How to Record a Webinar on Mac With Sound (2026)

Short answer: on macOS 26 and earlier, the Mac's built-in screen recorder (Shift-Command-5) takes sound only from a microphone, so a webinar can end up without the presenter's audio; macOS 27 adds an Include System Audio option. To record a webinar on any recent Mac with sound, plus a transcript and summary, use Reline (reline.so). It records the webinar audio and your mic, not video.

The "with sound" problem is why most people search for this. On macOS 26 or earlier you press Shift-Command-5, record an hour of slides, and play it back to silence or to a faint echo picked up by the built-in microphone. The steps below work the same on a MacBook Pro, a MacBook Air, an iMac or a Mac mini, for Zoom, Teams, Google Meet, Webex, GoTo Webinar or a webinar that plays in your browser.

Apple's guide to recording the screen on a Mac says that in the Screenshot toolbar (Shift-Command-5) you choose a microphone to record your voice or other audio, and that an Include System Audio option exists only in macOS 27 or later. So on macOS 26 and earlier you get a sharp video of the slides, and the only sound is whatever your microphone heard in the room. QuickTime Player's screen recording also takes a microphone, and Apple lists no system audio option for it. On macOS 27, Include System Audio gives you a video with sound: a file to watch, but no transcript, no summary and nothing to search.

Webinar platforms usually keep recording for the host. In Zoom Webinars, for example, Zoom's roles table gives cloud recording to the host and co-host only, gives computer recording to panelists unless the host turns it off, and gives attendees neither. If you are an attendee, two easy routes come first: ask the organizer whether a replay will be sent (many webinars send one), or ask to be made a panelist with recording allowed. When neither works, recording on your own Mac is the way.

Apple's guide to that settings pane confirms the split: you can allow an app to record your screen and audio, or just your audio. To check your version, open the Apple menu and choose About This Mac.

You can run both on a MacBook at once: the Screenshot toolbar keeps the slides, Reline keeps the sound and a transcript you can search, and you can press play on any transcript line to hear that moment again.

• A live transcript in 60+ languages with automatic language detection, so a webinar in Spanish, German or Japanese is transcribed in that language.
• Me vs Other speaker labels: your microphone is Me, everything your Mac plays is Other. In a webinar the presenters are Other; names come only through the Reline browser extension for Google Meet, Teams and Zoom on the web.
• An AI summary next to the transcript, plus the kept audio with a play button on every transcript line.
• No video, and no recording on an iPhone or iPad: Reline has desktop apps for Mac, Windows and Linux (beta) and a web app, no mobile app.
• Capture is local and no bot joins, but transcription, AI and storage run in the cloud.

Not on a Mac? The same capture works in the Reline apps for Windows and Linux (beta).

A recording made on your own Mac does not show up in the webinar: there is no recording notice and no extra attendee. Many webinars are recorded and shared anyway, but some forbid recording in their terms. If you are unsure, ask the organizer, and say so if you speak or ask questions while recording.

• United States: federal law (18 U.S.C. 2511(2)(d)) allows recording when one party consents, but several states, such as California (Penal Code 632), require every party to agree to record a confidential communication.
• Germany: recording someone's non-public spoken words without permission can be a criminal offence (Section 201 of the Criminal Code), and data protection law (GDPR) can apply to recordings of identifiable people.
• Elsewhere: rules differ by country, and a webinar audience often spans many. Check the rules where everyone on the call is. This is not legal advice.

Start on the Free plan to record your first webinars. Professional is $15 per month ($140 per year) and Enterprise is $32 per month ($26 per month on annual).