How to update a training video when one screen changed, without re-recording it.

The recording workflow

1. Find every video that shows the changed screen

   One change often touches several videos. Check your index or change log for each video that opens that screen, and note them all before you fix the first.

2. Mark the range

   In each video, write down the last moment before the changed screen appears and the first moment after it is gone. Start and end on a pause in the narration: 2:35–3:00, not 2:37–2:58.

3. Decide: cut, replace, or retire

   Cut if the step was removed. Replace if the step still exists and looks different. Retire the video and record a new one if more than about a third of it changed.

4. Rebuild the original setup

   Same window size, same browser zoom, same light or dark theme, same test record, same microphone at the same distance. Play ten seconds of the old take to hear the pace.

5. Re-record only the range

   Put the app in the state it was in at the start of the range, record the new screen with the corrected narration, and end on a screen that matches what follows.

6. Check the joins and the rest of the narration

   Play from five seconds before the range to five seconds after it. Then listen through the rest once: a later sentence may still use the old name of the field. In Qreata, Record voiceover · keep video redoes that one sentence and leaves the picture alone.

7. Export, replace the delivered file, and log it

   Export under the same file name, replace the file where viewers open it, and write the update date in the index.

What changed, and which fix it needs

Match the change to the fix before you open an editor. The common mistake is treating every change as a reason to re-record, when half of them need a cut and some need nothing.

The “more than about a third” threshold in the last row is our editorial judgment: beyond it, matching several replaced ranges to an old take costs more than a clean new recording of a short video.

Update a training video for free with QuickTime Player

If you have the original file, the free route works. It uses two QuickTime Player editing features: split a movie into clips, and add a clip.

The limits are practical. Nothing shows you the old take while you record the new one, so window size and scroll position are matched from memory or from your notes. The replacement can be any length, which is useful when a step was added, but a level or tone mismatch between the takes stays in the result because QuickTime has no audio track controls. And each update produces another file to keep track of. If all you have is a video on a hosting service and no original file, you first need to download it, and each re-export of an already compressed file costs some quality.

1. Note the range, for example 2:35–3:00, and the window size you recorded at.
2. Put the app in the state it was in at 2:35 and set the same window size and browser zoom.
3. Press Shift-Command-5, select the same area, choose the same microphone under Options, and record only the changed step.
4. Open the original in QuickTime Player, split it into clips at 2:35 and 3:00, and remove the clip between them.
5. Add the new recording as a clip and place it in the gap.
6. Play across both joins, then save under a new name so the original stays intact.

Worked example: one new required field, replaced with Replace Take

The video is a four-minute lesson, “Submit an expense claim”, recorded three months ago for a client’s finance tool. Last week the client added a required Cost centre dropdown to the Submit screen. From 2:35 to 3:00 the video shows the old screen, and the narration says “fill in the amount and the date, then click Submit”.

Because the video was recorded in Qreata and the project was kept, the project opens as it was left: the timeline, the cuts and the zooms are all there after export. Pick Replace Take (the Rerecord tool in the editor) and Shift-drag across 2:35–3:00. Open the Submit screen on the same test claim at the same window size, say “fill in the amount, the date and the cost centre, then click Submit”, and click through. Screen, camera, microphone and system audio in that range are replaced together. The other 3:35 is the take you recorded three months ago.

The rules of the range decide how you plan the retake. It has to sit inside one segment and can’t cross a cut. A retake shorter than the range is rejected, and a longer one is trimmed to the range. So the new step has to be told in the time of the old one. Here the old step took 25 seconds with a slow pause before Submit, and the new one fits. When it does not fit, select a wider range that includes the sentence before the step and say that sentence more briefly, or accept that this video needs a new take from that point.

Two limits to know before you rely on this. Replace Take works only on recordings made in Qreata, and Qreata does not import MP4 or MOV files, so a video recorded in another tool has to be updated with the splice method above or in the editor it came from. And Replace Take replaces picture and sound together. When only one of them is out of date, the Segment menu has Rerecord video · keep audio for a screen that changed under narration that is still right, and Record voiceover · keep video for a sentence that is wrong over a screen that is still right.

Qreata runs on Apple Silicon Macs with macOS 14 or later, with an English interface, and costs $49 once for three Macs with a full 7-day trial. There is no subscription, which matters for a library you may not touch for months: the tool is there when the update comes, with nothing billed in between. Ten-minute test: record a two-minute walkthrough, export it, quit the app, reopen the project, and replace 15 seconds in the middle.

How to match a take you recorded months ago

A replacement made the same afternoon matches by default. One made three months later does not: you have a different window size, a new browser version, perhaps a different desk. Viewers will not notice that 25 seconds are newer. They will notice the frame twitching or your voice changing.

• Window size and position: the same pixel size on the same display. Write it down when you first record; it is the hardest thing to recover later.
• Browser zoom and text size: 110% and 125% look similar until the two takes sit next to each other.
• Theme: the same light or dark mode in the app and in macOS.
• Sidebars and panels: the same ones open or collapsed as in the frames around the range.
• Test data: the same record, with the same values, so numbers do not jump at the join.
• Microphone: the same one, at the same distance, in a room that sounds similar. If you have changed microphones, replace whole sentences and start and end on a pause.
• Pace: play the ten seconds before the range aloud, then record in that rhythm.
• Cursor: pause the old take at the start of the range and park the pointer where it sits.

Record training videos so the next update is cheap

Most of the cost of an update is decided on the day of the first recording. These habits take no extra time then and save a retake later.

• One task per video, three to five minutes. A change then touches one short file, and a full retake is still small.
• Pause for two seconds when the screen changes. Each screen becomes a range you can replace without clipping a word.
• Do not say version numbers, dates or prices unless the video is about them. Each one is a future update.
• Refer to a control by its label once, at the moment you click it, and not again three sentences later.
• Keep the source: the Qreata project, or the original recording file for a QuickTime video. An exported MP4 alone is a dead end.
• Keep a recording note with each video: window size, browser zoom, theme, microphone, test record.
• Keep a change log: which screens each video shows and at what times. It turns “the Submit screen changed” into a list of ranges.
• In Qreata, go easy on cuts around screens you expect to change. A Replace Take range can’t cross a cut, and each word or pause you delete from the transcript is a cut.

Send the updated video to the people who have the old one

An update nobody receives is the old video. Decide where the single current copy lives and replace it there.

If the video was delivered as a file in a shared folder, export under the same file name and replace the file. In Google Drive, uploading the new MP4 as a new version of the existing file keeps the link people already have; uploading it as a new file gives a new link that you have to send out. Qreata’s Google Drive button uploads the export and returns a link that anyone with the link can open. Qreata Cloud is a separate paid subscription for a hosted link and is optional.

Then update the written side: the date in the index, the changed step in the written instructions, and one line to the people affected saying which video changed and at what minute. A plain MP4 has no chapters and reports no views, so that line is how viewers find the new part and how you know they were told.

Common mistakes when updating a training video

Each of these turns a 20-second fix into a second update.

• Fixing the screen and leaving the narration. At 3:20 your voice still says the old field name.
• Fixing one video when four show that screen. Search the change log before you record.
• Selecting a range that starts or ends inside a sentence. The join clips a word; move both ends to a pause.
• Recording the replacement at a different window size or zoom. The frame shifts at both joins.
• Editing the exported MP4 again and again. Work from the source each time, or quality drops with every export.
• Leaving the old copy in circulation. Replace the file where it is linked, and remove copies from email threads where you can.
• Re-recording everything out of caution. If the layout is the same and only the styling changed, viewers still find every control.

Questions about this workflow