Choosing what to record
Use the recording bar to capture a display, a window, an area, or a connected device.
Everything starts at the recording bar — the floating control that appears near the bottom of your screen when Playback is ready to capture. It’s where you pick your source, arm your inputs, and press record.
The bar is a quiet row of icon-only buttons: each source and input is a small cell, and its label lives in a tooltip you see on hover. Only two things stand out — the pill that names what you’ve armed, and the red Record button. One says what, the other says go.
The four capture modes
The bar has four modes. Pick the one that matches what you want to show:
| Mode | What it captures | Reach for it when |
|---|---|---|
| Display | An entire screen. | You’re demoing a flow across multiple windows. |
| Window | A single app window, wherever it moves. | You want one app, cleanly framed, with no desktop clutter. |
| Area | A rectangle you draw on a display. | Only part of the screen matters. |
| Device | The screen of an iPhone or iPad connected by cable. | You’re recording a mobile app. |
Display and Window
Choose Display or Window and Playback shows a picker of what’s available to capture. Recording a window keeps the capture locked to that app even if you move or resize it, and gives you a clean edge. Recording a display grabs everything on that screen.
Area
Choose Area and draw a rectangle on your display. The bar shows the exact pixel size of your selection (for example, Area 1280×720) so you can dial in a precise frame. Playback captures only inside that rectangle.
Device
Choose Device to record a connected iPhone or iPad, QuickTime-style. Connect the device with a cable, unlock it, and trust the Mac when prompted; it then appears in the device picker along with its audio. Your mic and camera work exactly as they do for screen recordings, so you can narrate over a mobile demo. If the list is empty, Playback reminds you to connect, unlock, and trust the device.
Arming your inputs
Next to the capture modes are three input toggles. Turn on the ones you want in the take:
| Toggle | Captures |
|---|---|
| Camera | Your webcam, as a picture-in-picture overlay. |
| Microphone | Your narration. |
| System audio | The sound coming out of your Mac — app audio, music, a video you’re demoing. |
An input that’s off shows a slashed icon. Camera and Microphone each have a device chooser — this is covered in detail in Audio & camera.
Keeping the bar out of the way
- Collapse — once your take is set up, collapse the bar down to a compact capsule (just the source and the record button) with the collapse button. Click the source pill to expand it again or change what you’re recording. Playback remembers the collapsed state between launches.
- Hide — the close (✕) button hides the bar entirely.
- Settings (gear) — opens a small menu of recording options:
- Frame rate — capture at 30 fps or 60 fps.
- Capture cursor — include the system cursor in the recording.
- 3-second countdown — the countdown before recording starts.
- Rescan sources — refresh the list if you just plugged in a display, window, or device that isn’t showing.
Ready to hit record? See Recording controls for the countdown and the in-progress HUD.