The short answer
To record a Webex call with everyone’s audio on a Mac, you need to capture your microphone and your Mac’s system audio together. Webex’s built-in recorder does this, but only the host or a cohost can start it — as an attendee you need the host to grant permission, and cloud recording needs a paid plan. macOS’s ⌘⇧5 screen recorder captures your mic but not the audio coming from Webex. A local recorder that grabs both tracks is the path that doesn’t depend on anyone’s permission.
Option 1 — Webex’s built-in recording
As host or cohost, click the Record button in the meeting controls and choose to record to the cloud (paid) or to your computer.
- Good: clean capture of all participants, no extra setup.
- Annoying: only the host/cohost can record; attendees must ask for permission, and everyone sees the recording indicator.
- Doesn’t help when you’re an attendee in someone else’s Webex and they won’t grant it.
Option 2 — macOS screen recording (⌘⇧5)
Press ⌘⇧5, choose to record the screen, and start. This is where people get burned: the built-in tool records your microphone but not the audio coming out of Webex. You end up with a video where you can hear yourself and no one else.
Pulling system audio into ⌘⇧5 traditionally meant installing a virtual audio driver and hand-routing outputs — fiddly, and easy to break right before a call. We cover the clean version in recording system audio on macOS.
Option 3 — a local meeting recorder (both sides, no bot)
This is the approach that just works as an attendee: a menu-bar app records your mic and the meeting’s system audio together, saves to a folder on your Mac, and — because nothing joins the call — there’s no bot in the participant list and no dependency on Webex roles or plans.
With MeetingRecorder the flow is:
- Start from the menu bar, or accept the toast that appears when the Webex call begins.
- It captures mic + system audio (as one mix, or separate tracks).
- When the call ends, one click gives you a transcript and a short summary with action items.
Webex runs in both a desktop app and a browser — either way the recorder captures the call’s audio like any other system sound. Everything stays local unless you choose to transcribe, and there’s no account to set up.
Which should you use?
- You host and don’t mind the cloud: Webex’s built-in recording is simplest.
- You only need your own voice + screen: ⌘⇧5 is enough.
- You’re an attendee, recording is locked to the host, or you want both sides kept locally with a transcript: a local meeting recorder.