Best Open Source Screen Recording Software For Mac Os Mojave

Best open source screen recording software for mac os mojave app store

If you’ve been a Mac user for a while, you might have noticed that the venerable Screenshot (formerly Grab) app, the app you use to manage screen capture features including timed shots and cursor visibility, is no longer in your Utilities folder in macOS Mojave.

In its place, Mojave has more and better screen-shooting capabilities than any version of macOS before it. Screenshot’s functionality and more are woven into the fabric of Mojave itself. Furthermore, Screenshot has been updated in several useful ways.

Feb 07, 2020 When it comes to the best video players for Mac, VLC is the longtime king. This free, lightweight, open source cross-platform media player is powerful enough to cope with most video formats including MPEG, WMV, MP4, MKV, MOV, and AVI. The player can play almost everything on a single platform from DVDs, and audio CDs to streams and webcams. Dec 21, 2018  The next free screen recording tool for Mac that you can rely on according to our list is OBS Studio. This is a free and open source screen recorder that is available on both Windows, Mac, and Linux. The suggested program will allow you to capture real-time activities and create excellent live streaming videos. Mojave screen recording. Screen recording — movies of your Mac (or iDevice) screens — has been around for a few years on the Mac, but it’s been buried in the QuickTime Player app. I didn’t discuss it in that chapter because the new Mojave way is so much easier and more convenient.

All of your old favorite keyboard shortcuts for screen capture — the ones you’ve known and loved on the Mac since time immemorial — still work the same as always:

To capture the entire screen:

  1. PressCommand +Shift+3.
  2. There is no Step 2.

To capture part of the screen:

  1. Press Command +Shift+4.
  2. Move the pointer (crosshair icon) to where you want to start the screenshot.
  3. Press the mouse or trackpad button, then drag over the area you want to capture.
  4. Release the mouse or trackpad button to capture the selected area.

To cancel, press Esc before you release the mouse button.

To capture a window or the menu bar:

  1. Press Command +Shift+4 and then press the Spacebar.
  2. Move the pointer (camera icon) over the area you wish to capture; when it is highlighted, click to capture the selected item.

To cancel, press Esc before you click.

To capture a menu and its title:

  1. Open the menu to display the menu commands.
  2. Press Command +Shift+4.
  3. Drag the pointer (crosshair icon) over the entire menu.
    If you want to exclude the menu’s title, press Command+Shift+4, press the Spacebar, move the pointer (camera icon) over the menu to highlight it, then click.

Mojave screen-shooting 101

In addition to the old, familiar screenshot shortcuts just discussed, Mojave adds a third keyboard shortcut that includes everything you can do using the other shortcuts and more.

That fabulous new shortcut is Command +Shift+5, and you’d be wise to memorize it because, like the other two screenshot keyboard shortcuts, it doesn’t appear in any menu or application. If you’re going to memorize only one shortcut for screen captures, it should be Command +Shift+5, which will open the floating palette of screen-shooting options shown here.

To capture your screen as a still image, first click the appropriate button: Capture Entire Screen, Capture Selected Window, or Capture Selected Portion. When everything is the way you want it, click the Capture button.

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What happens next, before the screenshot appears on your desktop (by default), is new in Mojave. The new thing is a floating thumbnail that appears in the lower-right corner of your screen (above the Trash icon shown here).

If you do nothing, the floating thumbnail will disappear after a few seconds and the screenshot will appear on the desktop by default.

But click the floating thumbnail before it goes away and a wonderful new thing happens: A window appears with a bevy of useful tools for modifying images, as shown.

These tools are known as Markup — a systemwide set of tools for annotating PDF and image files.

And, as you just saw, these tools also appear if you click the floating thumbnail of a screenshot before it disappears.

These powerful tools enable you to annotate screenshots in ways never before possible without a third-party graphics app. Now you can easily add circles, boxes, arrows, and text to your screenshots, image files, and PDFs without even launching an app.

When you’ve finished annotating and editing your screenshot, click Done in the upper-left corner of the window.

Mojave screen-shooting options

If you want to change the location where your screenshots are saved, click the Options menu, which is available after you press Command +Shift+5. The Options menu also allows you to select a timer of None (the default), 5 seconds, or 10 seconds.

