How to screen record on a Mac: every built-in way, with the shortcuts.
Every current Mac records its own screen without extra software. The steps are the same on a MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, iMac, Mac mini, and Mac Studio; what differs is the macOS version, because Apple added window recording in macOS 26 and system audio in macOS 27. This page covers the toolbar, the shortcuts, stopping, choosing what to capture, and the limits Apple does and does not document.
7-day trial · $49 once · no subscription · Apple Silicon · macOS 14+The short answer
Press Shift-Command-5, choose Record Entire Screen or Record Selected Portion (macOS 26 Tahoe and later also has Record Selected Window), and click Record. Stop with the Stop button in the menu bar or Command-Control-Esc; the video saves to your desktop as a .mov file. QuickTime Player’s File > New Screen Recording opens the same toolbar, and Apple documents no pause button and no time limit for it.
The recording workflow
Open the Screenshot toolbar
Press Shift-Command-5. An onscreen toolbar appears with the controls for still screenshots first, followed by the controls for recording video. No keyboard handy? Open QuickTime Player and choose File > New Screen Recording.
Pick what to record
Click Record Entire Screen or Record Selected Portion. With a portion, drag the frame’s borders to fit. On macOS 26 Tahoe or later you can also click Record Selected Window.
Set Options once
Click Options. Choose a microphone if you want narration, turn on Show Mouse Clicks to put a black circle around the pointer on each click, set a timer if you need a few seconds to get ready, and check the “Save to” location.
Start recording
Click Record in the toolbar. If you chose Record Selected Window, click the window you want. Pressing Esc before you click Record cancels.
Stop recording
Click the Stop button in the menu bar at the top of the screen, or press Command-Control-Esc.
Open or keep the file
A thumbnail floats in the bottom-right corner for a few seconds. Click it to trim or share the recording, or leave it and the file saves to your desktop as “Screen Recording [date] at [time].mov”.
Mac screen recording keyboard shortcuts
Apple’s support article on screen recording lists four key combinations, and that is the full set. There is no documented shortcut that starts a recording in one press: Shift-Command-5 opens the toolbar, and you click Record.
Without a keyboard, open the Screenshot app from Launchpad on macOS 14 and 15 or from Spotlight on macOS 26 and 27, or use QuickTime Player’s File menu. To change the screenshot shortcuts, the Mac User Guide points to Apple menu > System Settings > Keyboard > Keyboard Shortcuts > Screenshots.
| Action | Shortcut | Where it works |
|---|---|---|
| Open the Screenshot toolbar | Shift-Command-5 | Anywhere in macOS |
| New screen recording | Control-Command-N | Inside QuickTime Player; opens the same toolbar |
| Stop recording | Command-Control-Esc | While a recording is running |
| Cancel | Esc | Before you click Record |
| Trim the finished file | Command-T | Inside QuickTime Player (Edit > Trim) |
How to stop a screen recording on Mac, and whether you can pause
Stopping has two routes and both are in Apple’s article: click the Stop button in the menu bar, or press Command-Control-Esc. Learn the shortcut before you record an app in full screen, where the menu bar may be hidden.
Pausing is different. Neither Apple’s screen recording article nor the Mac User Guide page on screen recordings describes a pause control: they list Record and Stop. The pause Apple does document belongs to a different feature, QuickTime Player’s File > New Movie Recording, which films the camera: there you Option-click the Record button to pause and click again to resume.
So for a screen recording with the built-in tools, plan around it.
- Need a break mid-take: stay silent for two seconds, then carry on. Cut the gap later in QuickTime Player with Edit > Trim or Edit > Split Clip.
- Need to stop and continue tomorrow: record two files and join them. In QuickTime Player choose View > Show Clips, then Edit > Add Clip to End.
- Need a real pause button: use a recorder that has one. In Qreata, Pause and Resume sit on the recording pill.
Record the full screen, one window, or a portion
The toolbar has a button for each. Which ones you see depends on your macOS version: the Mac User Guide for macOS 14 and 15 lists “Record the entire screen” and “Record a portion of the screen”; the versions for macOS 26 and 27 add “Record a window”.
For a walkthrough of one app, a window or a tight portion beats the full screen: the menu bar clock, the Dock, and other apps stay out of the video, and text stays readable when the video is played in a small player. If you record the same region repeatedly, turn on Remember Last Selection in Options and the frame comes back where you left it.
| Mode | Available on | How to select | Use it for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Record Entire Screen | macOS 14, 15, 26, 27 | Click the button, then Record | Workflows that move between several apps |
| Record Selected Portion | macOS 14, 15, 26, 27 | Drag the frame’s borders, then Record | One app or one browser tab on any macOS version |
| Record Selected Window | macOS 26 Tahoe or later | Click the button, then click the window | One app window without framing it by hand |
Is there a time limit on Mac screen recording?
Apple does not document one. The screen recording article and the Mac User Guide page name no maximum length, and nothing in the Options menu sets one. The practical limit is free disk space: a longer recording is a larger file.
Apple also does not publish the resolution, frame rate, or bitrate of built-in recordings, so there is no official figure for megabytes per minute. Measure it on your own Mac: record 60 seconds of the kind of content you plan to capture, select the file in Finder, and read its size with File > Get Info. Multiply by the minutes you need and compare with the free space shown under Apple menu > System Settings > General > Storage.
