The best screen recorders for Mac

Here're the 3 best screen recorders for Mac:

• Movavi Screen Recorder – a desktop program
• Apowersoft Free Online Screen Recorder – an online tool
• Loom – an extension for your browser

Screen recording software for Mac is a great solution for anyone who has a ton of important tasks to accomplish every day. You can record business meetings and online webinars, create video tutorials and presentations in movie format, review bugs and design projects.

With many options available, here are three types of video screen captures for Mac – desktop programs, online video recorders and browser extensions.

Here are, in our view, the best tools for video captures for Mac.

Best for: capturing streaming videos, webinars and online calls

G2 rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars, 41 good reviews out of 44

Movavi Screen Recorder 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.

Best for: simple screen recording on Mac

MacUpdate rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars, 38 good reviews out of 164

QuickTime Player is designed specifically 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 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.

Best for: making professional video clips

G2 rating: 4.4 out of 5 stars, 40 good reviews out of 43

OBS is a free recording tool. 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, we would not recommend it for beginners because they may find it challenging to work with the complex settings.

Best for: boosting your work self-efficiency

Trustpilot rating: 4.1 out of 5 stars, 31 good reviews out of 42

Another free 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.

Best for: business use

G2 rating: 4.2 out of 5 stars, 34 good reviews out of 38

This is one of the best-known programs, 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.

Screencast-o-Matic 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.

Best for: eLearning

Capterra rating: 4.8 out of 5 stars, 25 good reviews out of 25

If you work in the elearning industry, you may prefer ActivePresenter to other 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.

Best for: recording computer games

G2 rating: 4.1 out of 5 stars, 18 good reviews out of 21

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.

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.

Best for: recording the entire screen without audio

G2 rating: 4.6 out of 5 stars, 396 good reviews out of 405

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.

Best for: editing videos during online recording

Techradar rating: 4.4 out of 5 stars

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 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.

Best for: making fast recordings on-the-go

Trustpilot rating: 4.6 out of 5 stars, 45 good reviews out of 48

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 it. 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.

Best for: sending work video messages

Google Web Store rating: 4.7 out of 5 stars, 9,700 good reviews out of 10,067

Users: 4 000 000+

Loom is a good tool 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.

Best for: drawing on videos

Google Web Store rating: 4 out of 5 stars, 8,264 good reviews out of 11,463

Users: 10 000 000+

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.

Best for: sharing content in one click

Google Web Store rating: 4.6 out of 5 stars, 19,800 good reviews out of 23,102

Users: 1 000 000+

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 the free version with a limited range of opportunities or pay a subscription fee.