15 Best Free Screen Recorders for Mac in 2024

Features:

• Show mouse movements and clicks for easier explanations
• Grab webcam footage along with the audio stream to create training videos, instructions, and podcasts
• Reduce ambient noise your mic picks up to get crisp, clear sound in your recordings
• Visualize your ideas by drawing notes, shapes, and figures on videos in real time
• Schedule recording of late-night webinars, your favorite shows, or sporting events to watch them later

Movavi Screen Recorder is a screen recording software for your Mac. It captures video and audio simultaneously or separately. You can grab your voice with a mic, capture your face with a webcam, and record internal sound with the system audio. It’s the perfect tool for creating screencasts, podcasts and video tutorials.

You can record separate streams, schedule recordings, take a photo via the webcam, screenshot video, demonstrate keystrokes and add mouse effects. After you’re done with capturing, you can edit the video, save it in any popular format, and share the file via social networks.

• Recording your screen activities

• Taking screenshots

• Recording sound via a microphone

QuickTime Player is designed as a screen recorder for MacBook. The majority of macOS users have it on their laptops by default. That’s why the program is so popular – there’s no need to install any software. And even if you don’t have it by default, you can download it for free.

Though the program can be considered a competent MacBook screen recorder, it has significant disadvantages for those who care about sound recording. The issue is that QuickTime doesn’t capture internal system sounds. You can only record external live sounds using the built-in microphone or headphones.

• Recording screen with webcam and overlays

• Streaming to Twitch, YouTube, and other websites

• Plenty of useful integrations

OBS is a free video recorder. It offers many settings that enable you to create professional video clips. You can compose scenes from different media formats, edit sound with advanced audio mixing, add transitions, and much more.

If you’re good at program development, you may like that OBS has a powerful API, so you can customize functionality yourself.

Though the program is one of the best video recording software, we would not recommend it for beginners because they may find it challenging to work with the complex settings².

• Recording screen and webcam online and offline

• Simple sharing to the cloud

• Comprehensive recording history

Another freeware tool on the list is ScreenRec. Its focus is making your work routine less time-consuming. If you’re tired of writing instructions for your coworkers or explaining the same thing to everyone on the team separately, start recording tutorials and taking informative screenshots with ScreenRec. It will save your time and effort for what’s really important.

• Editing the recordings in-app

• Using built-in stock content

• Taking and editing screenshots

This is one of the best-known programs for screen recording for Mac, with millions of users all over the world. It's a screen recorder and video editor in one. You can also take screenshots and edit images to add arrows, text, highlights and more.

The best aspect is that the company offers cloud hosting, so you can get unlimited ad-free uploads and collaboration tools. Plus, there’s a secure recording backup to online storage, so you’ll never lose your files. But, of course, these options are not available for free.

ScreenPal is appropriate for both personal and business use. You can try a free version with limited functionality or pay a monthly subscription to use the fully featured program.

• Upgrading your screen recordings to a fully-fledged teaching tool

• Converting existing presentations into online courses

• Creating interactive assignments for boosting student engagement

If you work in the elearning industry, you may prefer ActivePresenter to some other Mac screen recording software. Besides the basic screen recording features, you can make guides, elearning games, and quizzes that make educational videos more interactive. You can also export content in HTML or embed your HTML package in the program.

The interface resembles a document editor, which may look a little old-fashioned to some users, but school and university instructors say they find it clearer and more understandable.

You can try ActivePresenter for free, but be aware that the trial version has just a third of the features of the full program.

• Recording screen and webcam

• Schedule your recordings

• Add logos and watermarks

Icecream Screen Recorder has an easy-to-use interface with only a few buttons, so you won’t get confused by obscure settings. It has all the features you need for simple screen recording on MacBook.

How does this program differ from others? The first thing is a neat feature that lets you quickly select the same recording area that you used last time. Secondly, you can add your branded logo to the output. Thirdly, it is perfectly suited to recording games.

If you use the trial version, you can only capture 5 minutes of footage, and there are many other restrictions, too. The price of the advanced version is a little higher than average.

• Watching movies, TV shows, and other videos on a Mac

• Capturing your screen

• Recording streaming videos

Who doesn’t know VLC? It’s one of the simplest media players around. It works not only as a video and audio player, but also as a converter and screen recorder. And it’s absolutely free to use!

But the program has some disadvantages in the area of screen recording. The first is that you cannot use the microphone to record your voice. Secondly, you cannot adapt the size of the capture area. Finally, if you want a high-resolution video, you’ll have to free up a lot of space on your hard disk because the file is going to be pretty huge.