Finally, the Options menu lets you enable or disable the floating thumbnail, show or hide the mouse pointer, and remember the last selection you made (for your next screenshot).

Another set of options appears when you right- or Control-click the floating thumbnail, as shown.

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Mojave

Note that selecting Markup is the same as clicking the floating thumbnail — it opens the Markup window so you can annotate your screenshot.

Mojave screen recording

Screen recording — movies of your Mac (or iDevice) screens — has been around for a few years on the Mac, but it’s been buried in the QuickTime Player app. I didn’t discuss it in that chapter because the new Mojave way is so much easier and more convenient. (If you want to make a movie of your iDevice screen, you’ll still need to use QuickTime Player.)

Anyway, to make a movie of all or part of your Mac screen, begin by pressing Command +Shift+5. Then click either the Record Entire Screen or Record Selected Portion. If you click Record Entire Screen, the recording begins immediately; if you click Record Selected Portion, you need to drag the on-screen handles to select the area you want to record, and then click the Record button.

To end the recording, click the Stop button in the menu bar, as shown.

When the floating thumbnail appears in the lower-right corner of your screen, you can right- or Control-click it for additional options, or do nothing to have the screen recording saved in your default location.

There are no shortage of free screen recording programs for Windows, but when it comes to macOS, most screen recording apps are paid. Yes, you can use the in-built QuickTime to record your screen (which is what I was using so far) but if you do a lot of screen recording than QuickTime is not the most efficient way to go about it. Why? Well, to start with, there is no keyboard shortcut, no video editor, and no auto saved. Sometimes QuickTime just doesn’t work unless you restart it.

In short, if you do a lot of screen recording on your macOS, you need a third-party screen recording software. So, here are some alternatives to QuickTime to record a screencast on Mac for free.

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Related: Best Video Editing Software for YouTube — A YouTuber Perspective

Best Screen Recorder For Mac

1. Apowersoft Screen Recorder

Apowersoft Screen Recorder is one of the popular free screen recording tools on any platform. Once installed on your mac, select a region and start recording. In the screen recording frame, you can click on the drop-down option to pick up a resolution like 720p, 1080p, iPhone, iPad etc. This free app allows unlimited screen recording with no watermark, however, the paid version has a Video Converter and Video Editor. You can set the recording quality from 15-60 fps, depending on whether you want to use on the web or make a professional video.

Apowersoft also offers a web-based screencast software which means you can record your screen without downloading any software, you need to install a launcher though if it’s the first time.

Verdict:

Apowersoft screen recorder is a free app for unlimited screen recording, no watermark or time restriction. However, once you stop the recording, it asked where you want to save it (just like QuickTime), so depending on the situation it might be a bit time-consuming. However, the app does not support taking or editing screenshot neither can it automatically upload to cloud. In my opinion, it’s a decent screen recorder but, there are better options available.

2. Screen Recorder Robot Lite

Screen recorder robot lite is a bit more powerful than Apowersoft screen recorder.

The unique thing about this screen recorder is, once you stop your recording it opens that clip in the built-in video editor, where you can trim, crop, rotate, change the playback speed etc. From here you can either edit your video in the video editor or just close the window and the recording will be saved in your Pictures folder on your Mac.

The only issue with this video recorder is – every time you stop the recording, it shows a pop saying the lite version only records for 600s (or 5 mins), and to get rid of it, you need to click cancel each time.

The apps support keyboard shortcut for – start, stop, pause the recording and can also capture screenshots.

Verdict:

Screen recorder robot lite is definitely one of the best feature-rich screencasting apps out there. If you need a build in video editor with your screen recorder then look no further. However, the only limitation to the app is – 5 mins of free recording, if you want more than that, its $7.99 for the full version.

3. Recordit: Instant Screencasts & GIFs

This app is not for everyone. Unlike all the other screen recording app in the list, which saves the recording to the local drive of your computer, Recordit uploads the video to the cloud storage. It’s meant for sharing videos quickly with remote co-workers.

