Guide
Record system audio on a Mac
macOS gives you no simple built-in way to save what your Mac plays and your microphone as separate tracks. echo99 does exactly that — two clean WAV tracks, using Apple's native audio-capture API, not a virtual audio driver.
The problem: macOS can hear everything except itself
QuickTime and the screenshot toolbar record your microphone, not your Mac’s output. For years the standard workaround was a virtual audio driver — BlackHole, Loopback, or the late Soundflower: install a fake output device, route the system through it, aggregate it with your mic, remember to undo it all so your speakers work again. It works, but it is fragile plumbing that reroutes your actual audio path just to observe it.
The native way: Core Audio process taps
macOS 14.4 introduced a first-party API for exactly this: applications can tap audio output with the user’s permission — no kernel extensions, no virtual devices, no rerouting. echo99 is built on that API. Your sound keeps playing through whatever device you chose; echo99 taps the stream on the side and writes it to disk. One permission prompt, zero audio-setup changes. That is also why echo99 requires macOS 14.4 or later — the API does not exist before it.
What you get
system.wav— everything your Mac plays: calls, webinars, browser audio, any app.mic.wav— your microphone, captured simultaneously but kept separate.- Two tracks, not a mixdown. The tracks are never mixed, so you can process, edit, or archive each side independently — and transcription can label your voice “Me” and everyone else “Them-1”, “Them-2”, …
- Device-switch resilience. Unplug headphones or swap to AirPods mid-recording and echo99 rebuilds its capture around the new device, converting formats on the fly and appending to the same file — each track stays one continuous stream.
- On-device transcript of both tracks after you stop, with speaker labels and timestamps.
Honest limits
- The current version taps all system output, not a single chosen app. If music plays
during your call, it lands in
system.wavtoo — pause it or let transcription ignore it. - WAV is uncompressed PCM: roughly 10 MB per minute per track at typical rates. Clean for editing and archiving, but budget disk space for very long sessions.
- Audio only — echo99 does not record your screen.
New to echo99? See getting started for setup and your first recording.
Related guides: Record Zoom calls, Record webinar
Capture your Mac's audio, locally
Free download. No account. Recording and transcription stay on your Mac.
Free · macOS 14.4+ · Notarized by Apple