How to record a call on a Mac, both sides
Dylan de Heer
Search for how to record a phone call on a Mac and the answers arrive in two flavours, both unhelpful. One tells you to install a loopback driver and rebuild your Mac's audio routing in Audio MIDI Setup. The other quietly assumes the call is happening on the Mac in the first place, which for a lot of people typing that phrase it is not.
Sort out the second problem before the first one, because it decides whether anything else on this page applies to you.
This covers where the call actually is, why the loopback driver advice is heavier than the job needs, what records both voices on a Mac, and where none of it works.
First question: where is the call?
There is one distinction that splits this query in half, and getting it wrong wastes an afternoon.
A cellular call ringing on your iPhone never touches your Mac. The audio goes phone network, to iPhone, to your ear. No Mac app can capture what was never sent to the Mac, and no cable between the two changes that. If that is your situation, skip to the iPhone section below, because the answer is on the phone.
A call taking place in an app on the Mac is a different problem entirely, and a solvable one. FaceTime, Zoom, Google Meet, Teams, Webex, Slack huddles, Telegram, Skype, WhatsApp's desktop app: all of these play the other person's voice through your Mac's audio output, which means something on the Mac can record it.
Everything below the iPhone section assumes the second case.
If the call is on your iPhone
Apple has shipped an answer for this, and it is not a Mac one.
The Phone app on iPhone records calls natively. Apple's guide is direct about the conditions: "In some countries and regions, you can record a phone call when you're talking to one other person." You tap the option during the call, and "both call participants hear an audio notice that the call is being recorded". The file lands in a Call Recordings folder in Notes, with a transcript in supported regions and languages. It is on by default and can be switched off in Settings, Apps, Phone.
The catch is geographic, and if you are reading this in Europe it is the whole story. Apple lists the regions where call recording is unavailable, and the European Union is on that list, alongside Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Morocco, Nigeria, Oman, Pakistan, Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates and Yemen. Check Apple's feature availability page for your own country before assuming.
Weeve cannot help you with an iPhone call either. There is no iPhone app and no Android app. This page cannot serve you if the call has to happen on the phone, and saying otherwise would be a way of keeping you reading rather than answering you.
The one Mac route that does exist for a phone call
If both devices are yours and on the same Wi-Fi network, macOS can relay iPhone calls. Apple documents the setup: turn on Allow Calls on Other Devices in the iPhone's Phone settings, sign in to the same Apple Account on both, and you can make and take phone calls from the Mac's Phone app.
At that point the call is on the Mac, and the Phone app on macOS has its own call recording with the recording saved to Notes, the same as on the iPhone. Apple attaches the same warning: "Call recording isn't available in all countries and regions." So this route moves the call onto the Mac, but it does not move it out of the regional restriction.
We have not tested whether a third-party recorder captures a relayed Phone-app call cleanly, so this page does not claim it does. What is documented is the relay itself and Apple's own recording feature on top of it.
Why the loopback driver advice is heavier than the job
Now the case that most of this query is about: a call in an app on your Mac, and you want both voices in one file.
The dominant recipe on this SERP is a loopback driver. It goes roughly like this. Install a virtual audio device such as BlackHole. Set your Mac's sound output to that virtual device, so that instead of reaching your speakers, all audio is fed into it. Open Audio MIDI Setup and build an Aggregate Device that combines the virtual device with your microphone, so a recorder can see both at once. Then build a Multi-Output Device as well, because otherwise you cannot hear the call you are on.
That recipe works. The drivers people recommend for it are competently built and free. It is worth saying that plainly before saying what is wrong with it, which is not correctness but proportion.
You are installing a system-level audio device to record one conversation. That is a permanent change to the machine for a temporary need.
Your default output device is now the virtual one, and it stays that way after the call ends. Until you set it back, every other app on the Mac is playing into it too.
You get one mixed file. Nothing in the aggregate device separates your voice from theirs, so speaker labelling has to be done afterwards by ear or not at all.
It is four pieces of setup before the call starts, at least two of which live in an app most Mac users have never opened.
Some of the guides still circulating name loopback drivers from an older era of macOS, which is how you end up debugging an audio routing problem instead of taking the call.
None of that is an argument that the method is broken. It is an argument that it is the long way round, because macOS now exposes system audio to applications directly.
What macOS gives you without installing anything
The obvious native alternative is the screen recorder, Shift-Command-5 or QuickTime, and it does not do what people expect. Apple's own guide lists a microphone option for screen recording and no system audio option, so it captures your voice and not theirs. We went through that correction properly in the guide to recording a WhatsApp call on a Mac, and it applies to any app on this list.
What macOS does have is a dedicated interface for system audio that applications can request as a permission, separately from the microphone and separately from screen recording. An app holding both permissions can take the two streams at once, which is the same result the aggregate device was built to produce, without the device.
If you only need a quick capture of what your Mac is playing and you do not want to install anything at all, Weeve's browser recorder for system audio runs in a tab.
