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Govee music sync from a computer: microphone or system audio?

There are two completely different ways to make lights react to sound, and picking the wrong one is the most common reason music sync feels broken. One listens to the room. The other listens to the computer.

The difference in one paragraph

Microphone uses your computer's mic, so it reacts to whatever is audible in the room — including your speakers, your keyboard, and you talking. System audio taps the audio your computer is playing, before it reaches the speakers, so it reacts only to the music and works perfectly with headphones on.

Which should I use?

Windows: system audio. It uses the OS's native loopback and needs no extra software.
macOS, listening on speakers: microphone is the reliable choice.
macOS, listening on headphones: system audio, with the caveat below.
A record player, an instrument, a room: microphone, always. There is no system audio to tap.

Setting it up

Make sure your lights are already working — scan and add at least one realtime-capable device to the active group. If nothing appears, that is a LAN Control problem, not an audio one.
Pick Microphone or System Audio from the sidebar.
Press Start. On first use with Microphone, macOS asks for microphone permission; if you dismiss it, re-enable it in System Settings → Privacy & Security → Microphone.
Play something with an obvious beat and adjust Audio Sensitivity until the lights move with the track rather than flickering constantly or barely twitching.

The macOS system-audio caveat

Capturing what a Mac is playing is not something macOS offers cleanly to applications the way Windows does. GLanSync's macOS system-audio mode is marked experimental for that reason: it works on many setups and fails on some, depending on your macOS version and output device. If it does not pick anything up, that is the known limitation — switch to Microphone with speakers on, which is not a workaround so much as the more robust path on a Mac.

Windows has no such caveat. System-audio capture there is native and is the mode to use.

Screen sync and music at the same time

You do not have to choose. Audio blend keeps screen sync driving the colours while the music drives the brightness, so the lights still match what is on screen but pulse with the track. It is the mode with the highest repeat use among people who find it — worth trying for films and games rather than pure music listening.

If audio blend cannot capture audio, screen sync keeps running and the app says so instead of failing the whole session. You lose the pulsing, not the lights.

When the lights react to the wrong thing

They react when you talk or type. You are on Microphone. Switch to System Audio, or lower the sensitivity and move the laptop away from the keyboard.
Nothing happens with headphones on. Microphone hears the room, and with headphones the room is silent. System audio is the only mode that works here.
Constant flickering. Sensitivity is too high — it is triggering on background noise. Bring it down until quiet passages stay quiet.
Barely any movement on loud music. Sensitivity too low, or the system-audio tap picked up nothing on macOS. Try Microphone to confirm the lights themselves are fine.

Strobe is separate

Strobe mode can also be driven by system audio, flashing on musical energy rather than colouring to it. It is experimental and warns above 3 flashes per second. If you are photosensitive, or anyone in the room might be, leave it alone — ordinary music sync gives you the reactivity without the flashing.

Download GLanSync — free during launch

Check your model is supported, and if macOS says the download is damaged, that is expected.