Recording

What it does

StreamTap captures the audio your PC is playing — the mix that comes out of one of your playback devices. That includes everything at once: browser tabs, a video call, a media player, game audio, system sounds.

It uses WASAPI loopback capture, the same mechanism Windows uses internally, so there's no virtual audio cable to install and no change to how your audio is routed. What you hear is what gets recorded.

How to use it

1. Start the audio playing first, so you can confirm the meter is moving.
2. Check Record from. It starts on Default, which follows whatever Windows is using — see Choosing a device below.
3. Press RECORD. The timer counts up and the System meter shows the current peak level: teal normally, amber above 70%, red above 90%.
4. Press PAUSE to leave a stretch out of the recording, and again to carry on.
5. Press STOP. StreamTap converts and writes the file, then shows the filename in the status bar.

The meter is a level indicator, not a volume control. StreamTap records at the level the app is playing at — turning your speakers down doesn't make the recording quieter, but turning the app's volume down does.

Choosing a device

Record from lists every playback device Windows currently has switched on. Pick the one the audio you want is actually coming out of — if a call is on your headset while music plays through your monitor, they are two different devices and StreamTap records whichever one you choose.

Default is not the same as picking your current default device by name. It means follow Windows: switch your output later and the next recording follows it. Choose a device by name and StreamTap keeps recording that device, whatever Windows is doing.

Your choice is remembered. If the device is gone next time — a headset unplugged, a monitor switched off — StreamTap goes back to Default rather than recording something you did not ask for.

Pausing

PAUSE stops the recording without ending it. The pause is not in the file at all: a ten-minute session with four minutes paused produces six minutes of audio, joined at the point you paused, and the timer counts recorded time rather than the clock on the wall.

The meters drop to zero while paused, because nothing is reaching the file. Press RESUME to carry on into the same recording.

Long recordings

There is no length limit. StreamTap buffers to a WAV while it records, and a WAV cannot describe more than 4 GB — roughly three hours — so shortly before that it opens a new file and carries straight on into it.

When a recording is split this way, the files are numbered: StreamTap_20260822_101500_part1.mp3, _part2, and so on, in order. A recording that never needed to split keeps the plain name it has always had.

Nothing is lost at the join. The next file opens before the previous one closes, so the parts run continuously — play them back to back and the recording is unbroken. The status bar shows which part is being written as it goes.

You can also split on purpose. Under Settings → Recording, choose an interval — every 15 or 30 minutes, every hour, every 2 hours — and StreamTap starts a new file at each one. That is measured in recorded time, so a pause does not count towards it. Off is the default, and off still means the 4 GB roll-over above: that one is not a preference, it is the format giving out.

If StreamTap closes before it can save

A crash, a power cut, or Windows restarting for an update in the middle of a recording does not lose it. StreamTap keeps the file on disk up to date every few seconds as it records, and the next time you open it, it moves what was captured into your output folder and tells you so. The file is a WAV named after when the recording started, ending _recovered — StreamTap_20260929_101500_recovered.wav — with a separate _mic file beside it if the microphone was on. The two are not mixed together, since mixing happens at STOP too.

At most the last few seconds before the interruption are missing. It is saved as WAV even if you had chosen MP3, because the MP3 is only made when you press STOP.

What is not captured

• Audio playing on a device you did not select. StreamTap records one playback device at a time — the one under Record from.
• Your microphone, unless you turn it on — see Recording your microphone.
• Apps using exclusive-mode audio. A few pro-audio and ASIO applications take exclusive control of the device, which bypasses loopback capture entirely.

Troubleshooting

• Silent or zero-length file → No audio was captured
• Distorted, clipped-sounding recording → the source is too loud. Lower the volume in the app you're recording (not the Windows master volume) and watch for the meter sitting in the red.
• Very long recordings are written to a temp file first, then converted on STOP. A multi-hour MP3 can take a few seconds to encode — the status bar says "Saving...".
• "StreamTap can't save into this folder" when you press RECORD → Windows Security's Controlled folder access protects your Music folder, which is where StreamTap saves by default. Either allow StreamTap through it (Windows Security → Virus & threat protection → Ransomware protection → Allow an app through Controlled folder access), or press Browse and pick another folder.
• Recording a 5.1 or 7.1 device to MP3 → MP3 is stereo, so the surround channels are folded into left and right, centre dialogue included. Choose WAV to keep every channel separate.

Related

• Getting started
• Output formats and quality