How to Record Your Screen in Mac?

Screen recording is useful to capture the steps you do on your Mac and create instructional videos from that. You can also record the video calls and watch them later when you are free. Mac comes with few default options for screen recording. There are also many third-party apps available for this purpose. In this article, we will explain both the default and third-party apps to record your screen in Mac with audio.

Before Recording Your Screen

There are two points you need to consider before recording the screen privacy and permissions. Do not record audio and video calls of others without their consent. For example, you can inform the audience that the video call will be recorded before doing so or communicate to them in advance over email about the recording.

All third-party apps need permissions for accessing your microphone, camera and monitor screen for recording. You can provide necessary permissions and remove them any time later when you do not need them. Default macOS apps do not any additional permissions for access.

1. Using Screenshot App for Screen Recording in Mac

The first and easy method to record your Mac screen is to use the default Screenshot app.

• First, make sure you are ready with screen recording and press “Command + Shift + 5” keys.
• This will open Screenshot app which allows you to take screenshot and record your screen.
• You have two methods to record the screen – Record Entire Screen and Record Selected Portion. Select the method and you will see the cursor changes like a camera.

• Click on the “Options” button to open a list of menu items. Here you can choose the location for saving recorded file, set timer if needed, enable microphone and allow to show mouse clicks in recording. Make sure to select the microphone if you want to record the audio also.

• Finally, click the “Record” button to start the recording. If you have set the timer, the record button will show the set time and clicking on it will start the timer.

• You can press the “Cancel” button or escape key to terminate the recording before it starts.
• After the screen recording starts, you will see a button on the top menu bar along with an orange color dot in the Control Center icon. The orange dot indicates the Screenshot app is using your microphone.

• Simply click on the record button on the top menu bar to end your screen recording. If you have selected “Show Floating Thumbnail” in “Options”, then you will see a video thumbnail floating on bottom right corner of the screen. Otherwise, the recorded file will be saved on the selected location as .mov file.

• You can anytime open the .mov file with QuickTime Player and watch the recorded screen with audio. You can also use iMovie or any other supported apps to watch and edit the recorded video.

2. Using QuickTime Player for Screen Recording

Instead of using Screenshot app, you can also use QuickTime Player app in Mac.

• Press “Command + Space” to open Spotlight Search
• Type “quicktime” and open QuickTime Player app.

• The app will ask you to open an existing video when launching and click “Cancel” button to go to the app.
• QuickTime Player app does not have any home screen. Therefore, you need to use the top menu items when the app is active.
• Go to “File” menu and select “New Screen Recording” or press “Command + Control + N” keys.

• This will open the same Screenshot app for recording your screen. Follow the instructions as explained in above method and record your screen.

In addition to recording your screen, you can use QuickTime Player app to record a movie using your camera or simply record the audio without video. You can also connect your iPhone to Mac and record iPhone’s screen from Mac using QuickTime Player app.

3. Screen Recorder by Omi – Third-Party App

Above methods work well to record your Mac screen but you do not have an option to edit the recorded video. This is a problem as screen recordings will always have an unnecessary portion on the start / end of the videos. The best solution in this case is to use a third-party screen recording app instead of the default option. Though there are many apps available in Mac App Store for this purpose, most of them are premium or offers in-app purchase. After searching, we found Screen Recorder by Omi app which is completely a free app. This app offers the following features:

• Select the portion or entire screen for recording.
• Use camera or picture-in-picture mode.
• Record sounds and mouse clicks.
• Set resolution and frame rate.
• In-built video editor for trimming unnecessary portion of videos.

Go to Mac App Store and search for “screen recorder”. Find and install Screen Recorder by Omi app.

When opening, the app will ask you to provide three permissions – Camera, Microphone and Screen Recording.

Click the “Allow” button against “Screen” option and then click on “Open system Preferences” button. As mentioned above, you need to manually provide permissions for third-party apps in Mac.

This will open Mac system preferences, click on the padlock and provide your administrator password to unlock the screen for editing. After that, enable the checkbox for “Screen Recorder by Omi” in “Screen Recording” section.

You will be prompted to quit the app for the permissions to take effect and click “Quit & Reopen” button.

When the app reopens, you will see the permission for “Screen” will show as “Allowed” indicating the required permission is provided. Similarly, you can provide other permissions for accessing your microphone and camera.

After providing necessary app permissions, click on the app icon showing on the top menu bar.

You can directly select the mode from the menu or click “Select Recording Mode” menu to show all recording options offered by the app.

Select the mode to view customization options screen. Here you can enable or disable microphone, PiP mode, system sound and mouse clicks. You can also change the video size, frame rate, resolution and duration. After setting up, click on the record button and the timer will start before recording your screen.

During recording the screen, you can anytime pause the video or restart over again. After recording your screen, click on the stop button to save your video.  

The video will be saved in .mp4 format and it will open the video list showing all your saved items. Simply click on the play button to watch the recording or click on the scissor icon to open the in-built editor. Alternatively, right-click on your video and select “Edit” option.

You can use the video editor to trim the start and end portions similar to editing videos on your iPhone. In addition, you can change quality, resolution, frame rate and adjust audio to improve the overall quality of your screen recording. After editing, view the preview and export the final video for sharing with others.

You can access editor, player and select modes from the app’s menu from top menu bar. “Video Conversion/Compression” menu is not part of the app, it will take you to App Store and prompt to install Video Converter X2 app. This is also a complete free app helps to convert and compress videos in various formats like MP3, MP4, AVI, MOV, M4A, WAV, etc.