How to Record Your Screen in Windows 11?

If you are familiar with macOS, it comes with a default Screenshots app. This app not only helps to capture the screen but also allows you to record the screen. Windows Snipping Tool for long time did not have this screen recording feature. Fortunately, Microsoft added the feature in Snipping Tool and you also have some alternate options that comes with Windows 11 as default functions which you can use for recording screens. In this article, we will explain how to record your screen in Windows 11 using default options as well as with third-party apps.

Recording Your Screen

You may want to record the screen for creating training material or for preparing tutorials. People also live stream the screen or record game plays and share in social platforms like YouTube. Therefore, selecting the screen recording app completely depends on the purpose you want to use it for. The default Windows 11 options have restrictions in terms of customizations and usage. If you want to have more features then you need to go for premium apps available in Microsoft Store or directly purchase from third-party developer’s sites.

1. Record Screen with Snipping Tool

Make sure to update your Windows to the latest version for using this feature. Search and open Snipping Tool and select the screen recording icon. After that, click on “New” button to start your recording.

Select the region on the screen for recording and click on the “Record” button. You will see the counter starts running before recording which you can use for preparing the mouse pointer to the required area.

After finishing your recording, click the “Stop Recording” button and you will see the captured recording in the Snipping Tool app. You can play the video and save it as a MP4 file. If you have setup to automatically save the captures, the captured video will be saved in your “Videos” folder by default.

As of now, the app only helps to record video without any sound.

2. Using Xbox Game Bar

Windows comes with Xbox Game Bar app which helps gamers to open useful widgets while playing the game. This app comes with may features including screen capture, performance and resource monitoring while playing game. Though Xbox Game Bar is primarily useful when you want to capture the recording of your gaming, you can also use for recording other screen activities.

• Press “Windows Logo + G” keys to open Xbox Game Bar.
• Use the navigational arrow or click on the “Widget Menu” and open “Capture” widget.

• Capture widget has multiple options and click on the “Start recording” button. If required, you can click on the microphone icon and enable the audio for your screen recording.

• The recording will start by capturing the activities on your entire screen. The “Capture Status” box will show the recording time and you can press the stop button to end the clip.

• You will see a success message showing “Game clip recorded” as shown below. You can click on the message or click on the “See my captures” link showing in the “Capture” widget.

• This will open the video player showing all your captured clips and you can play the clips to see how the recording looks.

The app by default stores the videos in “C:\Users\<Username>\Videos\Captures” folder. So, you can directly navigate to this folder in File Explorer to find all your screen recording. By default, “Win + G” is the shortcut to launch the app and you can use “Win + Alt + R” keys to start/stop the recording. If you want to change the default shortcuts, click the “Settings” icon showing in right end of Xbox Game Bar. Go to “Shortcuts” section and enter new shortcuts to replace the default keyboard shortcuts.

Under “Accounts” section, you can login with your Twitter account to share your screen captures. Though it is simple to capture the screen, Xbox Game Bar will not work on the desktop and File Explorer. You can only record the screen when using other apps though screen capture will work on all apps.

3. Screen Recording Using Microsoft Clipchamp

Microsoft Clipchamp is the new video editor app comes with Windows 11. However, you should have Microsoft 365 subscription to use the premium features like removing watermark, HD resolution and premium effects. There are also additional features like Brand Kit which you can get with separate subscription.

• Search and open Clipchamp app and login with your Microsoft account which has Microsoft 365 subscription.
• On the “Home” section, click on “Record something” option which allows you to record the screen.

• This will open the video editor with multiple options like screen recording, camera recording, screen & camera and text to speech.

• Click on “Screen recording” option and provide access to your microphone and camera. After that click on the record button.

• You will see a pop-up to select whether you want to record entire screen, selected app or Clipchamp app’s tabs. Select the item you want to record and click “Share” button.

• You will see a message showing “app.clipchamp.com is sharing your screen” and the recording will start.

• When you are done, click on the stop button. You will see the preview of your video with the options to retake or save/edit.

• The “Home” section will show your screen recording under “Your Videos” section. You can anytime open the recording and edit them using the editor. After editing the video, click on “Export” button and select the quality for creating a MP4 file.

• This will generate a video file which you can download to your computer or create a link and share with anyone. The app also allows you to share on YouTube, TikTok, Pinterest, Google Drive, OneDrive and Dropbox.

The only problem we found with Clipchamp is that the app is very slow and even crashing frequently when you edit the recording in video editor.

4. Screen Recording with Third-Party App

The last option to record your screen in Windows 11 is to use a third-party app. There are plenty of apps available for this purpose both for free and premium. You can use the premium apps like Camtasia from TechSmith to have full-fledged video recording app with editor. For simple recording without editing, you can use Snagit from the same TechSmith. The free apps available in Microsoft Store are having restrictions in length of recording time or add watermark. You need to upgrade the app to remove these restrictions. After checking various free apps, we found Cool Screen Recorder which is complete free app and offers decent features. The app also offers screenshot capture option with image editor.

• Go to Microsoft Store and install Cool Screen Recorder app.

• When launching the app, you may see an error in registering “Shift + F9” hotkey as it is used by other apps. Just ignore the error as you can change the hotkeys from the app’s settings.

• The app is simple to use and click the gear icon “Configure” from the sidebar. Here, you can setup the language, countdown duration, capture duration and always on top. You can also add overlay on your screen recording like text, image, webcam, etc. Check the “Copy Output file path to Clipboard” to save the output into your clipboard. Alternatively, click “Output Folder” option showing in bottom of the app and change the location where you want to save your screen recording files.

• Click on the “Configure” button to setup additional options like Hotkeys, screenshot image format, sounds, etc. As mentioned, you can replace “Shift + F9” keys with your favorite hotkey here to start/stop the recording with keyboard shortcuts.

• Once you finished the setup, go to “Home” section and choose the mode for screen recording. The app allows to record entire screen, only audio, specific monitor screen,  portion of the screen or specific app window. Select the video encoder, frames per second, quality and enable or disable audio/webcam for your recording.

• Below the top bar, you have icons to enable or disable mouse click, cursor, keystrokes, etc. Finally, click on the recording button showing on the top bar of the app or press the hotkey to start your recording.
• When you are done, click stop recording button or the hotkey and you will see a notification indicating the recorded video is saved in the output folder.

• Click on the notification to open the file (default MP4) in Media Player app. You can go to the output folder to find and share the screen recording files with anyone.

Final Words

Cool Screen Recorder is the best option to record your screen in Windows 11. This app offers all premium features, unlimited recording and no watermark on videos. Otherwise, you can try the default Xbox Game Bar options to record your screen with limited options. Though Clipchamp app offers lot of options and full video editor, you at least need Microsoft 365 subscription to use the app without restrictions. Snipping Tool is for sure in its initial stage and not much useful for professional screen recording purposes.