How to record the screen on the Mac

Recording the screen on the Mac is an operation as simple as capturing a screenshot: here's a brief guide on how to do it

Capturing a screenshot is one of the simplest operations you can do on a Mac, but some people may have a little more difficulty understanding how to record the screen. It's just as simple, but often you just don't know the steps to start recording.

Just keep in mind the key combination that we'll see below to start recording what happens on the Mac's screen at any time and in any context, perhaps to show a friend some steps or to record a game session to upload online. There are many reasons why screen recording can be convenient, which is probably why macOS developers have made it easy and affordable for everyone. There are two different ways to record the screen on your Mac: there is no right one, there is the one that suits you depending on the version of macOS installed.

Record Screen on macOS 10.14 Mojave and following

To record the screen on macOS 10.14 Mojave and following, including the recent Macs with macOS Big Sur or Monterey, just go to the screen from which you want to take the recording and once ready press the keys Command, Shift or Shift and 5 at the same time, since the Command key is the one identified by the abbreviation cmd from the apple.

This opens the recording bar: the central keys that are those that allow you to determine whether to capture the entire screen - Record the entire screen - or only a portion - Record a selection. Once you've made your choice, you can use the Options button to decide where to save the clip, whether to set a countdown before the recording starts and other options, including whether to show the mouse pointer or not.

Finally, the last button on the right lets you start the screen recording, while you can stop it with the Stop button in the status bar.

Recording the screen on macOS 10.14 Mojave and earlier

Those who own a slightly older Mac and consequently lack a recent operating system cannot use the procedure seen above, but can still record the screen. You have to go through some different steps and use QuickTime Player, but it's nothing complicated.

First, you have to start QuickTime Player by searching for it among the installed applications. Then you have to click on the File item at the top left of the screen and then on New Screen Recording, and again on the Record button when you are ready. Then click anywhere on the screen to start recording the entire screen, and drag the pointer to adjust the area of interest.

Click on the Stop button in the menu bar to stop recording.