Every desktop system now ships a screen recorder, and for most recordings it is the right tool: one shortcut, a file on your desktop, nothing to install. What the built-ins don't do is put your camera in the corner, and a Mac before macOS 27 can't record the sound it plays. That is where a browser tab helps.
Choose what to share, then press Record.
| Your computer | Built-in recorder | Start | Sound |
|---|---|---|---|
| macOS 26 and earlier | Screenshot app | ⌘⇧5 | A microphone |
| macOS 27 | Screenshot app | ⌘⇧5 | A microphone, and Include System Audio |
| Windows 11 | Snipping Tool | Win+Shift+R | Microphone and system audio, in current versions |
| Windows 10 and 11 | Xbox Game Bar (one app) | Win+Alt+R | Microphone with Win+Alt+M |
| Linux, GNOME | Built-in screencast | Shift+Ctrl+Alt+R | Not documented by GNOME |
| Linux, X11 | FFmpeg | One command | Add an audio input |
On a Mac: ⌘⇧5
The Screenshot app records as well as it captures. It needs no setup beyond a one-time permission, and the file lands on your desktop.
- Press ⌘⇧5 (Shift, Command and 5).
- In the toolbar, choose Record Entire Screen, Record Selected Portion (then drag the frame), or, on macOS 26 Tahoe and later, Record Selected Window.
- Click Options to pick a Microphone, a Timer, Show Mouse Clicks, and where to Save to (the desktop by default). On macOS 27, Include System Audio is there too.
- Click Record. To stop, click the stop button in the menu bar, or press ⌘⌃Esc.
The file is a .mov named Screen Recording (date) at (time), and it opens in
QuickTime Player and iMovie. QuickTime Player's File › New Screen Recording
opens the same toolbar. The steps are from
Apple's screen recording page. Some apps,
such as the Apple TV app, block recording of their windows.
For a script, the same thing is in Terminal: screencapture -v records until
you stop it, -V takes a number of seconds, -g adds the default microphone
and -k shows clicks (from man screencapture on macOS 26.5). Terminal then
needs Screen & System Audio Recording permission under System Settings ›
Privacy & Security. Our test Mac had not granted it, so we read the manual but
did not record with it.
On Windows: the Snipping Tool, or Game Bar
On Windows 11 the Snipping Tool records the screen or any part of it:
- Press Win+Shift+R, or open the Snipping Tool, choose Record, then New.
- Drag over the area to record, then choose Start.
- Choose Stop when you are done. Save the recording as it is, or choose Edit in Clipchamp to cut it.
Since version 11.2307.44.0 it can also record the PC's sound and a microphone, with defaults for both in its settings (Windows Insider blog). If those options are missing, update it from the Microsoft Store. Steps are from Microsoft's Snipping Tool page.
Xbox Game Bar is the other built-in, on Windows 10 too. Win+Alt+R starts and stops a recording of the app in front, Win+Alt+M turns the microphone on and off, and the MP4 goes to Videos › Captures (Microsoft's Game Bar page). It is made for games and records one app's window, so use the Snipping Tool for the desktop or several windows.
We have not run either on Windows; the steps are Microsoft's.
On Linux: a shortcut, or FFmpeg
GNOME records with Shift+Ctrl+Alt+R, or Print, then the video icon in the screenshot bar. Click the red indicator in the top bar to stop. The file is saved in Videos › Screencasts (GNOME Help).
On an X11 session, FFmpeg records the display with one command:
ffmpeg -f x11grab -framerate 30 -video_size 1280x720 -i :0 -t 10 -c:v libx264 -pix_fmt yuv420p screen.mp4
Set -video_size to your screen and -i to your display (echo $DISPLAY).
Leave out -t 10 to record until you press q.
We ran it (with :99 and -t 3) on FFmpeg 7.1.5 against a 1280×720 virtual
display (Xvfb 21.1.16, Debian): the file was H.264, 1280×720, 90 frames at
30 fps, exactly 3.000 s, and the frame we pulled out showed the clock we had
put on that display. x11grab reads an X11 display, so on a Wayland session
use the desktop's own recorder. FFmpeg's
device documentation covers the Mac
(avfoundation) and Windows (gdigrab) equivalents.
The sound the computer plays
Every route above records a microphone easily. The computer's own output (the other side of a call, a video in a tab) is the hard part, and it differs per system: built in on Windows and Linux, macOS 27 or a driver on a Mac. How to record what your computer is playing goes through each one.
In the browser: with your camera in it
The Screen Recorder records a screen, a window or a tab with your microphone, the computer's or the tab's sound, and your camera drawn into the video as a bubble. It is written to your browser's storage as it records, so a crash or a closed tab loses about a second.
- Open the Screen Recorder on Record video. Leave Microphone on, and turn on Camera bubble if you want your face in it. Allow the browser to use them.
- Click Choose what to share. In the browser's dialog, pick Entire screen, a Window or a tab. For the computer's sound, keep System or tab audio on and tick the audio box at the bottom of the dialog.
- The share appears in the preview. Drag the bubble where you want it, or move it to a corner, and choose its shape (Circle, Square or Wide) and size.
- Press Record. After the countdown (3 s unless you change it under Video settings), switch to what you want to show. The recording keeps going while this tab is in the background.
- Stop with Stop here, the browser's own Stop sharing bar, or Floating controls, a small window with the timer, Pause and Stop that stays on top in Chrome.
- The recording is listed under In this browser. Use Trim to cut the start and end, then Download for an MP4.
The download is MP4 with H.264 and AAC wherever the browser can encode them, the format QuickTime, Films & TV and video editors expect. Video settings sets the size (Source, up to 4K, 1080p or 720p), 15, 30 or 60 frames a second, and Quality. At 1080p, 30 fps and High, an hour takes up to about 3 GB of the browser's storage, and the recorder shows how much room is left. Recordings stay in the browser until you delete them; they are also in My files, for the other tools on this site.
The limits are the browser's, and the recorder says so before you start:
- The camera bubble needs Chrome or Edge on a computer (or a Safari that lets a background thread read the camera). Elsewhere it records without the bubble.
- Firefox records WebM, and Firefox and Safari share a screen without its sound. Your microphone still records.
- A whole Mac's sound needs Chrome 141 or newer on macOS 14.2 or newer. Linux shares a tab's sound only, and Chrome on Linux has no AAC encoder, so the sound there is Opus: the file plays in browsers and VLC, not QuickTime. The recording says so.
- Phones and tablets can't record their screen from a page.
The Screenshot tab takes a still of a screen, a window or a tab, now or after a delay, or opens one you took with your system's keys (paste it, or drop it on the page). It opens in an editor with crop, arrows, text, numbered steps and Redact, which removes the pixels from every file you save.
A pasted screenshot with the email redacted and an arrow to the button.
Which to use
- A Mac: ⌘⇧5. On macOS 27, tick Include System Audio for the Mac's sound.
- Windows 11: Win+Shift+R, the Snipping Tool. Game Bar for one app or a game.
- Linux: Shift+Ctrl+Alt+R on GNOME, or the
ffmpeg -f x11grabline on X11. - Your face in the corner, the sound of a call on an older Mac, or a trimmed MP4 without opening an editor: the Screen Recorder in Chrome or Edge. Share, record, and download the MP4 when you stop.
