How to record a FaceTime call

Most people who set out to record FaceTime calls are surprised twice. First by the fact that macOS will do it for them, and then by how narrow that feature is. Everything outside those bounds runs into a deliberate wall, and screen recording — the obvious workaround — is the one thing that definitely will not work.

The short answer

If it is a FaceTime audio call with one other person, macOS records it and writes you a transcript. Anything else — a video call, three people, a call you need as a file — needs a different route, and the honest starting point is that Apple designed the platform to make recording other people’s voices hard on purpose.

Most of what follows is about how to record FaceTime calls when the built-in path stops being enough.

What macOS does for you

Apple documents call recording as a FaceTime feature. Its page on FaceTime audio call features states that you can record a FaceTime audio call when you are talking to one other person, and that both call participants hear a notice that the call is being recorded. Afterwards, as Apple puts it, you open the Notes app and go to the Call Recordings folder to review the recording and its transcript.

That is a genuinely good implementation of a hard problem. Both sides are captured, nobody is recorded in secret, and the transcript is made for you without a second tool. For a phone interview, a conversation with a relative you want to keep, or a call where you need to check a detail later, this is the answer and you can stop reading.

Where it stops

Three limits, and they are the reason this article exists.

It is for audio calls. A FaceTime video call is not covered by that feature. This is the single biggest gap, because most FaceTime calls have video in them.

It is for two people. “When you’re talking to one other person” is Apple’s wording. A family call with four participants is out.

You get a note, not a file. The recording lives in the Notes app. That is fine for listening back and reading the transcript; it is less convenient if you need an audio file to hand to an editor, a colleague or an archive.

Why you cannot record FaceTime with audio through screen recording

This is the question behind most searches for how to record FaceTime with audio, and how to record from FaceTime at all when the built-in notice is not wanted.

This is the question people actually arrive with, usually after recording a ten-minute call and finding silence where the other person was.

Screen recording on a Mac does not capture what your Mac is playing. Apple’s instructions for taking a screenshot or screen recording say the same thing for both the Screenshot toolbar and QuickTime Player: to record your voice or other audio with the screen recording, choose a microphone. Microphone input is the only audio source offered. There is no toggle for system audio because the feature does not capture it.

So a screen recording of a FaceTime call gets your side — picked up by your microphone — and, if your speakers are loud enough, a thin bleed of the other person. Usually not even that, because the recording sounds nothing like a conversation.

On iPhone the wall is more specific. Users report consistently across Apple’s own discussion forums that a screen recording of a FaceTime call captures your microphone and in-app sounds while leaving the other person’s voice out. Apple does not document this as a feature, so treat it as observed behaviour rather than a stated policy — but the observation is remarkably consistent, and the reasoning people give for it is the same one that shapes everything else here: recording someone’s voice without their knowledge is a legal problem in a lot of places, and Apple would rather not hand you the tool.

The same limitation applies to every screen recorder on the Mac, and what QuickTime will and will not give you shows it from the system’s side: three screens listed as capturable, and nothing but microphones on the audio list.

Say you are recording

Worth putting before the workarounds rather than after them.

Recording rules vary by country and, in the United States, by state. In some places it is enough that one participant — you — knows the call is being recorded. In others every person on the call has to agree, and getting it wrong is not a technicality: several states attach real penalties. The lists published online disagree with each other about exactly which states fall where, which is itself a reason to check rather than to trust a number in a blog post.

The practice that works everywhere is simple: say at the start that you are recording, and let the other person say yes on the tape. Apple’s built-in recording does the first half for you by announcing itself. Every third-party tool leaves both halves to you.

This is not legal advice, and if the recording might end up in a dispute, ask someone whose advice it is.

Recording both sides on a Mac

If Apple’s feature does not cover your case, you need an app that captures system audio — the sound your Mac is playing — alongside your microphone. That is a different permission and a different mechanism from screen recording, and macOS treats it as such: the setting is called Screen & System Audio Recording in System Settings, and apps have to be allowed there explicitly.

There are three practical routes.

A virtual audio driver. Tools like BlackHole install a fake output device, so anything your Mac plays can be picked up as if it were a microphone. You then build an aggregate device in Audio MIDI Setup that combines it with your real microphone, and point QuickTime at that. It is free and it works. It is also a system-level audio change you have to remember you made, and it interferes with normal playback in ways that are annoying to debug six months later.

