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How to record your screen with OpenScreen

This quick start walks through recording, trimming, and exporting your first video. See Installation first if you haven't installed OpenScreen yet.

1. Open the recording HUD​

Launching OpenScreen shows a small floating pill (the HUD) docked at the bottom of your screen. It stays on top of everything and doesn't intercept clicks until you interact with it.

2. Pick what to record​

Click the source picker (screen icon) to open the source selector. It lists your Screens and Windows in two tabs — pick a thumbnail and hit Select. On macOS 15.2 and later, you pick the screen or window in Apple's system picker instead.

On Linux the HUD has no source picker. It reads Your system will ask what to share: when you press record, your desktop's own sharing dialog asks for the screen or window, before the countdown and again on every take.

3. Turn on audio and webcam (optional)​

In the HUD's audio group, toggle:

  • System audio — captures what's playing on your machine.
  • Microphone — opens a level meter and a device picker so you can confirm the right mic is selected.
  • Webcam — opens a camera picker; the webcam records as a separate track you'll position later in the editor.

4. Record​

Click the record button. A 3‑2‑1 countdown appears over your desktop, then recording starts. While recording you can:

  • Pause / Resume
  • Restart — discard the current take and start over
  • Cancel — discard without saving

Click Stop when you're done.

5. Open the Studio​

Click Open Studio (or it opens automatically after stopping) to load your recording into the editor.

6. Trim and export​

  • Park the playhead where you want a cut and press T (or the scissors button) — a two-second trim region drops there. Drag its edges to adjust what gets removed.
  • Click Export in the top bar, check the format and quality, and hit Export.
  • When it finishes, click Show in folder to find your file.

That's the core loop. For the full editing toolset — zooms, speed changes, annotations, cursor styling, webcam layout — see Editing & timeline. To assemble several takes into one video, see Media library.

note

The top bar switches the editor between three modes: Media (your clips), Edit (everything above), and Record (set up the next recording without leaving the app).

tip

Save your work as a project (⌘/Ctrl S) before exporting if you want to come back and keep editing later — .openscreen project files keep every layer editable, unlike the exported video.