How to Record Your Screen on Mac

Record your whole screen or one area with the built-in Cmd + Shift + 5 toolbar, add microphone audio, and find the saved video file.

You want a video of what is happening on your screen, with or without your voice over it. macOS has a screen recorder built in. No download is needed and the result is a standard .mov file.

Open the screenshot toolbar

Press Cmd + Shift + 5. A small toolbar appears near the bottom of the screen. The first three buttons take still screenshots. The two after them record video.

Choose entire screen or a selection

Click Record Entire Screen to capture everything on the display. If you have more than one display, click the one you want to record.

Click Record Selected Portion to capture one area instead. A dashed box appears. Drag its edges to frame the region, or drag the whole box to move it.

Set microphone and save location in Options

Click Options in the toolbar. Under Microphone, pick your built-in mic or a connected one to record your voice. Leave it at None for a silent recording. Under Save to, choose where the file goes. The default is the Desktop. Timer adds a delay before recording starts, which gives you time to arrange windows. Show Mouse Clicks draws a circle around the pointer each time you click, which helps in tutorials.

Start recording

Click Record. For a full-screen recording, you can also click anywhere on the screen. A recording indicator appears in the menu bar and the toolbar disappears.

Stop the recording

Click the Stop button in the menu bar (a circle with a square inside it), or press Cmd + Ctrl + Esc. A thumbnail shows briefly in the corner of the screen. Click it to trim the clip before it is saved, or leave it and the file lands in the location you chose, named with the date and time.

If you prefer QuickTime. Open QuickTime Player and choose File, New Screen Recording. It uses the same toolbar and options, and the recording opens in QuickTime afterwards so you can trim or export it.

If the recording has no system audio. The built-in recorder captures the microphone only, not the sound playing from apps. Recording app audio requires a separate audio-routing tool.

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