Gadgetwise Blog: Tip of the Week: Make a Mac Screen Recording

The QuickTime Player program included with recent versions of Mac OS X can do more than just play back video clips. It can also make a recording of the action on the computer screen, which can be helpful when creating tutorials or demonstrating how to do a  task. To get started, just go to the Mac’s Applications folder and open the QuickTime Player program.

Once the program is open, go to the File menu and select New Screen Recording. If you plan to provide narration, click the white triangle on the right side of the program’s window to choose your audio-recording options from the internal microphone; you can also choose a video quality setting here, and whether to make mouse clicks visible on screen in the recording.

When you are ready to capture a screen action, click the red recording button on the QuickTime Player window. Choose to record the whole screen or just a selected portion, and perform the action you want to capture. Click the Stop button. Apple’s site has more information on using QuickTime Player for screen recording, movie recording (with the Mac’s built-in camera), video editing and other tasks.