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How to Easily Record System Audio on Mac (No DAW Required)

AudioRoute can capture whatever your Mac is playing — a Zoom call, a YouTube video, Spotify, a sample-pack demo, anything — straight to a WAV file. No DAW, no aggregate device, no Audio MIDI Setup. Five clicks and you've got the file. This guide walks through the full flow, then shows the floating overlay that turns it into one click.

Updated June 2026 macOS 14.4+ ~3 minutes

Contents
  1. Open the AudioRoute tray app
  2. Click Record to File
  3. Play whatever you want to record
  4. Click Stop
  5. Reveal the recording in Finder
  6. Pro tip: the floating overlay
  7. Where the recording lives

1. Open the AudioRoute tray app

Click the AudioRoute icon in your macOS menu bar (top-right of the screen).

The AudioRoute tray icon in the macOS menu bar — a small audio-routing glyph next to the system status icons
The AudioRoute icon in the menu bar. Click to open the tray window.

The tray window pops open showing the daemon connection status, current sample rate, channel count, and the record button. If the status reads Connected in the top-right, AudioRoute is ready — you don't need to do anything else to set up.

2. Click Record to File

The Record to File button starts capture immediately. There's no source selection — AudioRoute captures your entire system audio mix automatically.

AudioRoute tray window with the 'Record to File' button highlighted by a red arrow. The window shows Status: Idle, Rate: 48000 Hz, Channels: 2, and the Feedback Protection toggle is enabled
One button starts recording. By default the file lands in ~/Music/AudioRoute/.

Feedback Protection is on by default. Leave it on. It mutes the audio AudioRoute is capturing from being re-captured into itself, which would otherwise create an infinite-loop feedback. You'll still hear the audio on your speakers as normal — only the capture path is protected.

3. Play whatever you want to record

Once you're recording, AudioRoute captures everything your Mac is playing — switch to YouTube, Spotify, your browser, a Zoom call, a Discord voice channel, a sample-pack demo on a website — and it all lands in the file.

The tray window updates to show Capturing status with a live elapsed-time timer, file size, and meter activity.

AudioRoute tray window during recording — Status shows 'Capturing' in blue, a meter bar shows live audio levels, and the controls section shows 'REC 0:07 2.6 MB' next to a red Stop button
The window shows the active recording. You can close it — recording continues in the background.

You can close the tray window at this point. Recording continues in the background until you click stop.

4. Click Stop

Click the red Stop button to end the recording. The file is written and immediately available — no rendering, no export step.

AudioRoute tray window with the red Stop button highlighted by an arrow. REC indicator shows 0:33 elapsed and 12.1 MB file size
The Stop button finalises the file immediately. No render or export step.

5. Reveal the recording in Finder

After stopping, the tray now shows the name of the file you just made — auto-named with a timestamp like recording_2026-06-05_11-43-19.wav. Click Show in Finder next to it.

AudioRoute tray window after recording finished. The recording filename appears with a 'Show in Finder' button next to it, highlighted by an arrow
One click jumps you straight to the file in Finder.

Finder opens with the recording pre-selected in ~/Music/AudioRoute/.

macOS Finder window showing the ~/Music/AudioRoute folder with WAV recordings. The most recent recording is highlighted in blue
The recording lives in ~/Music/AudioRoute/, pre-selected and ready to drag anywhere.

Drag it into a DAW, drop it into an email, upload it somewhere, or just double-click it to preview in QuickTime. It's a standard WAV file — any audio app can open it.

Pro tip: the floating overlay for one-click recording

If you record often, opening the tray every time gets tedious. AudioRoute has a tiny floating overlay window that stays on top of all your other windows, so you can start and stop recording without leaving whatever app you're in.

Enable it once

Open the tray and click Advanced... to expand the settings panel.

AudioRoute tray window with the Advanced button highlighted by an arrow. The button sits below the Record to File button and the Show in Finder row
The Advanced disclosure expands the settings panel.

Toggle on Show floating overlay.

AudioRoute tray window with Advanced settings expanded. The 'Show floating overlay' toggle is being switched on, highlighted by an arrow. Other visible options include Rec Rate (Auto), Bit Depth (32-bit float), Folder (~/Music/AudioRoute), and Daemon (Always on)
One toggle in Advanced settings turns on the overlay window.

A small overlay window appears, sized just enough for the record button. It floats above all other windows by default.

The AudioRoute floating overlay window — a small horizontal pill with a blue Record button on the left and 'Ready' text on the right
The overlay sits above any other window. Drag it anywhere on screen.

Use it any time

Click Record on the overlay to start capturing. Same exact behaviour as the tray button, just always accessible.

The AudioRoute floating overlay during a recording — the red Stop button on the left and elapsed time '0:16' on the right
The overlay shows the elapsed time while recording.

Click Stop on the overlay to finish.

The AudioRoute floating overlay with the red Stop button highlighted by an arrow, elapsed time showing 0:29
One click stops the recording. The file is written immediately, same as before.

The recording lands in the same place as before — ~/Music/AudioRoute/. Open the tray to find the file or use Show in Finder.

Where the recording lives

By default, AudioRoute writes recordings to ~/Music/AudioRoute/ as WAV files named recording_YYYY-MM-DD_HH-MM-SS.wav. You can change the folder under Advanced → Folder → Change... and the recording format (16-bit PCM or 32-bit float) under Bit Depth.

WAV is universally readable: every DAW (Logic Pro, Ableton Live, Reaper, Pro Tools, Cubase, Studio One, GarageBand) imports it directly. So do QuickTime, VLC, Audacity, and every audio editor on the planet. There's nothing to convert.

Heads-up about long recordings. A 30-minute stereo recording at 48 kHz / 16-bit is roughly 330 MB; at 32-bit float it's roughly 660 MB. AudioRoute doesn't currently split or rotate files mid-session, so plan disk space accordingly for very long captures.

Recording to a file is the simplest workflow, but it's only one of AudioRoute's three capture paths. The other guides go deeper:

For OBS, Audacity, Zoom, Discord, ScreenFlow, or any other app that accepts an audio input device, point the input at AudioRoute Capture — it appears as a virtual audio device system-wide.

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