How to add click sounds to screen recordings on a Mac (QuickTime, OBS, Loom, Zoom, qliqr)

A screen recording with no click sounds is oddly hard to follow. The cursor drifts over a button, something changes, and the viewer has to work out after the fact that a click happened. Add a short sound at the moment of each click and the same video becomes easy to watch, because every action announces itself.

Adding those sounds on a Mac comes down to two things: an app that plays a sound when you click, and a recorder that captures what the Mac is playing. This guide covers both, for the recorders people actually use.

The short version

1. Install something that plays a sound on every click. The Mac does not do this on its own. qliqr is a free menu bar app that gives every real mouse and trackpad click a synthesized sound, in every app. Install it, allow Input Monitoring when asked, and click something to confirm you can hear it.
2. If you use qliqr's own recorder, you are done. Choose Record Screen… from the qliqr menu bar icon. The click sounds are mixed straight into the video, whether or not you record a microphone. Nothing else to configure. Requires macOS 15 or later.
3. For any other recorder, turn on system audio. Look for an option called system audio, computer audio or desktop audio in the recorder's settings. Click sounds play through your normal output device, so a recorder that captures that device captures the clicks.
4. If the recorder has no system audio option, add a virtual audio device. QuickTime and the macOS screenshot toolbar only record microphones. A free loopback device such as BlackHole, combined with a Multi-Output Device in Audio MIDI Setup, routes system sound to a fake input the recorder can pick. Details below.
5. Record five seconds and check. Click a few times, stop, and scrub the result. If you can hear the clicks, you are set. If not, the troubleshooting section at the end has the usual causes.
6. Tune the sound for the recording. Choose a muted click (the Hush family) if there is a voice-over, lower qliqr's Press volume and Release volume rather than the system volume, and turn off stereo panning so clicks do not jump between ears.

That is the whole method. The rest of this page is the per-recorder detail.

qliqr's built-in recorder

If you are on macOS 15 or later, this is the easiest route because there is no audio routing at all. The recorder lives inside the same app that makes the sounds, so it mixes them into the video directly.

• Click the qliqr icon in the menu bar and choose Record Screen…
• Pick the whole screen or drag out an area.
• Turn on the microphone if you want narration. Click sounds are included either way.
• Stop from the menu bar. A preview opens with the clicks already in place, and the ripple drawn under the cursor is in the picture too.
• Export as MOV, MP4 or GIF. From the preview you can also turn on Zoom into clicks, which adds a smooth zoom toward each click on export, and make a 9:16 portrait clip for short video.

Because the sounds are mixed in at the source, there is no risk of the recorder picking up other system audio you did not want, like a notification chime, unless you also enable system audio capture.

QuickTime Player and the macOS screenshot toolbar

Press Shift-Command-5 and you get the screenshot toolbar, which is also what QuickTime uses when you choose New Screen Recording. It is fast and already installed, with one serious limit: its Options menu only lists microphones. There is no system audio option, so out of the box it cannot hear your clicks.

The workaround is a virtual audio device. The commonly used free one is BlackHole, an open-source loopback driver. It shows up as both an output and an input, so anything you play to it can be recorded from it. The setup:

1. Install BlackHole and restart if the installer asks.
2. Open Audio MIDI Setup (in Applications/Utilities). Click the + at the bottom left and create a Multi-Output Device.
3. In the new device, tick both your real output (speakers or headphones) and BlackHole. This is what lets you keep hearing your Mac while a copy of the audio goes to the virtual device.
4. Set the Multi-Output Device as your system output. The simplest way is to select it in Audio MIDI Setup (right-click, "Use This Device For Sound Output") or in the Sound menu bar item.
5. Press Shift-Command-5, open Options, and choose BlackHole as the microphone.
6. Record. The recorder now hears everything your Mac plays, including each click.

Two caveats. With a Multi-Output Device selected, the system volume keys stop working, so set your listening level before you switch. And if you also want narration, you would need an aggregate device that combines BlackHole with your real microphone, which is getting complicated. At that point OBS or qliqr's recorder is simpler.

OBS Studio

OBS on macOS 13 or later can capture system audio directly, as long as the source is set up the right way.

