Why Mac Caption Apps Need System Audio Permission

Why Mac Caption Apps Need System Audio Permission

Learn what Screen & System Audio Recording authorizes and what Alison Workspace actually captures.

Choose system audio, a microphone, or both. Each source can have its own recognition and translation languages.

Why macOS uses that name

Apple groups playback-audio access with screen capture under ScreenCaptureKit, so the system permission has a broader name than the app’s task.

What Alison captures

Alison receives system playback audio for live recognition. It does not save screen frames or write raw audio into history.

Allow audio access

macOS asks for System Audio Recording permission to caption Mac playback. Microphone permission is requested only when you choose a microphone source. Alison does not save screen frames or raw audio.

What Mac is required?

macOS 15 or later on an Apple-silicon Mac (M1 or newer). Intel Macs are not supported.

Yes. After the required Apple language resources or local Whisper model are downloaded once, audio capture, recognition, and translation run on the Mac. Internet may be needed only for the first resource download.

Can I caption my voice and the other side of a call?

Yes. Choose microphone and system audio together for separate source labels and independent recognition and translation languages. Use headphones to reduce echo. This does not identify every remote speaker.

Does it automatically summarize my recordings with AI?

Alison creates editable transcripts and exports text, including Markdown. Summarization in a separate AI tool is your choice; sending text to a cloud tool changes where that text is processed.

Choose the next guide for your task

Use the related guides below to continue with the task you actually need: following live speech, translating it, preparing a file transcript, checking privacy or fixing audio permissions. Each guide explains its own setup and limits. Check your actual app, audio route and supported languages before a long session.