How to screen record on a Mac, with sound and smooth zooms

What is the shortcut for screen capture on Mac?

Shift-Command-5. It opens the Screenshot app's toolbar, which takes pictures and recordings alike. Apple's shortcuts:

To record, as Apple's guide sets it out:

1. Press Shift-Command-5.
2. Choose what to record. Record Entire Screen, Record Selected Portion (drag its edges to size it), or, from macOS Tahoe 26, Record Selected Window.
3. Set the Options. Choose a microphone, a timer, where to save, and Show Mouse Clicks, which draws a black circle round the pointer when you click. From macOS Tahoe 26, supported Macs can record SDR as H.264 or HDR as HEVC.
4. Click Record. For a window, click the window instead.
5. Stop. Click the Stop button in the menu bar, or press Command-Control-Esc.

Some apps, such as the Apple TV app, may not let you record their windows.

How do I get sound when I screen record on Mac?

Choose a microphone under Options before you record; with none chosen, your voice is not recorded. Recording the Mac's own sound, the audio of a video or an app, is a separate choice: Apple's guide offers Include System Audio in the same menu from macOS 27 Golden Gate. On macOS Tahoe 26 the toolbar records only the microphone, so the app's sound needs a separate audio tool or a recorder that captures it.

How do I record video with sound on my MacBook?

With QuickTime Player, to record yourself on the camera rather than the screen. Choose File, then New Movie Recording, and the camera's green light comes on. Open the capture menu beside the record button to choose the camera and microphone, and the quality: High records H.264 video with AAC sound, Maximum records ProRes 422 with uncompressed sound and fills a disk fast. Click Record, then Stop, and choose File, then Save. QuickTime's File, New Screen Recording opens the same Screenshot toolbar as Shift-Command-5.

Why can't I find my screen recording on my MacBook?

Look on the desktop first: by default, recordings are saved there, named "Screen Recording" with the date and time, as a .mov file. If it is not there, three things are likely:

• The save location changed. Open Shift-Command-5, click Options and see which "Save to" place is ticked.
• The thumbnail is still showing. A thumbnail sits in the corner after you stop, and the file is written when it goes. Click it to trim or share, or wait a moment.
• It went somewhere unexpected. Search Spotlight for "Screen Recording" to find it wherever it was saved.

What can the built-in screen recorder not do?

It records faithfully and stops there. There are no zooms on what you click, so detail on a large display is too small to read on a phone. The pointer is as it was, jitters and all. There is no camera beside the screen, no background or frame, no choice of shape for a vertical post, and anything private on screen stays visible unless you edit it out. QuickTime can trim the result, and every other step happens in an editor.

How do you screen record with zooms in Sharpy?

Sharpy records the screen and makes the finished video from it, on your Mac:

1. Choose the shape first. Pick 9:16 or any shape before you record. Sharpy sizes the window, checks that the text reads on a phone and tells you before you press record.
2. Record screen, sound and camera. The screen, the Mac's own sound, your microphone and your camera record together, with Continuity Camera or an iPhone over USB as the camera. Your moves, clicks and keys are logged with the recording.
3. Let it choose the zooms. Each zoom follows what matters: the control you clicked, the field you are typing in, or the words you say matched to the text on screen. It zooms back out when you scroll, and each zoom is proposed for you to confirm once.
4. Keep the pointer clean. The cursor is redrawn smooth, with no lag, landing exactly on every click, with click rings.
5. Let it hide what is private. API keys, tokens, email addresses, card numbers and password fields are blurred on every frame they appear on, following scroll and zoom. Nothing is kept while a password field has focus, and shortcuts show on screen while plain typing is kept only as timing.
6. Edit it with the camera. Sharpy cuts the waiting, slow typing and mistakes without clipping a word, can set you over the screen cut out from your room with no green screen, and adds captions, chapters and a cleaned voice from the corrected transcript.
7. Frame it and export every shape. Set the recording inside a phone, tablet, laptop, display or browser window with no maker's marks, on a gradient, a picture, a plain colour or a blur of the recording itself, with springy push-ins, pull-backs and tilts. One recording renders 16:9, 9:16, 1:1, 4:5, 2:3 and 21:9.

Every step is also an agent tool, so Claude or Codex can run the same recording and edit. Recordings from other tools come in too, OBS files as they are, and Screen Studio projects open in Sharpy. Sharpy vs Screen Studio compares the two in detail, and turning a long video into shorts covers the vertical cut.

Sources

Checked on 18 October 2026.

• Apple: How to record the screen on Mac
• Apple: How to take a screenshot on Mac
• Apple: Record a movie in QuickTime Player on Mac
• Apple: Record your screen in QuickTime Player on Mac