In many cases, you need to record audio on Mac for sharing, downloading or backing up. To be more specific, you may want to record system audio, microphone audio, and many other audio sources on your Mac computer. Which is the best way to record audio on Mac? Is there any audio recording capability on Mac? Luckily, this article shows 3 easy ways to record internal and external audio on Mac. You can choose any audio recording software to record sound on Mac with ease.

Part 1: How to Record Any Audio on Mac with Audio Recording Software

Though QuickTime Player is the built-in video and audio recorder for Apple Mac computers, you still need Vidmore Screen Recorder to record internal audio on Mac, as well as external audio from internal or external microphone, headphone and more. QuickTime Player cannot record audio from live streams and other online sources. If you want to download and record audio from browser on Mac, definitely Vidmore Screen Recorder is your first choice.

The Mac audio recording software is capable to record high-quality sound from microphone, sound card, voice chat, and more sources on Mac. There is no time limit, you can record sound playing on Mac for hours or even days. It is also supported to create a schedule to record audio clip on Mac with the premade start and stop time. Moreover, you can extract the certain recording clip within the built-in audio trimmer. Here’re the main features you can get.

• Activate Free Sound Recorder. Click the “Record” button to activate the online music recorder. Click “Show mixer window” to choose sound source from the “Recording Mixer”. Then, select proper recording device “Stereo Mix” from “Recording Device” dropdown menu.
• The Mac audio recording software is capable to record high-quality sound from microphone, sound card, voice chat, and more sources on Mac. There is no time limit, you can record sound playing on Mac for hours or even days. It is also supported to create a schedule to record audio clip on Mac with the premade start and stop time.

Part 1: How to Record YouTube Audio via Free Audio Recorder Audacity is an open-source audio recording program for Windows, Mac and Linux. It is more than an excellent program to capture audio from YouTube, but also provide multiple editing features to edit the recording audio files and apply real-time effects.

Step 1: Free download, install and launch Vidmore Screen Recorder on Mac OS X 10.10 or above. Choose Audio Recorder and prepare to record audio on Mac OS X.

Step 2: Choose System Audio to record audio on Mac without microphone directly. You can also enable Microphone to record both the sound from Internet and microphone. It depends on your demand. Then adjust the input volume with the sliders below.

Step 3: Click Settings to adjust audio recording settings. In the Preferences window, switch to the Output section to set the output audio format and quality. You can change the location of audio recording, set hotkey controls and more within the Preferences window. Click OK to save changes.

Step 4: Click REC to start recording audio on Mac. You can pause, resume and stop recording audio without time limit.

Step 5: You will be in the Preview window after recording automatically. Click Play to pre-listen the music. Moreover, you can trim the audio recording file with any start and end time within the window. (See how to trim video on Mac)

Step 6: If everything is okay, click Save to export and download your audio clip. In addition, you can share the recorded audio file to YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and more platforms in the Recording history window.

Part 2: How to Record Microphone Audio on Mac with QuickTime

If you want to record audio on Mac from microphone, you can also use QuickTime Player as your audio recording app. Be aware that you can record audio with QuickTime on Mac from Microphone only. The music videos, movies and other media files are not recordable by using QuickTime Player.

Step 1: Open the QuickTime Player app on Mac. Choose New Audio Recording from the File drop-down list.

Step 2: If there is more than one microphone connected to your computer, you can select the input device from the Options down-arrow list. Then select the audio quality between maximum and high.

Step 3: Adjust the Volume control with the slider below.

Step 4: Click the Record button to record sound with QuickTime on Mac from internal or external microphone.

Step 5: When the QuickTime audio recording ends, choose Save to from the File list to export your audio recording file.

Part 3: How to Record Your Voice on Mac with Voice Memos

You can record a voice memo on Mac with the built-in/external microphone and a supported headset. If you enable iCloud sharing, you can listen to your voice memos on other Apple devices via the same Apple ID. Of course, it is not supported to record sound on Mac suing Voice Memos.

Step 1: Open the Voice Memo app on Mac.

Step 2: For macOS Mojave 10.14 users, unfold the File list and then choose Start New Recording. Or you can click the Record button to start recording a voice memo on Mac, just like macOS Catalina 10.15 users do.

Step 3: You can pause and resume recording with Voice Memos on Mac.

Step 4: Click Done on the top right corner to stop recording. Your voice memo will be saved with the name of your location or New Recording.

Step 5: Play or make edits with the audio recording file on Mac based on your needs.

These are 3 easy ways to record audio on Mac from different sources. If you need to record audio from browser and online calls frequently, it is recommended to use Vidmore Screen Recorder as your best audio recording software. You can record all types of audio on Mac without limitations. Actually, you can run Vidmore Screen Recorder as your video and audio downloader as well. Because you can record screen video with audio with the original quality from all sites.

As for QuickTime Player and Voice Memos, you can record sound from microphone only. No matter how loud you play the music, they will not record internal audio on Mac. Therefore, the capability of audio recording ranges from Vidmore Screen Recorder, QuickTime Player and Voice Memos. The first audio recorder is capable to grab and download any audio stream on Mac, while QuickTime Player and Voice Memos can record audio on Mac with headphones and microphones only.

Well, why not download and start the Vidmore Screen Recorder free trial? You can record audio on Mac for free up to 3 minutes to have a try within the program. Please share this post to help more people. If you have any other question about Mac audio recording, you can leave messages bellow or feel free to contact us.

Although there are a lot of audio recording programs out there claiming to record almost any sound play on computer, the fact you should always keep in mind is that only a few of them promise capturing high quality audio. Therefore, if you care much about the quality of your recordings, choosing a proper high-powered audio recorder could really matter. Are you just looking for such recording tool but with a low budget? Luckily, among the numerous audio recording software available on internet, we are glad to see most of them are offered for free. To help you quickly pick up the best free streaming audio recorder online, we complied a list of top 5 most popular free audio recording programs that can record streaming music, radios, in-game sound, music in videos, and any other sound play on Mac and Windows with high quality.

