How to screen record in Chrome on any computer

Not on Mac, Windows or Linux. Desktop Chrome can take screenshots from DevTools (see our full page screenshot guide) but it has no video recording command. On a Chromebook, screen recording is part of ChromeOS itself.

You may also see the Recorder panel in Chrome DevTools. Despite the name, it does not record video. It records user flows (clicks, typing and navigation) as steps you can replay, edit and export for testing. That is useful for automation, but it is not something you can send a client as a video.

1. Open the Chrome window you want to record and close tabs or notifications you do not want on video.
2. Press Shift+Command+5 to open the Screenshot toolbar.
3. Choose what to record: Record Entire Screen, Record Selected Portion (drag the frame around the Chrome window), or Record Selected Window on macOS Tahoe 26 and later.
4. Set Options. Pick a Microphone to narrate, turn on Show Mouse Clicks so viewers see where you click, and choose a Save to location if you do not want the desktop.
5. Click Record, then reproduce what you want to show.
6. Stop with the stop button in the menu bar, or press Command+Control+Esc. The recording saves to your desktop as a .mov file.

QuickTime Player works too: choose File > New Screen Recording (Control+Command+N). Both open the same recording toolbar on current macOS.

Windows 11 has two built-in options. Snipping Tool is the better fit for browser recordings because you can choose any region of the screen.

1. Press Windows+Shift+R to open the Snipping Tool recording overlay. You can also open Snipping Tool, select Record, then New.
2. Drag a box around the Chrome window or the part of the page you want.
3. Turn on audio if you want narration. If your version shows microphone and system audio buttons on the recording toolbar, enable them before starting.
4. Select Start, wait for the countdown and reproduce the problem.
5. Select Stop. The recording opens in Snipping Tool for preview. Save it as an MP4; with automatic saving on, recordings go to a Screen Recordings folder inside Videos.

Xbox Game Bar is the alternative. Press Windows+G to open it, then Windows+Alt+R to start and stop recording the active app, and Windows+Alt+M to toggle the microphone. Clips are saved as MP4 files in Videos > Captures. Game Bar records one app window at a time and cannot record the desktop or File Explorer, so make sure Chrome is focused when you start.

1. Press Shift+Ctrl+Show windows, or select the time at the bottom right and choose Screen capture. On an external keyboard without the Show windows key, use Ctrl+Shift+F5.
2. Select Screen record in the toolbar at the bottom.
3. Choose full screen, partial screen or window. Window is the simplest way to record only Chrome.
4. Open Settings (gear icon) to choose audio input (microphone, device audio or both), turn on Show clicks and keys, or add the front camera.
5. Start recording by clicking the screen, dragging an area or clicking the window.
6. Select Stop recording at the bottom right. Videos save as .webm files to Downloads by default.

Partial-screen recordings can also be saved as a GIF, which plays inline almost anywhere but has no sound.

Built-in recorders are free and need no installation. An extension makes sense when you want to record only the tab (so notifications and other windows stay private), keep recording across page loads, or attach technical context to the video. Before installing one, check where it stores videos: some upload every recording to their cloud by default.

• Start just before the problem. A 20-second clip that begins on the page before the bug beats three minutes of navigation.
• Show the address bar, or say the URL out loud, so viewers know which page and environment it is.
• Narrate: "I enter the promo code, click Apply, and the total does not change." Expected versus actual, spoken.
• Move slowly and pause on the moment it breaks so the frame is easy to find.
• Hide private data. Close other tabs, turn on Do Not Disturb, and avoid real customer records.
• Add text with it. Paste the URL, steps and time into the ticket. Our guide on how to report a bug on a website has a plain-English template.

A video shows the symptom, not the cause. When something fails rather than just looks wrong, developers also need the console errors and the failing request from the same moment. Record with DevTools open, then save the console log and export a HAR file right after you stop recording.

Short clips get watched. Before you send a recording, cut the dead time at the start and end, and check that the file is small enough for where it is going.

• Trim on a Mac: click the thumbnail that appears in the corner of the screen right after you stop, or open the file in QuickTime Player and choose Edit > Trim.
• Trim on Windows: in Snipping Tool, select Edit in Clipchamp after recording to cut the clip, or use the Photos app.
• Mind attachment limits. GitHub accepts .mp4, .mov and .webm videos up to 10 MB in repositories on a free plan and 100 MB on paid plans. Email often caps attachments at around 20 to 25 MB.
• Record a smaller area. A region around the browser window produces a much smaller file than a full 4K or Retina screen, and is easier to watch on a laptop.
• Name the file usefully, for example checkout-pay-button-2026-10-13.mp4, so it still makes sense when downloaded from a ticket.

Seeing a black box in the recording? Streaming video protected by DRM is blacked out by design. If a whole Chrome window records as black, update your operating system and Chrome, and on macOS check that the recording app is allowed under System Settings > Privacy & Security in the screen recording section.

Juggling a screen recorder, DevTools and two export files for every bug is slow. Bugmark is a Chrome extension that records the tab and attaches the technical context from the same session.

• Press Alt+Shift+R (⌥⇧R) or choose Record video from the capture menu to record the tab as WebM video, up to 5 minutes, with microphone narration.
• The recording continues across page loads, so login redirects and multi-page checkouts fit in one video.
• The last 150 console messages with JavaScript errors, and the last 150 network requests with payloads and response bodies for recent fetch/XHR calls, are attached automatically.
• The last 30 actions become editable steps to reproduce, alongside URL, browser, OS and viewport.
• Recordings play back in the report and in exported HTML reports, and can be attached to GitHub issues.

Recordings are stored locally in your browser, not uploaded to Bugmark servers. Bugmark is free to try with every feature unlocked, up to 2 saved reports at a time; a one-time $15 payment removes the limit, with no subscription or account. Add Bugmark to Chrome