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Recording BlackHole with Audacity

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ronaldpedrosa edited this page Jul 3, 2026 · 4 revisions

Audacity is a free, open-source audio editor that's popular among beginners and professionals alike. It's lightweight, easy to use, and a great choice if you want to record, edit, or learn the basics of audio production without purchasing expensive software.

In this guide, you'll learn how to record audio from BlackHole into Audacity. Whether you're capturing system audio, recording a livestream, or saving audio from another application that's already routed through BlackHole, this setup lets you record the audio directly into Audacity for editing or exporting.

Before You Begin

This guide assumes that BlackHole has already been configured as the destination for the audio you want to record. If you haven't routed your system audio or application audio to BlackHole yet, complete that setup first before continuing.

1. Open Audio Settings

Configure settings by clicking: Audio Setup > Audio Settings

Audio Settings

2. Select BlackHole as the Recording Device

Set Recording Device to BlackHole and Channels to 2 (Stereo).

Recording Device

3. Start Recording

Given that you’ve already configured the audio you want to send to BlackHole, you may start recording from that audio source. It should appear like this:

Start Recording

Troubleshooting

No sound is coming through BlackHole into Audacity.

Check System Preferences -> Security & Privacy -> Privacy -> Microphone to make sure your Audacity has microphone access.

No Sound

If Audacity is not listed. Try the following.

  1. Place Audacity in the downloads folder.
  2. Open Audacity
  3. Grant access to use the microphone.
  4. Restart Audacity if necessary.

The recording device doesn't appear

If BlackHole is not listed as a recording device:

  1. Confirm that BlackHole is installed correctly.
  2. Restart Audacity after installing BlackHole.
  3. If necessary, restart your Mac so the virtual audio device is recognized.

The recording is silent

If Audacity is recording but the waveform is flat:

  1. Verify that the application (Audio Output) or system audio (System Settings on your Mac > Sound) is actually being routed to BlackHole.
  2. Check that the correct BlackHole device (2ch, 16ch, etc.) is selected in Audacity.
  3. Play audio and confirm that BlackHole is receiving a signal before starting the recording.

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