Screen Recorder (Web)

How browser-based screen recording works

This recorder captures your screen, a browser tab, or your webcam using two web standards built into modern browsers — getDisplayMedia for screen and tab capture, and getUserMedia for the webcam — and encodes the result with the browser's MediaRecorder. The single most important thing to understand is that everything happens locally. The video stream is captured by your browser, encoded on your own machine, and handed back to you as a downloadable file. Nothing is uploaded to any server. You can confirm this the obvious way: disconnect from the internet and the recorder still works perfectly, because there is nowhere for the footage to go but your own download folder.

The four recording modes, and what they actually capture

When you pick any screen mode, your browser — not this page — shows the native picker that lets you choose an entire monitor, a single application window, or a specific tab. The tool cannot pre-select what you share or see anything until you grant that permission; the choice and the consent stay entirely with the browser. The webcam mode is the one to fall back on if screen capture isn't available, since it relies on the more widely supported camera API.

An honest note about audio

Audio is the trickiest part of browser screen recording, and it's worth setting expectations. In "Screen + Audio" mode this tool requests your microphone and mixes that track into the recording; if you deny the mic prompt, recording simply continues silently. Capturing system/tab audio — the sound the page itself is playing — is offered by the browser's own share dialog (often a "share tab audio" checkbox) and its availability varies by browser and operating system. So whether you get the soundtrack of a video you're recording depends on your browser and the box you tick in its dialog, not on a setting in this page. Always do a short test recording and play it back before capturing anything important.

A worked example: recording a 30-second demo

Choose Screen + Audio and click Start Recording. Your browser pops up its share picker — select the window or tab you want to demonstrate and confirm. A red pulsing dot and an MM:SS timer appear, confirming you're live. Talk through your demo; if you need a moment, hit Pause (the timer freezes) and Resume to continue in the same file. When you're done, click Stop — or simply use the browser's own "Stop sharing" button, which the tool detects and treats as a stop. The clip immediately appears in an in-page video player so you can review it, and a Download WebM link saves it. Nothing was sent anywhere; the file existed only in your browser until you downloaded it.

The output format: WebM

Recordings are saved as WebM, using the VP9 video codec where the browser supports it and falling back to VP8 otherwise. WebM is a free, open format that plays natively in Chrome, Edge, and Firefox and is ideal for the web. The trade-off to know: some other software — notably certain versions of QuickTime, older video editors, and some social platforms — prefer MP4. If your destination needs MP4, you can convert the downloaded WebM with a separate converter; the recording itself is lossless of any quality you'd lose by re-encoding later.

Browser support and limitations

• Use a desktop Chromium or Firefox browser. Chrome 72+, Edge 79+, and Firefox 66+ support getDisplayMedia for screen and tab recording. The tool shows a yellow warning if your browser lacks it.
• Safari is limited. On most Safari versions screen capture isn't available, so only the Webcam mode will work there.
• Recording lives in the open page. A captured clip is held in memory until you download it. Reloading or closing the tab before downloading discards it, and "Discard" deliberately throws it away so you can start fresh.
• System audio is browser-dependent. If you need the recorded application's sound, look for the "share audio" checkbox in your browser's share dialog and verify it captured by checking your test clip.
• Performance scales with screen size. Recording a large, high-refresh display is more CPU-intensive; close heavy tabs for a smoother capture.

Common use cases

Browser screen recording is perfect for quick, no-install jobs: capturing a bug to send to a developer, recording a short how-to for a colleague, saving a webinar segment for your own reference, or filming a webcam introduction. Because it needs no software and uploads nothing, it's especially handy on a locked-down work computer where you can't install a desktop recorder, and for anyone who simply doesn't want their footage passing through a third party's servers.