- Before a recording longer than half an hour, run the one-minute test and do the multiplication.
- Save to a folder on a drive with room: Options > Save to > Other Location lets you navigate to the folder you want.
- Keep the Mac plugged in for long takes.
What changed by macOS version: 14, 15, 26, 27
Find your version under Apple menu > About This Mac. The table is built from Apple’s screen recording article, published September 14, 2026, and from the Mac User Guide page for each version. The model of Mac does not change the steps, with one exception: Apple says the capture format choice appears “on supported Mac models” and does not list them.
| macOS version | Record modes | Added in Options | System audio |
|---|---|---|---|
| macOS 14 Sonoma | Entire screen, selected portion | Nothing new: microphone, timer, Save to, pointer and clicks | No |
| macOS 15 Sequoia | Entire screen, selected portion | Nothing new | No |
| macOS 26 Tahoe | Entire screen, selected window, selected portion | Capture Format: SDR (H.264) or HDR (HEVC) on supported Macs | No |
| macOS 27 Golden Gate | Entire screen, selected window, selected portion | Include System Audio | Yes |
Recording sound: the short version
Your voice records on every version: choose a microphone under Options, and check that it does not say None. Sound that comes from the Mac itself is built in only on macOS 27 Golden Gate or later, where Options has Include System Audio. On macOS 14, 15, and 26 the built-in recorder captures the microphone only.
That topic has its own page on this site, “How to screen record on Mac with audio”. It covers the free BlackHole driver, OBS Studio, recording the microphone and system audio together, and a table of fixes for silent recordings.
Shift-Command-5, QuickTime Player, or an app: where each one stops
On a current Mac, Shift-Command-5 and QuickTime Player are one recorder with two doors: Apple’s QuickTime guide says File > New Screen Recording opens Screenshot. QuickTime Player’s own contribution comes afterwards, as the free editor: Apple lists trim, split into clips, rearrange clips, add a clip, rotate or flip, and remove audio or video.
For a recording you make a few times a year, that pair is enough and costs nothing. The built-in route stops at four places: no pause, no camera picture in the recording (Apple’s article describes none), no system audio before macOS 27, and no way to redo ten seconds in the middle without splitting the file and adding a new clip by hand.
Qreata is a paid Mac recorder for people who hit those four limits every week. You choose Display, Window, Application, or one of five Area presets (Center · 80%, Left half, Right half, Top half, Bottom half), and Pause, Resume, Restart, Cancel, and Stop are on the recording pill. Screen, camera, microphone, and system audio record as separate tracks on macOS 14 or later. When you click the wrong menu at 4:10 of a six-minute take, Replace Take (the Rerecord tool in the editor) re-records 4:05–4:20 and leaves the other 5:45 alone.
Three things Qreata does not have, so you can decide quickly: there is no global keyboard shortcut to start or stop a recording, no free-drag area (only the five presets), and it records one display at a time. It runs on Apple Silicon Macs with macOS 14 or later and costs $49 once for three Macs, with a full 7-day trial and no watermark.
| Way | Cost | What it adds | After you press Stop |
|---|---|---|---|
| Shift-Command-5 (Screenshot) | Free, part of macOS | Nothing to install; no documented pause | .mov on the desktop; trim from the thumbnail |
| QuickTime Player | Free, part of macOS | A menu route to the same toolbar | Free edits: trim, split, add clip |
| OBS Studio | Free, open source | System audio on macOS 13+, up to six audio tracks | A file; editing happens in another app |
| Qreata | $49 once, 7-day trial | Pause and Resume; camera and system audio as separate tracks | Editor with Replace Take; MP4 export |
Before you share
- You know your macOS version, so you know whether Record Selected Window and Include System Audio exist on your Mac.
- Options shows the microphone you mean to use, or None if you want a silent recording.
- You can stop with Command-Control-Esc without looking for the menu bar.
- The “Save to” location is a folder you will recognise tomorrow.
- For a long take, a one-minute test file times the planned minutes fits in your free disk space.
Questions about this workflow
What is the shortcut to screen record on a Mac?
Shift-Command-5. It opens the Screenshot toolbar, where you click a record mode and then Record. Command-Control-Esc stops the recording. Apple documents no shortcut that starts recording in a single key press.
How do I stop a screen recording on my Mac?
Click the Stop button in the menu bar or press Command-Control-Esc. The recording then appears as a thumbnail in the bottom-right corner and saves to your desktop unless you changed the location.
Can you pause a screen recording on a Mac?
Not with a documented control. Apple’s screen recording article and Mac User Guide describe Record and Stop only. The Option-click pause in QuickTime Player applies to New Movie Recording, which records the camera. For a pause button during screen recording you need a third-party recorder; Qreata has Pause and Resume on its recording pill.
How long can you screen record on a Mac?
Apple documents no time limit, so the working limit is free disk space. Record one minute, check the file size in Finder with Get Info, and multiply by the length you need.
How do I screen record on a Mac without QuickTime?
Press Shift-Command-5. The Screenshot toolbar is part of macOS and does not need QuickTime Player to be open; on current versions QuickTime Player’s New Screen Recording only opens that same toolbar.
Is screen recording the same on MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, and iMac?
Yes. Apple’s article gives one set of steps for every Mac. What changes is the macOS version: Record Selected Window needs macOS 26 Tahoe or later, and Include System Audio needs macOS 27 Golden Gate or later.