How to record both sides of a call on a Mac
Weeve takes both streams through that interface. Its support page describes the mechanism in one line: "Weeve uses your microphone to record your voice, and your computer's audio to record the voices of others." The same page states that it uses "macOS's dedicated system audio API, not screen recording. Nothing on your screen is captured."
That means no virtual device, no aggregate device, and no change to your output. Your speakers stay your speakers.
Take the call in an app on the Mac. If the other person offered to ring your mobile, ask for the desktop app or a link instead. This is the step that decides everything.
Open Weeve before the call and pick the project the conversation belongs to.
Grant microphone and system audio access the first time. Weeve asks for four permissions on first open: microphone, system audio, accessibility for the keyboard shortcuts, and start at login.
Tell the other person you are recording, and wait for an actual yes.
Press record and take the call. Nothing joins the call and no participant appears on either end.
Stop when the call ends. The transcript and the summary are built on the Mac.
FaceTime specifically has its own page: see recording FaceTime calls for that setup.
If the reason you were about to install an audio driver is that you want both voices in one file, Weeve takes the microphone and the system audio through macOS's own interface and leaves your output device where you left it. The free Starter plan does not ask for a cloud account. Download Weeve for Mac.
Which method to use
Your situation | What to use |
|---|---|
Cellular call on your iPhone, outside the restricted regions | The iPhone's own Call Recording in the Phone app |
Cellular call on your iPhone, inside the EU or another restricted region | Nothing on the Mac reaches it. Move the conversation to a desktop app |
iPhone call relayed to the Mac's Phone app | Apple's built-in call recording, where your region allows it |
Call in a Mac app, and you want a video of the screen | Shift-Command-5 with a microphone selected. Your voice only |
Call in a Mac app, and you want both voices as audio | An app that takes microphone and system audio together |
One quick capture, nothing installed | A browser-based system audio recorder |
Where this does not work
The honest list, in one place rather than scattered.
No mobile app, on either platform. The iPhone case above is a genuine no from us, not a soft one.
Mac only, on Apple Silicon, macOS 14 or later. No Windows.
No video. Weeve produces audio, a transcript and a summary. If you need a picture of what was on screen, run the screen recorder alongside it.
Apple's own call recording is free and already installed where your region allows it, and it announces itself to both parties automatically, which is a real advantage on consent grounds that no third-party recorder matches. If your calls are one-to-one on the Phone app and you are outside the restricted list, use it.
Accuracy has known limits. Weeve states them itself: heavy accents, overlapping speakers and noisy rooms. Transcription covers 25 European languages and the interface is English only.
Telling the other person
Recording a call without saying so is a different act from recording a meeting where a notetaker is expected, and on a one-to-one call there is nothing on screen to give it away.
Say it out loud before you start, and wait for an answer rather than treating silence as one. If you are asked what happens to the recording, a tool that keeps the file on the machine lets you answer in a sentence: it stays here.
The legal position varies by country and by state, and in several places every person on the call has to agree. Our guide to whether it is legal to record a meeting sets out the consent rules. This is general information and not legal advice.
Frequently asked questions
Can you record a phone call on a Mac?
Only if the call is running in an app on the Mac. A cellular call on your iPhone sends its audio to the phone, never to the Mac, so no Mac software can capture it. For calls in FaceTime, Zoom, Teams, Slack or a desktop messaging app, an application with microphone and system audio permission records both sides.
Do I need BlackHole or another loopback driver to record system audio on a Mac?
No. A loopback driver plus an aggregate device does work, and it is the most common advice for this query, but it means installing a system-level audio device and changing your Mac's default output. macOS exposes system audio to applications as its own permission, so an app holding both microphone and system audio access records the two streams without any routing changes.
Does QuickTime record both sides of a call?
No. Apple's screen recording options list a microphone and no system audio setting, so you get your own voice and silence where the other person was. This is the single most common reason a Mac call recording turns out to be half a conversation, and it is covered in full in our WhatsApp call guide.
Can I record an iPhone call using my Mac?
Not directly. You can relay the call to the Mac's Phone app using Apple's Allow Calls on Other Devices setting, and macOS then offers its own call recording, subject to the same regional availability Apple applies on iPhone. Recording a call that stays on the handset is not something a Mac app can do.
Why can I not record calls on my iPhone in Europe?
Apple's own guide states that call recording is not available in the European Union, along with 18 other countries and regions it lists by name. This is a feature availability decision by Apple rather than a device limitation, and it applies to the Phone app's built-in recording, not to calls you take in a desktop app on a Mac.
How do I record a FaceTime call with both voices on a Mac?
Take the call in FaceTime on the Mac and record with an app that captures the microphone and the system audio together, which gets your voice and theirs into one file. The screen recorder will not, because it offers no system audio option. Weeve's FaceTime page covers the setup.
The hard part was never the recording. It was working out which machine the conversation was actually on.