Top 1. Audacity (Mac & Windows)

As a well-known open source free audio recorder, Audacity is capable of recording and editing anything you throw at it, including audio through microphone and sound card all in a few clicks thanks to the clean interface. It also allows users adjust pitch, bass, and treble, or normalize noise and add effects like reverb and phasing to the recordings. In addition, it supports multi-track capturing to save a lot of time for you. And unlike most other free audio recorders which are free for a limited time or free with locked features, Audacity is a real free of charge audio recording application offered in full free version. Overall, Audacity offers one of the most robust packages available among free recording programs.

Pros:

1. Totally free and extremely easy to use;
2. Support recording any sound on computer;
3. Edit recorded audio's quality with many effects;
4. Support multi-track recording.

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Cons:

1. Require plugins to accomplish optimal functionality;
2. Can't export audio recordings to MP3;
3. Effect editing is destructive to original audio track.

Top 2. Apowersoft Free Online Audio Recorder

Differing from Audacity or other free audio streaming recorder, Apowersoft Audio Recorder is a free online recording solution that needs no plug-in on Windows or Mac. It allows you record any sound from system sound card and microphone in high quality within 3 steps only. It fully supports capturing streaming music, radio stations, music in games, voice chats, etc. playing via devices like Windows Media Player, QuickTime, iTunes, Tablets, Chromebook, Android smartphones, iPhone, Windows Phone and more. Besides, it offers additional recording functions like converting audio records to MP3, WMA, AAC, FLAC, WAV, M4A, OGG, adding ID3 tags, sharing recorded audios online, playing recordings in real time, etc.

Pros:

1. Free and no need to install setup file on computer;
2. Support any sound sources;
3. Save recordings in multiple popular formats;
4. Support extensional functions for recording.

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Cons:

1. Can't edit output audio quality;
2. Multi-track recording not supported.

Top 3. Ardour (Mac & Windows)

Ardour DAW is another great open-source audio recorder with professional music recording features and no cost. Developed by Paul Davis, Ardour is aiming at providing powerful recorder for studios who are at low budgets. Featuring highly versatile multi-track audio recording, Ardour can record and edit audios non-destructively or destructively. Its use of Jack, an underlying sound server, makes it compatible with a number of outside applications as well. With the release of third edition, Ardour is supposed to import video for film scoring purpose and record, edit MIDI without a hassle. However, unlike most of other free DAWs, Ardour comes with a confusing graphical user interface which is inaccessible for beginners. It's more like a professional tool developed for musicians or audio engineers.

Pros:

1. Free and professional;
2. Support multi-track recording;
3. Edit recorded tracks non-destructively.

Cons:

1. It's complex and difficult for newbie;
2. No built-in effects or instruments.

Top 4. Aktiv MP3 Recorder (Windows)

If you are looking for a free streaming music recorder that can convey CD, tape, DVD, live performance, TV, Internet radio, streaming music, video games and any other sound source into popular audio formats like MP3, WMA, OGG, VOX, AU, AIFF, then you can't miss Aktiv MP3 Recorder. As a full-featured audio recorder, the big difference between Aktiv and other free recording tools is that it comes with recording scheduler which provides you the ability to record streaming audio at certain times according to your requirements.

Pros:

1. Free streaming audio recorder;
2. Support most popular output formats;
3. Provide schedule recording tasks.

Cons:

1. Available for Windows only;
2. Installer contains some extra software.

Top 5. Traverso DAW (Mac & Windows)

Traverso DAW is another cross-platform free multitrack audio recording and audio editing suite with support for CD mastering and non-linear processing. Traverso is different with other in UI as it offers a unique user interface using both the mouse and the keyboard together for precision and speed. In addition, Traverso includes non-destructive editing, the ability to use plugins and make edits without changing the actual recorded sample. Also it is offering full support for ALSA, Jack and PortAudio, and lockless real-time audio processing.

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Pros:

1. Fullfeatured free recording app;
2. Innovative keyboard and mouse shortcuts;
3. Support non-destructive audio editing.

Cons:

1. Take some time for users to get used to the shortcuts;
2. Need plugins to edit audio non-destructively.

More Professional Audio Recorder for Low Budget - TunesKit

Of course, no piece of free software is without its shortcomings. So do those free audio recorders. They are not as advanced as other paid software in functionality. In case you are searching for such paid recording products with reasonable price, we highly recommend a best free sound recorder to you. The renowned program is called TunesKit Audio Capture. It's available for both Mac and Windows platforms. It costs $19.95 but with more powerful features, including multi-track lossless recording, automatically fulfilling ID3 tags, editing output quality, splitting or merging recorded tracks, etc. You can download the free trial versions as below to test it out by yourself. For complete tutorial, visit this user guide.

Capture Audio From Youtube Mac Free Download

Conclusion & Suggestion

As you can see, all the above recording tools are free of charge to meet most of your recording needs with options of recording audio, adding effects, and cutting waveforms, as well as other basic recording tasks. To conclude, if you are referring an all-in-one application that combines easy operation and high performance, Audacity and Aktiv MP3 Recorder could be the best audio recording software. But if you concern more about the professionalism and quality, you are suggested to go for Ardour or Traverso DAW that are more professional oriented. Or alternatively, Apowersoft Audio Recorder could be a great choice if you don't want to install any software on your computer. If you still have no idea which one to choose, simply try them out one by one and decide which works best for you.

Desktop Audio Capture Mac

Nick Orin is a review writer, software geek and Mac OS enthusiast. He spends all his free time in searching useful software and gadgets to share with others.