1. Add a macOS Screen Capture source (OBS 28 or later).
2. In the source's properties, choose display capture, window capture or application capture, and make sure the audio capture option for the source is turned on.
3. Look at the Audio Mixer at the bottom of OBS. The meter for that source should jump every time you click. If the meter stays flat, the source is not hearing the Mac; recheck the audio option and the screen recording permission in System Settings.
4. Record. The clicks are mixed into the track with everything else the Mac plays.

On older versions of macOS, or older versions of OBS, macOS Screen Capture is not available and OBS can only record microphones. Use the BlackHole method above and add BlackHole as an Audio Input Capture source.

With application capture, only that app's audio is captured, and the click sounds come from qliqr rather than the app you are recording. Use display capture, or add a second audio source for qliqr.

Loom

Loom's desktop recorder has a system audio toggle in the recording controls. Switch it on before you start. The first time, Loom installs its own audio component to capture system sound and may ask you to approve it in System Settings; follow the prompt and try again. With it on, clicks are recorded alongside your microphone.

The Loom browser extension only captures the audio of the tab being recorded, so use the desktop app for click sounds.

Zoom, Google Meet and Microsoft Teams

On a call, the question is whether you want the other people to hear your clicks. For a demo, you probably do; for an ordinary meeting, you probably do not.

• Zoom: in the Share Screen window, tick Share sound before you share. Clicks (and everything else your Mac plays) go to participants and into any cloud or local recording.
• Microsoft Teams: when sharing, enable Include computer sound. On a Mac, Teams may need to install an audio driver the first time.
• Google Meet: Meet can only share audio when you share a Chrome tab, not a window or the whole screen, and only that tab's audio. That means click sounds from a menu bar app will not come through. If you need clicks in a Meet recording, record locally with one of the other tools instead.

For calls where you would rather keep the clicks to yourself, turn on Quiet on calls in qliqr's settings. It mutes click sounds while a call app is active and brings them back afterward.

CleanShot X, Screen Studio, ScreenFlow, Camtasia

Each has a checkbox for recording computer audio in its recording setup panel, and each installs a small audio component the first time you enable it. Turn it on once and it stays on; clicks come through cleanly after that.

Picking a click that records well

Not every sound suits a recording. A bright click that is pleasant on its own can be tiring through a ten-minute tutorial, and it will fight with your voice.

For narrated videos, a muted click sits under the voice instead of on top of it:

Feltabout this sound

For silent recordings and short GIFs, something brighter reads more clearly:

Flintabout this sound

Try the rest in the mouse click sound tester or browse the sound library. Whichever you choose, set the level with qliqr's Press volume and Release volume sliders rather than the system volume, so narration and other audio stay where they were. The release sound is the one to lower first if the clicks feel busy.

Troubleshooting

No click sound at all, even outside the recording. qliqr needs Input Monitoring to see clicks. Open System Settings, then Privacy & Security, then Input Monitoring, and make sure qliqr is on. If it was just granted, quit and reopen the app. Also check that qliqr is not in quiet mode: Quiet on calls, or a Quiet In These Apps rule for the app you are recording, will silence it.

Clicks audible on the Mac but missing from the recording. The recorder is not capturing system audio. Recheck the system audio option, or, for QuickTime, confirm BlackHole is selected as the microphone in Options.

Recorded clicks, but you could not hear them while recording. The system output was set to BlackHole alone rather than the Multi-Output Device. Select the Multi-Output Device, which includes your speakers.

Wrong output device. If you switched to headphones or an external display with speakers after setting up, the Mac may have changed its output device. The recorder follows the device, so confirm what is selected in the Sound menu.

Clicks are distractingly loud or jump between ears. Lower Press volume and Release volume in qliqr, and turn off Pan sound left and right with the cursor in the Sounds settings. Panning is nice in headphones but odd in a tutorial.

Everything else from the Mac is in the recording too. That is what system audio means. Mute notifications (Focus mode is the quick way) and close music apps before you start, or use qliqr's recorder, which mixes only the clicks unless you ask for more.

Showing the click as well as hearing it

Sound is half of it. If you also want a visible mark at every click, see how to show mouse clicks in a screen recording. qliqr's ripple is drawn on screen, so unlike the sound it is captured by every recorder with no setup at all.