
YourNextApp might earn an affiliate fee on purchases made by way of hyperlinks on our web site.
Whether or not it is for a YouTube video, or simply to point out a member of the family which buttons to click on, macOS Monterey consists of methods to report your Mac’s display screen.
If the job had been simply to seize your display screen in such a approach that it is helpful to another person, then you possibly can simply share your display screen with them over Messages. But when one member of the family needs to know, you’ll be able to wager different do too.
And you do not have to be doing this to assist others, you are able to do display screen recording to assist your self. Particularly, to assist your future self.
In case you do a specific job in your Mac solely a few occasions a 12 months, you’ll be able to display screen report the primary one after which have probably the most complete information to learn how to do the second.
And since macOS Mojave, there’s been a brand new option to do it. There’s now a screenshot toolbar, and a brand new Command-Shift 5 keystroke to name it up.
It replaces the previous system of utilizing QuickTime Participant. You continue to can use that app, however now turning on display screen recording simply fires up the identical new screenshot toolbar.
- At any level whereas utilizing your Mac, maintain down Command and Shift, then faucet the quantity 5
- Click on on the center icon, which exhibits a display screen with a File button
- Your cursor turns right into a digital camera icon, click on wherever away from the toolbar to start out recording
- To cease recording, click on on the Cease icon within the menu bar
Word that Command-Shift 5 works solely with the 5 key on the highest row of buttons. It doesn’t work in case you faucet the 5 on a numeric keypad.

By default, your display screen recording will first seem as a thumbnail pop-over from the underside proper hand nook of your Mac’s display screen. You may click on on this thumbnail simply as you’ll a display screen seize picture.
In contrast to a display screen seize, although, you’ll be able to’t annotate this display screen recording. What you are able to do is trim it. So in case you’re solely within the center little bit of your recording, you’ll be able to truncate it from the beginning and finish.
Additionally observe that when you have used Command-Shift 5 and chosen to report your display screen, that is the choice that will probably be set if you subsequent use that keystroke. So the second or subsequent occasions that you must report your display screen, you press that keystroke and may instantly click on to set the recording going.
There are extra choices, although, with a very key one relating to the place your recording will probably be saved. Press Command-Shift 5, then click on on Choices.
On the very prime there will probably be a bit headed Save To. It has strategies reminiscent of Desktop or Paperwork, however you’ll be able to add others.
Wherever this record says, although, that is the place your recording will probably be saved.
After this, maybe the subsequent most important possibility is to do with if you wish to report solely a portion of your display screen. So you possibly can ensure you’re solely exhibiting the half your viewer needs, like a specific window or a specific management.
The best way to report a part of your display screen utilizing the screenshot toolbar
- At any level whereas utilizing your Mac, maintain down Command and Shift, then faucet the quantity 5
- Click on on the icon that’s fifth from the left, exhibiting dotted rectangle with a File button
- Most of your display screen will dim, leaving an oblong space at regular brightness
- Drag that shiny space and alter the seize deal with at every nook till it covers what you wish to report
- Press the File button on the toolbar
- To cease recording, click on on the Cease icon within the menu bar

Different key choices
The screenshot toolbar comes with a number of potential settings. You may:
- Select to point out or cover the thumbnail
- Choose the place to avoid wasting the video
- Set a countdown so you’ve got time to place one thing on display screen
- Have the video report the place you click on together with your mouse or trackpad
All of those settings can be found within the screenshot toolbar and its Choices button.
Considerably, that is the one place the place you’ll be able to management audio recording.
What audio you’ll be able to report
With this built-in Apple characteristic for recording your display screen, you can not report any audio that the Mac itself performs. So you’ll be able to’t use this to make copies of YouTube movies, as an illustration.
Nonetheless, you’ll be able to report a voice observe on the similar time. So you possibly can report the display screen and embody explanations to your self, or anybody else, about what precisely you are doing.
To do that, you name up Command-Shift 5 and earlier than selecting to report the entire or a portion of the display screen, click on on Choices. There is a part headed Microphones, and it’ll record any which are plugged into your Mac.
It additionally gives an possibility named None, which is the default.

QuickTime Participant is not gone
In case you had been used to launching a display screen recording from inside QuickTime Participant, after which enhancing it in the identical app, issues have solely modified a bit of. You lose the previous Display Recording pane with its purple button and hard-to-spot drop down record of audio sources.
However that record of audio sources is now a lot clearer within the Choices part of the screenshot toolbar.
Plus in case you open QuickTime Participant, report your display screen, after which cease the recording, the video opens instantly in the identical QuickTime Participant app.
You continue to cannot edit the recording a lot in any respect. You may once more trim the beginning and finish of the recording, plus you’ll be able to append different clips.
Enter third-party choices
In case you solely have to report your display screen for a number of moments as you undergo how one thing is finished, Apple’s built-in methodology is superb. It is if you wish to do extra that you simply discover out why there’s a marketplace for different display screen recorders.
Screenflow, as an illustration, allows you to do far more elaborate enhancing. As an alternative of simply trimming the beginning or finish, you’ll be able to chop bits out of the center, and rearrange as you want.
It may well additionally allow you to zoom in on part of the display screen, and it might probably allow you to annotate the video. Plus it might probably report audio from the Mac, in addition to any audio from microphones related to it.
Screenflow prices $149 from the developer, Telestream. It is also obtainable on the Mac App Retailer.