Before you change any settings: your audio may already be in the file. OBS can write several audio tracks into one recording, and ordinary players only ever play one of them. If your sources went onto track 2 and your player reads track 1, you get a video that looks fine and sounds like nothing happened.
OBS states this plainly in its own documentation:
"All standard video players will only play back one audio track at a time so if you are not planning on processing every video through an editor before publishing it, send all of your audio sources to track 1."
That sentence is the answer for a large share of "OBS recorded no audio" cases, and it is buried in a guide most people never open because they were not intentionally doing multi-track recording.
First, work out which case you are in
There are only two, and they have completely different fixes. Do not start changing settings until you know which one you have, because the fix for one does nothing for the other.
Case A — the audio is in the file, on a track you are not hearing. The recording is fine. You need to select a different track, or remux the file so the audio you want is the one players read.
Case B — the audio was never captured. Nothing to recover. OBS was not listening to the source you assumed it was.
The fastest way to tell them apart is to open the recording in a player that can switch audio tracks — VLC does this — and step through the available tracks. If one of them has sound, you are in Case A.
If you would rather not install anything, extracting the audio tells you something useful too:
Try it right here
Runs in your browser. Your file is not uploaded anywhere.
Be aware of exactly what this checks. The tool extracts the first audio track (-map 0:a:0 internally), so a result with sound means track 1 is fine, and a silent or failed result means track 1 specifically is empty. It does not reach track 2. For that you need a tool that lets you pick the track, or the command line — extracting audio with FFmpeg covers -map 0:a:1 and why the choice matters.
That distinction is worth stating rather than glossing over: a silent extraction here is evidence about track 1, not proof the recording is empty.
If you are in Case A
You have a working recording with the audio on the wrong track. Two ways out.
Re-mix it once. Open the file in any editor that can see multiple audio tracks, select the one you want, and export. This is the reliable route when the file matters.
Change OBS so it does not happen again. This is what the documentation quoted above recommends: if the recording is going to be watched directly rather than edited, send every audio source to track 1. Multi-track is a post-production convenience; if you are not doing post-production, it is only a way to lose your audio.
The other official instruction is the counterpart to it:
"Assign each of your audio sources to its own recording track."
That is the deliberate multi-track setup — separate tracks so you can balance mic against game audio later. It is genuinely useful, and it is also exactly the configuration that produces a silent-looking file if you then upload the recording straight to somewhere.
So the decision is simple: editing afterwards → separate tracks. Publishing directly → everything on track 1. Problems come from having the first configuration while intending the second.
If you are in Case B
Nothing was captured, and nothing can be recovered — that recording is silent permanently. What remains is making sure the next one is not.
Check these in order, cheapest first:
- Were the meters moving? OBS shows a level meter per audio source in the mixer. If they were flat while recording, that source was capturing nothing, and no amount of output configuration would have helped. This single observation separates a capture problem from a routing problem.
- Is the device the one you are actually using? The classic case is switching between headphones and speakers: sound goes to one device while OBS is told to listen to the other. OBS records what you pointed it at, not what you are hearing.
- Is desktop audio enabled at all? System sound is not captured automatically — it is a source you add. A recording with a working mic and no game audio is almost always this.
- Is a virtual audio device in the path? Virtual mixers route audio somewhere other than where the operating system says it goes. If you installed one and recordings went silent afterwards, that is the first thing to remove from the equation.
Check before the recording that matters
Every fix above is applied after the fact, which is the wrong end of the problem — the recording you lose is usually the one you cannot repeat. A thirty-second test costs nothing and catches both cases at once.
Record for half a minute with everything running the way it will run for real: the same devices connected, the same applications open, the same headphones plugged in or not. Then play that file back the way the recording will actually be consumed — in the player your viewers will use, or by uploading it somewhere private, not by scrubbing it inside an editor that happily reads every track.
That last part is what makes the test meaningful. An editor showing you all the audio tracks will tell you the recording is fine, and it is fine — in the editor. The question you need answered is whether it is fine in a player that reads one track, and the only way to answer it is to use one.
Two things worth watching during that half-minute:
- The meters, while recording. Flat meters mean Case B, and you find out in thirty seconds instead of after the event.
- Whether devices changed since last time. Headphones connecting over Bluetooth, a dock being plugged in, a driver update reordering inputs — the setup that worked last week is not automatically the setup you have now, and OBS keeps pointing at whatever you configured originally.
Why "no audio" and "no audio track" look identical
Worth knowing, because it explains why searching for this is so frustrating: a file with a silent track and a file with the audio on a different track look exactly the same in a normal player. Both play video, both produce no sound, and neither shows you anything about tracks.
A player that exposes track selection is the difference between diagnosing this in ten seconds and spending an evening changing OBS settings that were never wrong. That is why the first section of this page is about identifying the case rather than fixing anything.
FAQ
Why does my OBS recording have video but no sound? Most often the audio was recorded to a track your player does not read. OBS notes that standard players only play one track at a time, and recommends sending all sources to track 1 if you are not editing afterwards.
Can I recover audio that was not recorded? No. If a source was never captured, there is nothing in the file to retrieve. That is why checking whether the mixer meters were moving is the important diagnostic — it tells you whether anything was captured at all.
How do I check which audio tracks a file contains? Open it in a player that lists audio tracks, such as VLC, and switch between them. Extracting the audio also tells you about the first track specifically, but not about the others.
Should I record multiple audio tracks? Only if you will edit the recording afterwards. Separate tracks let you balance mic against desktop audio in post. If you publish recordings directly, the same setup is the thing most likely to make your audio disappear.
Why did this start happening after I installed a virtual audio mixer? Virtual audio devices change where sound actually flows, which can leave OBS listening to a device that no longer receives anything. Take it out of the path and test again before adjusting OBS.
Quotes from the OBS Multiple Audio Track Recording Guide, checked 16 September 2026. Related: extract audio from video, or all Clapr tools.
