Whether you make tutorial videos like me,
or you just want to show your grandma
how to delete her facebook account,
screen recording on a mac is very simple,
so there’s absolutely no need to ever see this.
In this video, I’m going to show you how you
can record your screen on a mac,
including your computer audio,
even mouse clicks and keyboard sounds.
Hey guys, what’s up.
My name is Serge, and welcome back to my channel.
First, let’s take a look at recording a video of your screen.
And for this, we’ll use a tool that comes installed on every mac.
Quicktime.
The easiest way to record your screen with quicktime,
is by using the keyboard shortcut Shift Command 5.
Pressing these keys, will bring up the Screenshot toolbar.
If you need to record a video of your screen,
you have two options here.
You can record your entire screen,
or you can select a portion of your screen to record.
In the options dropdown of this toolbar,
you can select your save destination,
set a timer for your video recording,
and if your computer has a built in mic,
you can set it to record the sound from your speakers.
I’m on a mac mini, so I don’t have that option,
but even if you do, I don’t recommend doing this,
because your audio is going to suck.
I’ll show you a much better way to record your computer audio
a little later in this video.
You also have the option of highlighting your mouse clicks.
This will show a black circle around your mouse cursor
every time you click.
To start recording your screen,
either click the record button,
or move your mouse cursor off the screenshot toolbar.
The cursor turns into a camera icon,
and clicking anywhere on the screen will start your screen recording.
To stop recording,
click the Stop button in the menu bar,
or use the keyboard shortcut Command Control Escape.
Your screen recording clip saves to the destination you selected earlier,
which in my case, right to my desktop.
The only problem with using Quicktime to record your screen,
is the video resolution and the aspect ratio of your recorded file.
If you use an HD or a 4K, 16 by 9 monitor, this is fine.
But, if you record your laptop screen,
and want to use your screen recording in a conventional video,
you end up with black bars on the sides.
You can crop in on your video, but then you lose part of the image.
There is an app to help you get around this,
and it was shown to me by my friend Dylan Bates.
It’s called SwitchResX
and you can buy it from their website for 16USD per computer.
What this app does, is it gives you extra display settings,
and allows you to make your own custom ones.
So, if you want your laptop screen recording
to be in the conventional 16 by 9 aspect ratio,
go to your System Preferences,
select SwitchResX and click the Launch Daemon button.
You’ll see a display icon pop up in your menu bar.
Select it, and switch to one of the 16 by 9 aspect ratio resolutions.
This displays your screen in the selected resolution,
and when you record it with quicktime,
it will ignore the black letterbox bars,
and your saved file will be in your selected resolution and aspect ratio.
When you’re done, and want to go back to using your entire screen again,
just click on the display icon in the menu bar,
scroll all the way down to the bottom
until you see display sets,
and select Safe Original Resolution.
Anther app you can use to enhance your screen recordings is called KeyBell,
and you can download it from the App Store.
I think it costs about 3 USD.
This app lets so assign specific sounds to each mouse or keyboard click.
Subtle touches like adding sound effects to your screen recordings
may not seem like much,
but you’d be surprised at how much difference they make.
This app also lives in your menu bar,
and lets you choose from a variety of sounds for your mouse
and keyboard clicks.
It lets you adjust the volume,
and even set it to only play these sounds when you use specific apps,
just so you’re not overdoing it.
If it gets to be too much during your day to day stuff,
you can easily Disable it and leave it off
until you need to record your screen again.
Having all these sound effects on your mac is great,
but they’re not much good if you can’t directly record your internal audio,
which quicktime can’t.
Fortunately, there’s a workaround for this, but it’s a little bit complicated.
What you first need to do is download a virtual driver from BlackHole Audio.
I’ll leave a link to their website in the video description.
When you go there, it asks you for a donation,
but if you can’t afford to pay for it,
just click I Have Already Donated.
Type in your name and email,
and this will send you a download link to the email you provided.
Select the BlackHole 16 channel driver,
download it, and follow the installer steps
to install this driver to your computer.
After it’s installed, open your Audio MIDI setup.
You’ll normally find this in your Other folder on your Mac.
Here, you need to set up an Input and an Output aggregate device.
Click the plus button in the bottom let corner,
and select Create Aggregate Device.
Let’s rename it, and call it BlackHole Audio Input.
For this device, select BlackHole 16 Channel.
Click the Plus button again to make another device,
and this time, select Multi Output Device.
Let’s rename this and call with Screen Recording with Audio.
This time we want to select multiple outputs,
and we need to make sure your speakers you use to listen to your audio,
which in my case is External Headphones,
because my speakers are plugged into the headphone jack,
that output is at the top.
If your main audio output is at the bottom,
you won’t hear any audio coming out of your speakers
as you record your screen.
To do this, make sure everything is deselected,
and first, select External Headphones,
or if you’re on a laptop, this might be called MacBook Speakers.
After that’s selected,
select BlackHole 16 channel,
and this should stay as your bottom selected option.
Also, make sure your Master Device is set to either External Headphones,
or MacBook Pro Speakers,
depending on what you use to monitor your audio.
Next, go to your System Settings,
and select Sound.
In the Output Tab, make sure you select the Multi Channel device
you made earlier, which in our case is Screen Recording with Audio.
Now, when you press Shift Command 5 to bring up the Screen Shot toolbar,
and open the Options dropdown menu,
under microphone, you should now see the Input device you created,
which we called BlackHole Audio Input.
Select this and start recording your screen
with high quality internal audio,
including the mouse and keyboard sounds we added earlier.
Once you’re done, make sure to go back to your sound preferences,
and set the output back to your speakers.
If you want to make your screen recording even better,
import this clip into Final Cut Pro,
add a voiceover and some fancy editing,
and really impress your grandma!