Guide
How to record system audio on a Mac
macOS ships no built-in way to record what your Mac plays. Here is the shortest path to a clean file, with nothing installed into your audio stack.
Why this is harder than it should be
Screen recorders and QuickTime listen to input devices: microphones and interfaces. The sound coming out of your speakers, a browser tab, a call, a stream, is an output, and macOS keeps outputs invisible to recording apps by default.
The classic workaround is a virtual loopback driver: a piece of software installed into your audio system that pretends to be both an output and an input. It works, but you are rerouting the sound of your whole machine, you often stop hearing what you are recording until you build an aggregate device, and you have a driver living in your audio stack from then on.
The supported way: ScreenCaptureKit
Since macOS Sonoma, Apple's ScreenCaptureKit framework lets a signed app capture system audio directly, with your one-time permission in System Settings. No driver, no rerouting, and you keep hearing everything normally while it records.
AirCheck is a native Mac app built on exactly that. One button:
- Open AirCheck and choose System Audio as the source.
- Press record. Everything the Mac plays goes into one file.
- Press stop. The take lands in your library as WAV or MP3, ready to drag anywhere.
AirCheck records what your Mac plays. One button, no driver, no subscription.
Lossless capture, unlimited length, dropout recovery on long takes.
One-off payment. Fourteen-day refund, no questions asked.
What you get in the file
- Full quality. Capture is 24-bit PCM at the system rate. Nothing is re-compressed on the way in.
- WAV or MP3 out. Pick a format once; every take converts when it stops, and drags out of the app as a real file.
- Unlimited length. A three-hour lecture or set is fine. Recording is bounded only by disk space.
- Dropout recovery. If a device hiccups mid-take, AirCheck restarts into the same file instead of losing the recording.
Recording from hardware instead
If your sound lives on an audio interface or mixer rather than inside the Mac, AirCheck also records any CoreAudio input device, including a specific channel pair off a multi-input interface. See recording a DJ set on a Mac.