how to screen record on a mac, sound included

yes, your mac records its own screen - no download needed, and the shortcut is shift + command + 5. that is the five-second answer.

the longer answers are why this page exists: recording with sound, recording your face alongside, and finding where the file went. apple made the first of those genuinely confusing, so it gets the full treatment.

a laptop showing a glowing record dot and a soundwave line

the built-in recorder

press shift + command + 5. a control bar appears with five icons: three for screenshots, two for recording - record the entire screen, or record a selected portion (drag the frame to choose). click record; stop with the stop icon in the menu bar, or press shift + command + 5 again and hit stop.

the same bar's options menu holds the useful settings: where the file saves, a countdown timer, and - the important one - the microphone selector.

recording with sound

two different problems hide inside "record with sound":

your voice (microphone). built in: open shift + command + 5, options, pick your microphone under the microphone section, then record. narration lands in the file. if the recording is silent, this selector - defaulting to "none" - is almost always the reason.
the computer's own audio (system sound). not built in: macos does not capture internal audio with the stock recorder. the standard fix is a free virtual audio driver - blackhole is the common choice - which routes system sound so the recorder can treat it as a microphone. install it, create a multi-output device in audio midi setup, select blackhole as the recorder's microphone. one-time setup, five minutes, works from then on. paid tools below do the same without the plumbing.

a speaker icon routing a waveform through a junction box into a record dot - system audio, solved

mic audiobuilt in: options menu, choose the microphone, record. narration just works.

system audionot built in: needs a virtual audio driver (blackhole, free) or a third-party recorder.

recording with your camera on screen

the stock recorder does not overlay your face. two routes:

quicktime, two windows. open quicktime player, file, new movie recording - a camera window appears. shrink it to a corner, keep it on top, then run the normal screen recording. the camera window gets recorded as part of the screen. crude, free, fine for internal work.
a proper recorder. for anything public-facing - tutorials, course video, client walkthroughs - a dedicated tool (obs is the free standard; loom-style apps are the fast-share option) handles camera overlay, system audio, and scene layouts in one place. obs costs an evening to learn and answers every recording need this page covers, permanently.

where recordings save

by default: the desktop, named "screen recording [date] at [time].mov". change the destination in the shift + command + 5 options menu - save to desktop, documents, or a folder you choose. if a recording seems missing, check the options menu's current save location first; a past change (often to a clipboard workflow or custom folder) is the usual culprit. screenshots follow the same logic, covered in the screenshot guide.

quick reference

plain recordingshift + command + 5, choose full screen or portion, record

with narrationsame, but pick the microphone in options first

with system audioinstall blackhole once, select it as the microphone

with your facequicktime camera window in the corner, or obs for the real thing

faq

can you screen record on a mac?

yes, built in: shift + command + 5 opens the recorder for full screen or a selected area. no download required.

why does my mac screen recording have no sound?

the recorder's microphone is set to "none" by default - pick a mic in the options menu. for the computer's internal audio you need a virtual audio driver like blackhole; macos does not capture it natively.

where do screen recordings go on a mac?

the desktop by default, as .mov files. the save location is changeable - and findable - in the shift + command + 5 options menu.

how long can a mac screen recording be?

no built-in time limit; the ceiling is disk space. long recordings produce large files, so a selected-portion recording beats full screen when you only need one window.