Record screen videos on Mac

Apple has brought many features and even apps from iOS to Mac OS. For example, you can now find the Apple News, Stocks, Voice Memos and Home are all brought over from iOS to Mac Mojave. The Markup which is now implemented into screenshots so you can quickly edit screen shots before you save them like how we can do on an iPhone. In an earlier post, we discussed how you can record iPhone screen videos without any third-party apps. You can now record screen videos with sound on Mac as well thanks to the built-in screen recorder utility since macOS Mojave. No third-party screen recorders or capture software required.

Many Mac users have long been familiar with the screen capture. You can press the keys combination to take a screen shot on Mac. Press Command-Shift-3 to take a screenshot of the entire screen, Command-Shift-4 to take a screenshot of a specific area. The screen recording is integrated with the screen capture. You can access it through the Command-Shift-5. Press keys combination, you will get a small menu bar with options to capture entire screen, capture selected window, capture selected portion, record entire screen, record selected portion.

command-shift-5 screen capture recording on mac

Record the entire screen on Mac

Click the Record Entire Screen in the onscreen controls, your pointer turns into a camera. Click anywhere on your Mac screen to start recording. When you are finished, click the Stop button at the top menu bar, the screen video will be saved to your desktop as MOV file. You can also use the thumbnail to markup, share, edit, save or take other actions.

Record an area of your Mac screen

Click Record Selected Portion in the onscreen control, Drag the borders of the capture window to select an area of the screen to capture. To move the entire selection, drag from within the selection. Finally click Capture in the onscreen controls to start recording your computer screen. Click the Stop button at the top menu bar when you are finished. The screen recording video will be saved to your desktop. You can also use the thumbnail to markup, share, edit, save or take other actions.

Recording system audio on Mac

Note that the native screen video capture and recorder can help Mac users capture screen video with audio from microphone. It can’t record sound from the computer itself, such as music playing on your local machine or online streaming videos. Check out this guide to record screen video with Mac system sound using QuickTime Player as a workaround.

More screen video recording options

Click the Options in the control bar, you can change a different location to save the screen recording files, or share it directly through Email, Message or else. When the timer is enabled, the countdown will then begin after you click the Capture button. It is a great feature when you need sometime to bring what you want to capture on the screen, such as a drop-down menu.