Recording Settings
The options you choose before you start recording.
Screenflick has a few recording settings that you need to familiarize yourself with to make the best use of it. Instead of recording the entire screen at full speed for every recording you make, Screenflick allows you to pick the area of the screen to record, and the maximum frame rate to record at.
Screen Options #
Screenflick can either record a fixed area of the screen (a portion of the screen, or the full screen), OR it can also record a smaller area that continuously follows the mouse cursor. This latter option allows the area of the recording to be small but still be able to "see" the entire screen.
You can also record only some applications, or everything except some applications. See Choosing Which Applications to Record.
Recording Area Mode #
| Mode | How the recording area moves |
|---|---|
| Fixed Location | The recording area does not move at all. |
| Relaxed Follow | The position of the mouse cursor relative to the recording area is the same as the relationship of the recording area to the overall screen area. In other words, when the mouse is in the top left corner of the screen, the mouse is in the top left corner of the recording area, which is also in the top left of the screen. If the mouse is in the center of the screen, the recording area is centered on the mouse. |
| Centered Follow | The mouse cursor is always in the center of the recording area in this mode. |
| Lazy Follow | The recording area only moves if the mouse cursor gets very close to the edge of it, keeping the mouse within the bounds at all times, but not moving otherwise. |
In addition to picking one of these modes at the start of the recording, you can also switch between them by using the Change Recording Area Mode keyboard shortcut set in Screenflick's General preferences. (Command-Control-Shift-2 by default.)
Capture Rate #
The capture rate is the maximum number of frames per second that the screen will be recorded at. Choose higher options (30 and even 60 fps) for normal, fluid video. Lower options are useful for reduced recording sizes and even time lapse recordings.
Typically, the screen updates 60 times per second, and while Screenflick could try to record all of those updates, it's usually not needed. For some uses, recording 60 fps is useful, others 30 is plenty, and still others (such as web videos where file size is critical), 10 or 15 fps is all that's needed. While scaling down from a 60 fps recording to 15 fps could be done at the time you export the movie, that means Screenflick would be using four times as much disk space and CPU power than it needs to. To avoid that, Screenflick lets you pick the maximum frame rate from a wide range of choices based on your display's refresh rate.
Audio Options #
Choose to record the audio playing on your Mac, and/or audio from a microphone or another audio device. The audio sources are recorded in separate stereo tracks which can be exported separately or mixed down into a single stereo track later.
On macOS 13 and later, recording system audio doesn't need anything installed. Just turn on the "Record System Audio" checkbox. On earlier versions of macOS, recording system audio requires a system extension, which is easily installed (and uninstalled) using Screenflick itself. You can click on the "Record System Audio" checkbox to have Screenflick prompt you about installing it, or click on the "Audio Extension…" button. Installing the extension adds a new "virtual" audio device to the system called "Screenflick Loopback". Once installed, you will see this "device" show up in the System Preferences Audio panel's Input and Output device lists. The extension can be uninstalled at any time, easily.
Camera Options #
Record from the built-in FaceTime camera, an external USB webcam, or even a DSLR camera (with an appropriate system plugin). You can also use Screenflick on your Mac in combination with the "Screenflick Camera" iOS app to record from your iOS camera.
See Recording the Camera.
Start Recording #
Once you've chosen the general options for your recording (including the type of recording area movement, the maximum recording speed, and audio devices), click on the "Record" button to move onto the screen selection phase. See Recording Area Selection.
Additional options include delaying the recording until a screen resolution change takes place (useful for full screen gaming), or a schedule to automatically start and stop the recording. See Scheduled and Timed Recordings. How good the recording looks, and how much disk space it uses, is covered in Recording Quality.
