Record a display
Record a display when you want everything on one screen in the movie: a demo that moves between apps, or a tutorial with menus and dialogs.
- Menu
- File ▸ New Recording…
- Keys
- ⌥⌘N
- Where
- New Recording panel ▸ Source
- Needs
- The Screen Recording permission.
- Agent tools
record_screen
Record a display
Section titled “Record a display”-
Open the recorder panel with ⌥⌘N.
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Choose the display by name in Source. There’s one row for each connected display, and the panel starts on the display you used last, or the main display.
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Set Size and Rate, and anything else you want, such as the microphone.
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Press Record. After a 3, 2, 1 countdown recording starts and the panel leaves the screen. The first time, macOS asks for the Screen Recording permission instead, and you relaunch Frame Job after turning it on. See Recording permissions.
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Stop with the menu-bar item or ⌥⌘N.
The recording lands in the project you chose in Record Into. See Where a recording lands.
Choose a size
Section titled “Choose a size”Size sets how many pixels the movie holds.
| Size | What you get |
|---|---|
| Nominal (points) | The display’s point size. This is the default. |
| Best (pixels) | Every pixel: the point size times the display’s scale, which is twice the points on a Retina display. |
The note under the row shows both for the chosen display, for example 1728×1117 points · 3456×2234 pixels.
Choose Best (pixels) when small text has to stay sharp, and Nominal (points) for a smaller picture. An odd width or height is rounded up to an even number when the movie is encoded.
Choose a frame rate
Section titled “Choose a frame rate”Rate is 30 fps or 60 fps, and starts on 60 fps. It does two things:
- It’s the most frames per second the file may hold.
- It’s the frame rate of a new project made from the recording.
It’s a ceiling, not a promise. macOS delivers a new frame only when something on screen changes, so a mostly still screen gives a file with a low, fractional frame rate. That’s the file doing its job and not a fault.
Rate greys out for Camera, which records at its format’s rate. It stays live for Microphone Only, where it sets a new project’s frame rate.
Include Frame Job windows
Section titled “Include Frame Job windows”Frame Job’s own windows, such as the editor and the preview, are left out of a display recording. Tick Include Frame Job windows to put them in the picture, for example when you’re recording a Frame Job tutorial. It’s off by default.
- The recorder panel is never in the picture, even with the box ticked.
- Frame Job’s own sound stays out either way, so you can play the timeline during a recording and it won’t end up in the file.
- The box also decides whether Frame Job’s windows appear in the window picker.
Where the panel goes while you record
Section titled “Where the panel goes while you record”The panel leaves the screen once a display or window recording starts, and the menu-bar item becomes your controls.
While the panel is away, ⌥⌘N stops the recording rather than showing the panel, and the Welcome window’s New Recording… button beeps.
After the recording lands, the panel comes back only if it was up when the recording began and there’s a note to show you, such as a problem with the microphone. Otherwise it stays away until you open it again.
The panel stays up for Camera and Microphone Only, which film nothing on screen.
With an agent
Section titled “With an agent”An agent picks a display by number, with 0, the main display, as the default, and it can’t name a display and a window at once. It sets the rest with size (nominal or best), rate (30 or 60) and include_framejob_windows, which is off by default. See Record with record_screen.