Audacity Workaround for macOS Catalina For those who already upgraded to Catalina and can't use Audacity to record, there is a work around. Go to Applications Utilities. How to Give System Permissions for Apps on MacOS Catalina. Starting with macOS 10.14 Mojave, Apple has introduced a new security feature that ensures third-party applications work safely with your data. Audacity 2.3.3 is not officially supported yet to run under Catalina (the new version 2.4.0 does run properly on Catalina). It appears to launch and run fine but it fails to record from the microphone (or external USB device) yielding only a flat-line silent recording.
If you’ve recently upgraded your Mac to Catalina or Mac OS 10.15.1, you may have noticed that Audacity is no longer working. To get it working, you’ll need to download version Audacity 2.3.3. However, installing and running it normally the way you’ve done it in the past will not be enough. Because of Catalina, Audacity is not able to gain permissions to the microphone inputs. The only way I was able to get it working is to launch Audacity from the Terminal.
Launch Audacity from the Terminal.
Audacity Catalina 2020
Audacity Catalina Recording
Click Ok if prompted to use the microphone.