Backgrounds
Choose the backdrop your recording floats on — a gradient, a solid color, a wallpaper, or nothing at all.
Your recording floats on a backdrop by default. The Background controls let you decide what that backdrop is: a gradient sampled from your own footage, a solid color, a blurred system wallpaper, or nothing at all for an edge-to-edge look.
Where the controls live
Background is a project-wide setting — it applies to the whole recording, not a single moment. Click empty space on the timeline so nothing is selected, and the inspector on the right shows the Background tab (alongside Webcam and Cursor).
Choosing a style
The Style picker offers four options:
| Style | What you get |
|---|---|
| None | No backdrop — the recording fills the frame edge to edge. |
| Solid | A single flat color behind the recording. |
| Gradient | A two-color gradient at an angle you choose. |
| Wallpaper | A blurred macOS system wallpaper. |
Each style reveals its own controls just below the picker:
- Solid — one Color swatch.
- Gradient — a Start color, an End color, and an Angle slider (0–360°).
- Wallpaper — a grid of system wallpapers to pick from. Wallpapers are always rendered blurred, so your recording stays the focus — there’s no sharp-wallpaper option by design.
Match to Content
Press Match to Content (the wand button beneath the style controls) and Playback samples your recording and builds a gradient from its dominant colors. It’s the fastest way to a backdrop that feels like it belongs with your footage rather than sitting behind it.
This also happens automatically: when you stop a recording, Playback derives an adaptive gradient from the take and applies it for you. It only fills in the default backdrop — the moment you pick a style or color yourself, your choice sticks and the automatic version steps aside. Press Match to Content any time to re-derive it.
Single-window recordings
When you record a single window, Playback masks the app’s own rounded corners. On a styled backdrop, the backdrop shows through those corners so nothing looks boxy. With None / full-bleed, those corners — and any bars from an aspect mismatch — render black rather than revealing a hidden background.
Tips
- Start with Match to Content. It’s tuned to look good instantly; adjust only if you want a specific brand color.
- Reach for None for app demos that should feel immersive — a full-bleed UI walk-through with no frame around it. Use a backdrop when you want the “product shot” look.
- Keep gradients subtle. A low-contrast gradient reads as a backdrop; a loud one competes with your content for attention.