Have you ever needed to record something of what happens on your Mac screen? It could be because you want to save a part of a video and share it with your friends, or because you want to show someone how to do something with a Mac, record a FaceTime call, or document some strange PC behavior and report it to technical support.
Whatever the reason, you should know that it’s possible to record your Mac’s screen in an effortless way. In this article, we’ll tell you how to record screen on Mac.
Screen recording in macOS Big Sur
Time needed: 5 minutes
You are now able to use a specific tool that appears on the toolbar to record your Mac’s screen.
- Open the screen capture tool by pressing the keys ‘Cmd + Shift + 5’.
- Click on the ‘Record entire screen’ or ‘Record selected part’ button.
If you choose the first option, the recording of everything that happens on your screen will start immediately, if you choose the second option the recording will start once you have selected the part of the screen you want to record.
You can choose to schedule a certain recording time (5 or 10 seconds) before you start recording. To do so, you will have to open the ‘options’ section. - Click on the ‘stop’ button to stop recording.
The recording will appear in the lower right corner of the desktop. Control + click or right-click on the recording icon to open the MarkUp tools and edit your video if you need to.
This option is available only in macOS Mojave, to record the screen of your Mac in previous versions there are 2 other methods available.
How to record the screen on Mac using Movavi Screen Recorder
Movavi Screen Recorder is one of the best alternatives to screen recording on Mac, as it allows you to record and edit your videos quickly and easily.
- Download and install the application
To screen record on Mac using Movavi Screen recorder, you need to download the application. You can get it at
- Once installed, run the program.
- Set the recording parameters
When you start the program, choose the Record screen in the main window. Adjust the size of the capture frame by pulling its edges and moving it to any position on the screen. Now check the system and microphone audio icons. The green light indicates which device will be used for sound recording.
- Record your screen
When all parameters are set, click REC to start recording.
- Control the process by clicking Pause to pause or Stop to finish and save.
After you click Stop, you’ll see a preview window where you can view and trim the recording. If the video does not require further editing, click “Save as”, select the appropriate format in the export window, and then click Save. If you want to edit the recording, click Open in Editor.
And that’s it. Although Mac has some screen recording options of its own, Movavi Screen Recorder is the best option, thanks to its customization options and the possibility of editing in the same program.
How to record your screen with QuickTime
You can also record your screen on a Mac for free and easily with Quicktime, Apple’s native application.
Apple’s native application for playing video on a Mac not only serves this function but also has different features such as recording audio tracks, video tracks, and screen captures. The latter is the feature we are interested in for our tutorial, as it also allows us to capture them with audio recordings of our own voice through the microphone.
1. Start Quicktime. The application is usually in the dock configured as standard, otherwise, you can find it installed in the Applications folder. If for some reason Quicktime is not on the computer (because you don’t have it installed), you can download it from the Apple website.
2. Once you’ve started Quicktime you’ll see that there’s really no window at all, just a Q-shaped icon in the dock menu and the corresponding menu bar.
3. Go to the menu bar to the file tab and click on “new screen recording”. You can also use the shortcut on the keyboard ^ + Cmd + N.
4. Press the red button in the new window that appears and the screen recording will start.
5. Stop the recording in the “stop” icon of the menu bar.
Quicktime also offers other features. When recording the screen on Mac, you can activate the device’s microphone, the clicks you make on the screen, and select which part of the screen you want to record by accessing the menu displayed in the Quicktime video recording mode screen.
If you would like to learn about Movavi video editing software check our article about Movavi Review.