A screen recorder that includes system audio. Several paid recorders capture the screen and the system audio together. They ask for screen recording permission — reasonable if you want the picture, less reasonable if all you wanted was sound.

An audio recorder that keeps the two sides separate. Which is where I have an interest: Kekoso records your microphone and the system audio as two separate tracks and transcribes both on the machine. It uses a Core Audio process tap rather than the screen-capture API, so it never asks for permission to see your display, and it captures FaceTime the same way it captures anything else that makes sound on the Mac. $29 once, macOS 14.4 or later on Apple silicon. It announces nothing to the other side — nothing outside Apple’s own feature does — so telling them is on you.

Before any of this on a call that matters, read what the statutes actually say — six of them are quoted there, and the practical rule fits in one sentence.

The crude fallback that always works

Put the call on speaker, and record the room with a second device. A phone with a voice recorder app, a dictaphone, a laptop.

It is inelegant and the audio is worse. It also works on every platform, needs no permissions, survives every OS update, and cannot be broken by Apple changing its mind. For a one-off call it is often the fastest thing to do, and if you plan to transcribe the result rather than publish it, the quality is usually good enough.

Turning the recording into text

Once you have audio, the recording stops being a FaceTime problem and becomes an ordinary transcription one.

Apple’s built-in call recording writes the transcript for you into Notes. If you recorded some other way, you have a file, and the routes for transcribing it are the same as for any other recording: an online service, a local app, or Whisper from the terminal. The one thing worth thinking about is where the file goes. A call you were careful enough to ask permission to record is usually a call you would rather not upload to a service whose terms you have not read — which is an argument for transcribing it locally, whatever tool you pick.

If the recording captured both sides on one track, expect a transcript without speaker labels: separating voices after the fact needs diarization, and it is less reliable than people assume. Recording the two sides separately in the first place is the only way to get “who said what” for free.

What to actually do

An audio call with one person, and you want it easy: use Apple’s own recording. It handles both sides, announces itself, and hands you a transcript.

A video call, or more than two people, on a Mac: to record FaceTime with audio from both sides, you need an app that captures system audio. Say you are recording first.

On iPhone, with the other person’s voice: the second-device method, or move the call to a Mac.

Anything where the stakes are real: get consent on the tape, before anything else.

Sources: FaceTime audio call features, Take a screenshot or screen recording on a Mac, Allow apps to record your system audio.

Questions people ask

Can you record a FaceTime call?

Yes, if it is an audio call with one other person. Apple's documentation states that you can record a FaceTime audio call when you are talking to one other person, and that both call participants hear a notice that the call is being recorded. The recording and its transcript appear in the Notes app, in a Call Recordings folder. Video calls and calls with more than two people are not covered by that feature.

Why is there no sound in my FaceTime screen recording?

Because screen recording on a Mac captures a microphone, not the audio your Mac is playing — the system lists three screens as capturable and only microphones on the audio side, which is why there is no setting for it. Apple's own instructions for both the Screenshot toolbar and QuickTime Player say to choose a microphone to record audio with the screen recording, and say nothing about capturing system audio — there is no setting for it because the feature does not do it. On iPhone, users report the same thing for FaceTime specifically: the other person's voice is left out of the recording.

How do I record a FaceTime call with audio from both sides?

On a Mac, either use Apple's own FaceTime audio call recording, which handles both sides and announces itself, or use an app that captures system audio as well as your microphone. Screen recording alone will not do it. The crude fallback that works on any device is putting the call on speaker and recording the room with a second phone.

Does the other person know I am recording?

With Apple's built-in FaceTime recording, yes — Apple states that both participants hear a notice. Third-party recording tools generally announce nothing, which is exactly why the obligation to say you are recording falls on you. In several US states every party has to consent, and the rules differ from country to country — the wording of those statutes is worth ten minutes before anything with stakes.

Is it legal to record a FaceTime call?

It depends where you and the other person are. Some jurisdictions allow recording when one participant consents, others require everyone on the call to agree, and the safe practice everywhere is to say you are recording and get a yes on the tape. This is not legal advice — check the rules that apply to you before you press record.

How do I get a written transcript of a FaceTime call?

If you used Apple's built-in call recording, the transcript is created for you and sits next to the recording in the Notes app. If you recorded the call some other way, you have an audio file, and any transcription tool will turn it into text — including local ones that do it without uploading the recording anywhere.