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Screen recording

Recording happens through the HUD — a draggable, always-on-top overlay pill. It ignores mouse clicks everywhere except its own controls, so it never gets in the way of the app you're recording.

Choosing a source​

The source picker button shows the currently selected screen or window (truncated) and is disabled once recording starts. Clicking it opens a separate window with two tabs:

  • Screens — one card per display.
  • Windows — one card per open window, with its app icon.

Pick a thumbnail and hit Select. On macOS 15.2 and later, the button opens Apple's system picker instead. If no source is selected when you hit record, OpenScreen opens the picker first and starts recording automatically once you choose one.

There is no region capture: you record a whole screen or a window, and crop the frame afterwards, clip by clip, in the editor.

On Linux the HUD shows no source picker, only Your system will ask what to share. The ScreenCast portal owns that choice: pressing record opens your desktop's sharing dialog before the countdown, and it asks again on every take.

Audio​

Three toggles live in a single control group:

  • System audio — captures what's playing on the machine. Disabled once recording starts.
  • Microphone — toggling it on (while idle) opens a popup with a live 5-bar audio level meter and a dropdown of every available input device, so you can confirm the right mic before you go live.
  • Webcam — toggling it on shows a camera picker with the same states you'd expect (searching, unavailable, no camera found). The webcam records as its own track, composited later in the editor.

System audio support depends on your OS — see platform differences.

Cursor mode​

On Windows, macOS, and Linux, a cursor-mode toggle switches between:

  • Editable overlay (default) — the OS cursor stays out of the pixels and its movement is recorded as data, so OpenScreen can draw a cursor you theme, resize, and animate in the editor.
  • System — records the OS cursor as-is, unedited.

What the editable overlay captures depends on the platform:

  • Windows — the real cursor shape and clicks.
  • macOS — the cursor shape and clicks, which need the Accessibility permission. In this mode, pressing record without it opens the permissions window instead of starting (see macOS installation).
  • Linux — position and shape through the ScreenCast portal, plus left clicks when your user is in the input group (see Mouse clicks on Wayland).

A Linux take that falls back to browser capture records the system cursor, whichever mode you picked.

Recording controls​

  • Record / Stop — a pill that shows the source name on hover when idle, and a live mm:ss elapsed timer while recording (the background turns amber if paused).
  • Pause / Resume — available mid-recording.
  • Restart — throws away the current take and starts fresh.
  • Cancel — discards the current take without saving.
  • Open Studio — switches to the editor (hidden while recording).

Countdown​

Hitting record triggers a 3‑2‑1 countdown, rendered as a full-desktop overlay, before capture actually starts.

Other HUD controls​

  • Layout toggle — switches the HUD between horizontal and vertical, persisted across sessions.
  • Settings — device settings for the selected mic and camera without leaving the HUD.
  • Notes (not on Linux) — opens a small rich-text scratchpad window, handy for a script or cue sheet while you record. It's saved locally between sessions.
  • Language — a locale picker (13 languages) that only affects the OpenScreen UI, not your recording.
  • Window controls to hide the HUD or quit the app.

Recording from the editor (Record mode)​

You don't have to start from the HUD. In the editor, switch the top bar to Record to get a full-size pre-flight page instead of a pill:

  • Source — same screen/window picker, in a modal, or Apple's system picker on macOS 15.2 and later. On Linux this row also reads Your system will ask what to share, and the portal dialog does the choosing.
  • System audio, Microphone, Camera — each an on/off row; mic and camera expand to a device list, and the camera shows a live preview so you can frame yourself before going live.
  • Editable cursor — on means the editable overlay cursor, off means the plain system cursor.

Start recording opens the recording widget and closes the editor window; cancelling drops you back into Edit mode. This is also the starting point New project → Screen recording takes you to.

Native vs. browser capture​

Every platform records the screen through a native helper: ScreenCaptureKit on macOS, Windows Graphics Capture on Windows 10 build 19041 and later, and PipeWire through the ScreenCast portal on Linux. The webcam is captured natively on Windows only; macOS and Linux record it through the browser. On all three it is saved as a separate file and composited in the editor.

Browser capture replaces the native helper only on Windows builds older than 19041, or when a Windows or Linux build is missing its helper. A native helper that fails does not fall back: the recording reports the error. See the full platform differences table.

Once you've stopped recording, head to Editing & timeline to cut it into shape — or to Media library if you're assembling several takes.