• Easy access through the Mac menu bar

• Voice volume regulation

• Simple cloud sharing

Peek 360 is a screencast-recording app for macOS that lets you capture your desktop session to a high-quality MP4 video. Recordings are created from a user-defined screen area. Additionally, you can also export your video as an LMS package.

Peek 360 isn’t an advanced tool with plenty of extended features but rather a small application that focuses on the single task of making short, silent screencasts of a custom area of the screen.

• No software installation required

• Can record webcam and microphone

• Works with Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Microsoft Edge, Opera

Screen Capture is appropriate for anyone who is a fan of rapid recording. No installation, no lengthy setup. You won’t need to spend time learning how to use this video recorder for Mac devices. You just open the web page, hit the Start Recording button and capture your screen.

The grabber has a simple interface that is comfortable to work with. You can record audio and video simultaneously or separately. Webcam recording is also supported.

The biggest disadvantage is the lack of choice in output formats. If you need a specific format, you’ll need to use another program to convert the video after the recording is finished.

The output videos have watermarks. If you want to remove these, you’ll have to pay a monthly subscription fee, but it’s pretty reasonable.

• Versions for Android and iOS

• Simple screen capturing

• Saving videos to the local disk, website (including YouTube), or cloud storage

This web grabber records all types of screen activities – streaming videos, self-demonstrations, online calls, and more. One nice thing is that you can edit your recordings in real time. Many editing tools are included.

Apowersoft supports many formats for exporting files that even desktop programs do not always have. After you’re done with recording, you can upload your video to Vimeo, YouTube, Dropbox, or Google Drive. Considering all these options, we’d say it’s one of the best online solutions you can find.

You may ask what’s the catch. Although Apowersoft Free Online Screen Recorder works online, you still have to install a specific launcher to use the app. But no worries – it’s quite safe to use.

• Built-in recordings editor

• Storing and sharing videos via a teamspace

• Autotranscribing

If you are looking for some basic web screen recorder for a quick task, Screenapp.io is just what you need. It is an online tool for quick and easy screen capture. What’s more, the personal version is now completely free to use, since the tool is under development. It offers up to 1 hour of recording your screen, 10 maximum recordings, and an automatic cloud folder creation.

Similar to other online tools, Screenapp.io lets you record a browser tab, the content of a selected window, or just the full screen.

• One-click screen capture

• In-cloud access control system

• Notifications and statistics on views, reacts, and comments on your videos

Loom is a good Mac free screen recorder for work messaging. You can record your screen in a few seconds, get a shareable link and send it to your colleagues. There’s no need to download the video.

The extension can be integrated with your workspace. For example, you can embed Loom in Gmail, Slack, Jira, and other apps. It’s a good tool for team collaboration.

The free version has some limitations, like recording length, number of videos and screenshots, and number of creators (team members who can create and edit content). If you want to use the full version, you’ll have to buy a subscription.

• Trimming and merging recorded videos

• Adding Interactive Questions for better user engagement

• Saving videos to GIF and other formats

This is an extension that works like a powerful video and audio recorder. You can record screens, including your browser and desktop. It’s possible to add voice commentary with a microphone and include your webcam image in the recording.

It includes drawing tools that you can use in real time, which may be useful if you want to highlight a particular web page element or just have some fun.

Recorded videos can be published on YouTube or automatically saved to Google Drive. The files can also be exported in MP4, animated GIF, or MP3 formats.

• Recording screen, webcam, and sound

• No time limit on the recordings

• Unlimited number of recordings

Movavi Screen Recorder for Chrome is a really useful and free-to-use extension for Google Chrome. You can install it directly to the Chrome browser to use across your favorite devices, and it's perfect for recording both video and audio from your screen on a Mac. Very simple and straightforward for new users, this tool can be set up to record any webpage or desktop screen, capture your own voice via a microphone, record system sounds, and even record your webcam feed too. It has strong security to ensure that only you get access to your recordings, and you have an unlimited number of recordings to make.

• Recording videos in up to 4K resolution

• Instant cloud sharing

• Annotating and editing your recordings

This extension from Awesome has the best user reviews of all the apps. It has all the tools needed for simple screen recording and screenshotting that should satisfy most people’s needs. You can record your desktop, current tab or webcam. There’s even a choice of video dimensions - 720p, 1080p, or 4K. Sharing options like sending files to Jira, Slack, Trello, Asana, and GitHub are also supported.

This extension is often used as a screenshotting tool. It offers different sizes of screenshots and supports copying a screenshot for quick pasting.

You can use this screen recorder for Mac for free with a limited range of opportunities or pay a subscription fee.