Recording your Mac's sound and your voice at the same time
The one thing QuickTime cannot do, and the reason most people go looking for another recorder at all.
QuickTime records your microphone. It cannot record what the Mac is playing — the video you are demonstrating, the notification sound, the audio inside the app you are showing. That is a macOS restriction, not a QuickTime bug, and it is why every third-party Mac recorder exists.
What HappyRec records
- System audio — whatever the Mac is playing, captured directly.
- Your microphone — built-in or a USB mic, at the same time.
- Both mixed into one file, in sync, with no separate editing step.
You can also record either on its own: system audio with no narration, or your voice over a silent screen.
What it is actually for
Three jobs come up again and again, and all three need the Mac's own sound:
- Tutorials of software that makes noise — an alert, a call, a sound cue that is part of what you are explaining.
- Reviewing a video or a call recording with your commentary over it.
- Bug reports where the sound is the bug — audio that crackles, cuts out, or plays at the wrong moment. Describing that in text never works.
How to do it
Open HappyRec, turn on both System audio and Microphone, choose your screen, window or an area, and press record. The first time, macOS will ask for Screen Recording permission and for microphone access. Grant them once in System Settings and relaunch; it does not ask again.
Getting the sound right
- Use a USB microphone if you have one. It sounds better than the built-in mic and, just as usefully, it sits away from the fan.
- Keep the Mac cool. A fan spinning at speed is picked up by a built-in microphone and is very hard to remove afterwards. Recording at 1080p and 30fps rather than full Retina at 60 keeps it quiet.
- Say a sentence and play a second of the system sound before you start properly, then check the levels. Thirty seconds now beats a re-record later.
Where the file goes
To your disk, as an MP4. No upload, no account, no server involved — if you never send it, nobody else ever sees it. That matters when the thing on screen is a client's system rather than your own.
Free
HappyRec is free, with no sign-up and no time limit. What that means in practice.