So, here is how it works, once installed, you’ll see a tiny Recordit icon on the top menu bar of your macOS, click on that to record any area of your screen and when once done, click the stop button, seconds after that, you’ll get a link to share your screencast.

Once the video is uploaded it automatically copy the link of that video to your clipboard, and store it on the server for the unknown amount of time. so you can always go back and find the link by right-clicking on the app. however, there is no naming, so you’ll have to rely on time date stamp.

One thing to keep in mind is – you need to have a good upload speed if you are planning to use this. I recorded a 3 min full-screen video on my 5k iMac and it took the app 4 minutes to upload it to the server. I’ve 8 Mb/s upload speed. And the final size of the video was 35 MB, so it’s safe to assume they are compressing the video footage.

Best Open Source Screen Recording Software For Mac Os Mojave 10 14 4

Recordit also has a video to gif option on their website. So, if you want to quickly share a small screencast on Reddit, this will make it a lot easier.

Verdict

Recordit is for people who want to quickly share their screencast with other people. The recordings are limited to 5 mins only in the free version. And there is no paid version of this app.

However, there is one major problem with the app – it doesn’t keep a local copy of your recording, which means if the internet goes down for some reason, the video’ won’t be uploaded and you have to start all over.

Overall it’s perfect for sharing an image or video quickly. But not if you want to use the screen recording in some other video.

4. OBS (Open Broadcaster Software)

It’s hard to figure out how to install and use OBS (Open Broadcaster Software) at first. But after bit Google search, I was able to figure out how it works.

Once installed, the app gives you auto configuration pop-up, asking you whether you want to configure it, go for 1080p, etc. It’s basically meant for streaming, but if you want to use it not for streaming then you can configure it in the start pop page.

Verdict:

OBS is a popular screen recording software among YouTuber gaming channel. It’s free, open source and highly customizable. However, it’s difficult to setup and use. If you are not a geek, you might have a difficult time to set it up and the given that better version is available, I guess you should skip this one.

5. Monosnap

This is one of the best screen recording software available out there for free. Just after using this software for 5 minutes, I know my search for best screen recording app for Mac has ended.

Like every other software in this list, it lets you capture full screen or just part of the screen. But on top of that, it also lets you capture a particular window with a webcam in Picture-in-Picture mode.

Although, there is no video editor for screen recording. Monosnap does provide an image editor for your screenshot where you can add arrows, annotation, text etc. and once you are done you can either save your video in the local storage or upload it cloud storage like Dropbox, Google Drive, Evernote. However, these services are paid for $8 in-app purchases. You can upload it for free on Amazon s3 or R0emote FTP server though.

But the feature that really blown my mind is – the built-in image editor (mini photoshop) i.e. say, you have screenshot that you want to quickly edit or a picture that you find on the Internet, then you can just copy that picture to your clipboard and then right-click on Monosnap in toolbar and select open in the clipboard, this will open the image directly in Monosnap editor.

There is also an option to convert your video to gif.

Best Open Source Screen Recording Software For Mac Os Mojave Mac

Verdict:

Overall, if you are looking for an advanced screen recorder for Mac, then look no further. Monosnap is best you can get for free. It can do everything a paid screen recorder does. The only limitation is – you can not edit your video.

Comparison table

Best Screen Recording Software For macOS

Apowersoft Screen RecorderScreen Recorder Robot LiteRecordit:MonosnapOpen Broadcaster Software
RecordRegion, Full Screen or Web CameraRegion, Fullscreen Region,

Fullscreen

Region, Full Screen with PIP Face CamRegion, Fullscreen
Record Audio From External SourceYesYesNoYesYes, with audio mixer
Keyboard ShortcutsYesYesNoYesYes
Recording QualityLow to High

(15-60 fps)

Low to High

(1-30 fps)

Decent video quality for web uploadLow to High

(1-30 fps)

Low to High

(1-30 fps)

Edit VideoNoYesNoNoNo
Capture Screenshot NoYesNoYes

(support basic image editing)

Yes
Cloud BackupNoNoYes, upload video to Recordit serverYesYes
PriceFree – no watermark or time limitFreemium,

Free for 5 mins,

Free for 5 mins only, no paid versionMostly free, except Cloud Backup Free and Open source