To record a Zoom or Microsoft Teams call on a Mac with both sides, you need two sources at once: your microphone for your voice, and the Mac's system audio for everyone else's. ThinkScribe for Mac records both with two toggles and one shortcut, with no bot joining the meeting and no audio driver to install, then transcribes the call on your Mac.
This guide explains why system audio is the hard part, what the meeting apps' own recorders give you, what the do-it-yourself route involves, and how to do it in ThinkScribe step by step.
One rule before anything else: tell the people on the call that you are recording. Some meeting recorders show a notice automatically; a recording on your own Mac does not, so say it out loud, and follow the recording and consent laws that apply where you and the other participants are.
Why system audio is the hard part
Your Mac records its microphone without any fuss. What it does not do out of the box is record what comes out of the speakers, which is where the other participants live. That is why a plain screen recording of a Zoom call often gives you a perfect capture of your own voice and silence where the other side should be.
Holding the Mac's microphone up to the speakers is no fix either. You get a thin, echoing copy of the other side, mixed with the room, and speech recognition struggles with exactly that kind of audio.
There are three ways around it:
- Let the meeting app record itself. It already has both audio streams.
- Add a virtual audio device that pretends to be a speaker, route the call into it, and record from it as if it were a microphone.
- Use a recorder that captures other apps' audio directly, a capability recent versions of macOS offer with a system audio permission and no driver.
What Zoom's and Teams' own recorders give you
Zoom can record to your Mac's disk, and it is the least work when you are the host. The limits are the problem: only the host can record locally unless they grant you permission, the account admin has to allow local recording in the first place (in many company accounts it is off), and if you are a guest in someone else's meeting, the route is often closed.
Microsoft Teams also has a recorder, but it saves to the organizer's cloud storage, is controlled by the organization's policy, and notifies everyone. It does not give you a local file of your own.
Both recorders make sense when you run the meeting and the organization is set up for it. They do not help the participant who simply wants their own notes.
What the do-it-yourself route involves
The classic workaround is a virtual audio driver: you install it, approve it in macOS security settings, reboot, build a combined output device so the call plays to your headphones and the driver at the same time, build a combined input that merges the driver with your microphone, point the meeting app's speaker at the new output, and record the combined input with a separate recorder.
It works, and it has honest costs:
- Setup and upkeep. Several devices to create and name, and a macOS update can require approving the driver again or make the devices disappear.
- Volume control gets awkward. A combined output device has no master volume, so the volume keys stop working while it is selected.
- Easy to get wrong. The most common failure is the meeting app still pointing at the old speaker, which records only your side. Another is forgetting to switch back after the call.
- Still no transcript. At the end you have an audio file; transcribing it, telling speakers apart and writing notes are separate jobs.
How to record Zoom and Teams meetings on Mac in ThinkScribe
ThinkScribe uses the third route: it records the audio of apps like Zoom, Teams, FaceTime or a browser directly, next to your microphone. It needs a Mac with Apple silicon and macOS 26 or later.
- Install ThinkScribe and allow Microphone and System Audio when it asks. You can check both later in Settings.
- Join the Zoom or Teams call as usual, and tell the others you are recording.
- In ThinkScribe's record bar, turn on both Microphone and System audio, then press Command-R. Or choose Record Meeting (Mic + App) from the ThinkScribe menu bar item.
- When the call ends, press Command-period (Transcription > Stop Recording).
- The transcript is made on your Mac, with speakers separated. Summarize it for notes and action items.
No bot joins the call, nobody extra appears in the participant list, and there is nothing to change in Zoom's or Teams' audio settings. The volume keys keep working. There is no account, and your recordings and transcripts are never sent to us.
Settings worth knowing
- Notify when call starts (Settings > Recording) lets ThinkScribe tell you when a call begins, so you do not miss the start.
- Record App Audio Only in the menu bar, or Transcription > Record System Audio (Shift-Command-R), records a webinar or lecture stream without your microphone.
- Speaker names. Use Rename Speaker... on a speaker badge once, and that voice is recognized automatically in later calls. See speaker names.
The companion guide on recording a call on Mac without a bot covers testing and troubleshooting in more detail.
After the recording: from audio to notes
A mixed recording of a call, with both sides clean, is the best input speech recognition can get. Speaker diarization explains how voices are told apart, and why a clean call recording separates better than a single microphone in a noisy room.
In ThinkScribe the next steps happen in the same window: a summary with action items, meeting minutes or an executive brief, and answers to questions about the call that point to the moment in the audio. Meeting minutes from a recording walks through that, and the meeting transcription use case shows the whole flow. For a file you recorded some other way, see transcribe audio to text on a Mac.
Frequently asked questions
Can I record a Zoom meeting on a Mac without the host's permission?
Not with Zoom's own local recorder, which is controlled by the host and the account admin. A recorder on your own Mac, such as ThinkScribe with Microphone and System audio on, records what your Mac plays and what your microphone hears, so it works as a participant. Whether you may record is a separate question: tell people and follow the consent rules that apply to everyone on the call.
Does QuickTime record system audio on a Mac?
Not by itself. QuickTime records from an input device, and system output is not an input. You either route the output back in through a virtual audio device, or use an app that captures other apps' audio directly, like ThinkScribe's System audio toggle.
How do I record a Teams call on a Mac without a bot?
Record it on your own Mac. In ThinkScribe, turn on Microphone and System audio and press Command-R, or choose Record Meeting (Mic + App) from the menu bar. Nothing joins the call, you get a local recording and a transcript made on your Mac, and your recordings are never sent to us.
Will the other participants know I am recording?
A recording made on your own Mac shows nothing to the other side, which is exactly why you should say so at the start. Meeting apps' own recorders usually display a notice to everyone.
