Where apps hide your files

Finding your Audio Hijack recordings

Updated 2026-10-28 · 5 min read

Audio Hijack saves a recording wherever its Recorder block is told to, and by default that is an Audio Hijack folder inside your Music folder. The quickest way to any recording is the app's own Recordings tab.

The default folder

Audio Hijack's manual says the Recorder block defaults to saving an MP3 file into an Audio Hijack sub-folder of your Mac's Music folder. That is:

~/Music/Audio Hijack

Files are named with the session name, date and time, per the manual. To open the folder, choose Go > Go to Folder in Finder (⇧⌘G), paste the path and press Return, or from Terminal:

open ~/Music/Audio\ Hijack

Treat the default as a starting point. The save location is a setting on each Recorder block, so a session you or someone else configured may point anywhere: Desktop, an external drive, a project folder. If ~/Music/Audio Hijack is empty or missing, use the next section.

The surest way: the Recordings tab

Every session window has a sidebar on its right side with five tabs: Blocks, Recordings, Schedule, Scripting and Info. The manual says the Recordings tab shows the recordings previously made by that session, plus any in progress. Select one or more and use the Actions menu to reveal them in Finder, open them in an audio editor, add them to the Music app or share them. The files are wherever the session saved them; the tab is a shortcut to them.

Two details help:

• The list is per session. If you cannot see a recording, you may be looking at the wrong session.
• The manual says Remove From List takes an item off the Recordings tab without touching the file. If a recording has vanished from the list, the file may still exist in the folder.

Double-clicking a recording, or selecting it and clicking Inspect, opens the Recording Inspector with its full details.

Changing where recordings go

Click the dark blue title area of the Recorder block to open its popover. The manual says the file name and save location can be adjusted there. You choose a folder per block, so a podcast session can record to one place and a music capture to another.

The same popover is where you pick the format. The Quality menu on the General tab has six default options, and the Advanced Format Options section lets you set a specific file format and exact settings. MP3 is the default. The File Limits tab holds controls for splitting and stopping recordings.

Other places Audio Hijack puts files

• Transcribe block: per the manual, transcripts are text files saved by default to ~/Documents/Audio Hijack, in a sub-folder named with the date and time plus "Transcription". That is a different folder from your audio.
• Session export: with a session open, or highlighted in the Session List window, choose Export Session from the Session menu. Audio Hijack saves it as a .ah4session file. That file holds the session setup, not audio, and it is the supported way to back up or move a session. Double-clicking it, or Import Session, brings it back.
• App data: the manual says sessions are saved continuously as you adjust them, but it does not say where on disk. Homebrew's uninstall list for Audio Hijack names ~/Library/Application Support/Audio Hijack 4, so that is the likely home of the app's own data. Check what exists with ls ~/Library/Application\ Support | grep -i hijack, and use export rather than copying that folder.

Space

Recordings are the only thing in this guide that grows large. Uncompressed formats take far more room than MP3, so long sessions in a lossless format can run to gigabytes. To see what is using the space:

du -sh ~/Music/Audio\ Hijack

To clear space, select recordings in the Recordings tab and choose Move to Trash, which the manual says places the files in the Mac's Trash. Or drag the ones you keep to an external drive in Finder, then use Remove From List to tidy the tab. Stop a session before removing anything it is still writing.

Recordings that seem to be missing

Check these in order before assuming a recording is lost:

1. Look at the Recordings tab of the session that made it, and use Actions to reveal the file.
2. Check the Recorder block's save location. It may point to a folder or drive you forgot about.
3. If the save location is an external or network drive, make sure it is connected. A session cannot write to a drive that is not there.
4. Search for the session name, since file names include it.

Moving to a new Mac

Export your sessions, then copy the recordings folder to the new Mac. Recordings are ordinary audio files and play anywhere. Sessions are the part that takes effort to rebuild, so export them before you wipe a machine.

Why a normal search misses them

Your own recordings are in ordinary folders, so Spotlight can find them if indexing is on, but they are easy to lose among other results because each is named with a session name and a timestamp. And any session pointed at an external drive disappears from search when the drive is unplugged.

Finding recordings next time

Because each file name includes the session name and date, typing the session name into Everywhere lists every recording that session made, and adding part of the date narrows it down. Music and Documents are folders macOS protects, so Everywhere covers them once it has Full Disk Access, which it asks for during setup; with that, it also keeps listing recordings on an external disk after you unplug it. Press ⌘Y to preview a recording. It matches names only, not what was said.

Common questions

Where does Audio Hijack save recordings on a Mac?

By default in an Audio Hijack folder inside your Music folder, ~/Music/Audio Hijack, as MP3 files named with the session name, date and time. Each Recorder block has its own save location, so check the session's Recordings tab to be sure.

How do I find an Audio Hijack recording in Finder?

Open the session, click the Recordings tab in the sidebar on the right, select the recording and use the Actions menu to reveal it in Finder.

How do I change where Audio Hijack saves recordings?

Click the dark blue title area of the session's Recorder block to open its popover and adjust the save location there. The setting belongs to each block, not to the app.

Where does Audio Hijack save transcriptions?

By default in ~/Documents/Audio Hijack, in a sub-folder named with the date and time plus Transcription, according to the manual. That is separate from the audio recordings.