source is set to "Monitor Only (mute output)", that source is being played to your headphones and excluded from the recording. It does exactly what the name says.

Set it to Monitor Off (recorded, not played back to you) or Monitor and Output (both).

This is a very common self-inflicted wound: people enable it to test their mic, hear themselves perfectly, and never turn it off.

Worth pausing on: you are two steps into a twelve-step checklist, and the second-most-likely cause of losing a 40-minute take is a dropdown named "Monitor Only (mute output)" that you probably enabled on purpose. That's not a bug — it's a broadcast desk doing exactly what a broadcast desk does. Cubix Capture has no monitoring modes to leave switched on.

Step 3: Align the audio tracks (both places)

This is the single highest-yield step on this page. If the bars moved and the file is silent, it is very likely this.

OBS has two separate track settings that must agree, and neither one warns you when they don't.

3a — Tell the output which tracks to write:

1. Settings → Output.
2. If Output Mode says Simple, change it to Advanced. (In Simple mode these controls are hidden, which is why so many people never find this.)
3. Go to the Recording tab.
4. Find the Audio Track row — six numbered checkboxes.
5. Tick Track 1.

Note: the Recording tab and the Streaming tab have separate track settings. Configuring your stream tracks does nothing for your recording. Make sure you're on the Recording tab.

3b — Tell each source which track to write to:

1. Mixer → ⋮ → Advanced Audio Properties.
2. On the right, under Tracks, tick Track 1 for every source you want to hear.

Both sides must say Track 1. If your mic writes to Track 2 and your output only enables Track 1, OBS captures your voice, shows it in the meters, and then throws it away when it writes the file.

Step 4: Rescue the recording you already made

Before you re-record forty minutes — your audio may already be in the file, on a track your player is ignoring.

Most players default to the first track and never mention the others exist.

• In VLC: open the file → menu bar → Audio → Audio Track. If you see Track 2 or Track 3 listed, select it. If you hear your voice, the recording is fine.
• To make it permanent: re-mux or re-encode with the correct track mapped first, or simply pull the file into your editor, which will show all tracks.

Check this before you assume the take is lost.

Step 5: Confirm the source actually produces audio

Not every source carries sound:

• Display Capture (Windows) — video only. It does not capture system sound. If your audio comes from a game or browser, you need a separate Desktop Audio device or an Application Audio Capture source.
• Window Capture — video only, unless you're using the newer capture methods with an audio option.
• Browser Source / Media Source — these do carry their own audio, and it appears as its own mixer entry.
• Game Capture — video only.

If your entire audio plan was "I added Display Capture, so it'll record the sound," that's the bug.

Step 6: Check the container and remux

Two format issues can produce a file that looks silent:

• MP4 written from a crashed session. If OBS crashed or was force-quit while recording to .mp4, the file's index (moov atom) was never finalised. It may play video and no audio, or refuse to seek. Record to .mkv instead — MKV survives crashes — then use File → Remux Recordings to convert to MP4 losslessly afterwards. This is the recommended OBS workflow and it costs you nothing.
• A player that can't decode the audio codec. Rare, but try the file in VLC before concluding it's silent. VLC plays essentially everything.

Steps 7-11 apply when the bars never moved.

Step 7: Stop using "Default" devices

Settings → Audio → Global Audio Devices.

If Desktop Audio or Mic/Auxiliary Audio is set to Default, change it. "Default" tracks whatever Windows currently considers the default endpoint — and that changes when you connect Bluetooth earbuds, plug in a USB headset, wake an HDMI monitor with speakers, or join a call.

Select your hardware explicitly by name: Microphone (Blue Yeti), Headphones (Realtek Audio).

Also check: if a device is set to Disabled, it captures nothing. That's the default state for Desktop Audio on macOS.

Step 8: Grant OS permissions

Windows:

1. Windows key + I → Privacy & security → Microphone.
2. Microphone access → On.
3. Scroll down — Let desktop apps access your microphone → On. This is a separate toggle and it's the one people miss.

macOS:

1. System Settings → Privacy & Security → Microphone → enable OBS.
2. Also check Privacy & Security → Screen Recording → enable OBS.
3. Fully quit and relaunch OBS. Permissions do not apply to an already-running process.

Step 9: Check the OS mixer

Windows: right-click the speaker icon in the taskbar → Open Volume mixer. Find OBS in the app list. Make sure its slider is up and it isn't muted. Windows can mute an individual application independently of the system volume.

Also check the device isn't disabled at the OS level: Windows key + R → mmsys.cpl → Recording tab → right-click your mic → make sure it's Enabled and set as default.

Step 10: Release exclusive mode

Some apps and drivers take exclusive control of an audio device, locking everything else out.

1. Windows key + R → mmsys.cpl.
2. Right-click your device → Properties → Advanced.
3. Under Exclusive Mode, untick Allow applications to take exclusive control of this device.
4. Do this on both the Playback and Recording tabs. Apply, then restart OBS.

Also close any other app that might be holding the mic — Discord, Teams, Zoom, a browser tab with an active call.

Step 11: macOS desktop audio needs a source

If you're on macOS and your Desktop Audio meter is dead: that's not a bug. macOS does not expose system audio to third-party apps. There is no loopback device to select.

Your options are the native macOS Screen Capture source with Capture Audio enabled, or a virtual driver like BlackHole. It's genuinely more involved than on Windows — the full walkthrough is in how to record system audio in OBS on Mac.

Step 12: Verify — prove the audio is in the file

Everyone skips this step and it's the only one that gives you certainty. Do not re-record until you've confirmed what's actually in the container.

The easy way (VLC):

Open the file in VLC → Tools → Codec Information (Ctrl+J). You'll see a list of streams. If there is an audio stream listed (AAC, Opus, PCM), the audio is in the file — your problem is playback, not recording. Go back to Step 4 and check the track selector.

If there is no audio stream at all, the audio genuinely never got written, and the cause is in Steps 1-3.

The precise way (ffprobe):

If you have FFmpeg installed:

ffprobe -v error -show_streams -select_streams a yourfile.mkv

No output means no audio streams. Any output shows you exactly how many audio tracks exist, their codec, and their sample rate — which tells you instantly whether this is a routing problem or a capture problem.

This one check will save you from re-recording something that was never broken.

The full checklist, condensed

A note on what this checklist really tells you

Twelve steps. Two separate track settings that must agree. A monitoring mode that silently excludes audio. A container format that corrupts on crash. An OS permission that needs a relaunch.

None of these are bugs. Every one of them is a deliberate feature that a live broadcast engineer genuinely needs. OBS is a professional mixing console, and it is extremely good at being one.

But if what you're doing is recording a tutorial with one microphone and one screen, you are maintaining a broadcast desk to do a job that needs a light switch — and a silent 40-minute take is a very expensive way to find that out.

Cubix Capture binds your mic and system audio at capture time. No track matrix, no monitoring modes, no output-tab checkboxes, no remux step. There is no configuration in which it produces a silent file.

Related: why OBS is overkill for screen recording · OBS best settings for screen recording