The best free screen recorder for mac apple silicon m5?

The built-in screen recorder on mac (Cmd + Shift + 5 or QuickTime Player) is great for quick, simple tasks. However, it has several significant limitations that become frustrating if you need to create anything beyond a basic clip. Here are the main problems users encounter.

The "No System Audio" Problem (The Biggest Complaint)

This is the most frequently cited limitation. By default, macOS does not allow any built-in tool to record internal system audio—the sound coming directly from your computer, like app notifications, browser audio, or game sounds.

What it can do: It can only record audio from an external or built-in microphone.

Why it's a problem: If you want to record a software tutorial with its own audio or capture gameplay, you'll end up with a silent video.

How people "fix" it: The only workaround is to install third-party virtual audio drivers to route the internal sound, which adds complexity.

Aggressive Storage Usage & Long Recording Fails

The built-in recorder handles large files poorly, which is a critical issue for longer recordings.

Massive Temporary Files: During a recording, the system writes a temporary .mov file to your startup disk. One user reported a one-hour Zoom meeting created a 30 GB file in a hidden system folder.

No External Drive Bypass: While you can choose a final save location on an external drive, the temporary file is always created on your internal disk. If your internal disk is full, the recording will fail, even if your external drive has terabytes of free space.

Long Recording Failures: Many users report that recordings longer than about 5–9 minutes simply fail to save, often without a clear error message, resulting in lost work.

You'd better find another screen recorder app on macOS for advanced screen recording with audio.