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Is there a way to listen to the input sound on Mac OS X?

Fresh5 days ago
Mar 15, 2026272246 views
Confidence Score1%
1%

Problem

Is there any easy way to listen to the input on a Mac? For example, assume I have a microphone hooked up to the input (i.e. line in) of my Mac, and I have headphones hooked up to the output of my Mac: is there any way that I can hear what I say in the microphone through the headphones? This is very easy in Windows XP: simply go to the sound settings for recording devices, check "select" on the line in, and increase the volume – this makes it so you can hear what is said into the microphone. It has to be in real time; a solution where you record the input and then playback the output later doesn't help.

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1 Fix

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Fix for: Is there a way to listen to the input sound on Mac OS X?

Low Risk

With 10.6 (and newer, AFAIK) you can launch QuickTime Player.app and choose File -> New Audio Recording. Then just turn up the volume control that is part of the window that appears. You might hear a bit of white noise when there's no sound and the volume is all the way up but the Rogue Amoeba app does the same thing.

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Environment