Core Audio · macOS 11+

Your Mac's audio, as a microphone. One toggle.

Bypass routes whatever your Mac is playing into a virtual microphone you can pick in QuickTime, Zoom, Meet, or OBS — while you keep hearing everything normally on your real speakers. No cables, no feedback, no capture per app.

Bypass
Bypass microphone is installed
Send my audio into Bypass
Routes your system output to Bypass while you keep hearing it normally.
((•)) Bypass is receiving audio
What it does

A real microphone, fed by your speakers.

Only a driver can add a selectable audio input on macOS — so Bypass ships one, and drives it with a feedback-free routing trick instead of per-app capture.

One toggle

Flip it on and your system audio is duplicated into Bypass. Flip it off and everything returns to normal. That's the entire UI.

🎙

Virtual microphone

A Core Audio HAL driver publishes a real input device. Pick Bypass as the mic in QuickTime, Zoom, Meet, OBS — anywhere.

Zero feedback

A Multi-Output Device driven on your real device's clock — no process taps, no feedback loop. The loopback stays clean.

🔊

You still hear it

Audio plays on your real speakers or headphones and streams into Bypass at the same time. No monitoring gymnastics.

▂▅▇

Live meter

A level meter reads the Bypass mic so you can see audio actually arriving before you hit record.

Signed & notarized

Distributed as a Developer ID–signed, notarized build. The driver installs cleanly — no quarantine surprises.

How it works

One route. No taps.

The toggle builds a Multi-Output Device that plays to your real output and the Bypass driver. The driver loops its output straight back to its input through a shared ring buffer — so anything played to Bypass can be recorded from Bypass.

🔀
Route
Multi-Output Device
🔁
Loopback
Bypass.driver (HAL)
Capture
QuickTime · Zoom · OBS
Quick start

Download, or build from source.

Grab the signed DMG from Releases, or clone and build it yourself in a couple of commands.

# clone $ git clone git@github.com:alileza/bypass.git $ cd bypass # build + install the virtual mic driver (asks for your password once) $ cd BypassDriver $ ./build_driver.sh && sudo ./install_driver.sh && cd .. # build the app $ xcodebuild -project Bypass.xcodeproj -scheme Bypass build # …or produce a signed, notarized DMG (needs a Developer ID cert) $ ./release.sh
RequirementNotes
macOS 11 (Big Sur) or later The HAL driver targets 11.0+; universal (arm64 + x86_64).
Admin password (once) Installing the driver copies it to /Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/HAL.
Xcode / clang Only if you build from source instead of downloading the DMG.
Set app output to "Bypass Output" Apps that follow system output need nothing; apps that pick a specific device (e.g. Ableton) point their output at Bypass Output.