How to record your screen on a Mac

The fastest built-in option is the Screenshot toolbar. Press ⇧⌘5 (Shift-Command-5) and a control bar appears: choose "Record Entire Screen" or "Record Selected Portion," click Options to pick a save location and turn your microphone on, then hit Record. Stop from the menu bar or with ⌃⌘Esc. macOS saves a .mov file to your Desktop by default. It is instant and free, but it captures the raw screen only — no zoom, no cursor emphasis, no editing.

QuickTime Player does the same thing with a window: open QuickTime, choose File → New Screen Recording, pick your area and microphone, record, then File → Export to save. It is handy when you want a simple, trimmable .mov. Like ⇧⌘5, it produces a flat recording — fine for a quick capture, underwhelming for a tutorial or product demo people actually watch.

For recordings that hold attention, Limelight is a native macOS screen recorder built for tutorials and demos. Hit record and it auto-zooms into every click, smooths your cursor into buttery motion, and bakes your keystrokes, a cursor spotlight, and annotations right into the video — then you trim, speed up, and export to mp4 or a vertical 9:16 clip from the built-in editor. It runs fully offline and uploads nothing.

Which to use? For a throwaway clip, ⇧⌘5 is perfect. For a tutorial, software demo, or social video where clarity and polish matter — especially if you teach keyboard shortcuts — Limelight gives you a finished, professional result without opening a separate video editor.