Free online screen recorder that always gives you MP4

Yes, and in the plain sense of the word. There is no account, no trial that expires, no export limit and no paid tier that unlocks the resolution you actually wanted. The site is static files and the recording happens on your computer, so there are no per-minute costs for anyone to pass on to you.

No. Screen capture, camera access and video encoding are all built into modern browsers. Opening this page is the entire installation. That also means it works on managed work laptops where you are not allowed to install software.

No. Nothing is drawn onto your video at any resolution or length. The only thing composited onto the picture is your own webcam bubble, and only if you switch it on.

Not one we impose. The practical ceiling is your own hardware: the file is held in memory while you record, so a very long capture on a machine with little free RAM can eventually run out of room. For recordings beyond about an hour at 1080p, it is worth breaking them into parts.

No, and not as a matter of policy — as a matter of architecture. The site has no backend. Video never leaves the page it was created in, and you can verify that by opening your browser's network tab while you record, or by disconnecting from the internet before you press start. The recorder keeps working offline.

MP4 with H.264 video and AAC audio, in every browser that makes it possible. It matters because the alternative is WebM, which Windows Photos, iMovie and older versions of Premiere will refuse to open, and which many upload forms reject. MP4 is the format that simply works everywhere.

Two ways, depending on the browser. Safari and recent versions of Chrome and Edge can write MP4 directly, so we let them — nothing is re-encoded. Older Chromium versions cannot, so we encode with WebCodecs using your machine's hardware H.264 encoder and assemble the MP4 container in JavaScript. Both routes avoid the thirty-megabyte ffmpeg.wasm download and the second full transcode it requires.

In Chrome, Edge and Opera, yes — switch on system audio and choose your screen or a tab. Safari and Firefox do not offer system audio to web pages, so there you can record your microphone but not the computer's own output. On Windows, capturing a specific window's audio is less reliable than capturing a whole screen or a browser tab.

Yes. Switch on the microphone before you start. If system audio is on as well, the two are mixed into one audio track, so you do not end up with a file that has your narration on one channel and the video's sound on another.

Yes. Turn on the webcam toggle and your camera appears as a circular bubble in the bottom corner. It is composited into the video itself rather than kept as a separate layer, which means it survives being opened in any editor, but also means it cannot be moved after the fact.

Chrome, Edge, Opera, Safari and Firefox on desktop, on Windows, macOS, Linux and ChromeOS. Chrome, Edge and Opera give you the complete feature set including system audio. Safari records without system audio. Firefox records without system audio and produces WebM instead of MP4, and the recorder warns you about that before you download.

Because Apple does not expose screen capture to web pages, in Safari or in any other iOS browser — all of them are required to use Apple's engine underneath. This is a platform restriction rather than a missing feature, and no website can work around it. iOS has its own screen recorder built into Control Centre, and our iPhone guide covers switching it on.

Android has the same restriction: a web page cannot capture the device's screen. Android 11 and later include a screen recorder in Quick Settings — swipe down twice, tap Screen record, and choose whether to include audio. Chrome on an Android tablet in desktop mode still cannot do it.

Technically yes — record the screen or the tab the call is running in, with system audio on to capture the other participants. Legally and ethically, tell everyone first. Many jurisdictions require consent from all parties to record a conversation, and most workplaces have a policy that is stricter than the law.

Streaming services use DRM, which instructs the graphics stack to exclude protected video from any capture. The recording succeeds but that region comes out black. This affects every screen recorder, including desktop applications, and it is working as designed. Recording streamed films is also a copyright infringement in most countries, so this is one restriction worth leaving alone.

Wherever your browser saves downloads — usually the Downloads folder. The file is named with the date and time it was recorded, so a folder full of them stays sortable.

Roughly 30 to 60 MB per minute at 1080p30, depending on how much movement is on screen. Screen content compresses well because most of the frame is static, so a slide-based tutorial is far smaller than gameplay. Choosing 720p roughly halves it.

720p at 30 fps for anything you will email or paste into a ticket. 1080p at 30 fps for tutorials and demos, which is the right answer most of the time. 1440p at 60 fps only for gameplay or fast motion — it produces much larger files and asks a lot more of your processor.

Yes. Pause, do whatever you needed to do, then resume. The paused span is removed from the timeline, so the finished video has no dead air and no visible jump in the timecode.

No, and deliberately. This tool does one job. The MP4 it produces opens in every editor there is, so trim it in whatever you already use — CapCut, iMovie, Clipchamp, DaVinci Resolve or Premiere.

Three usual causes. The microphone toggle was off before you pressed record, and options lock once a take starts. Or you are in Safari or Firefox, which do not provide system audio to web pages. Or, in Chrome, you chose a window rather than a screen or tab — window capture does not reliably carry audio on Windows. Recording a whole screen or a single tab is the fix.

Yes, and for anything web-based it is the best option. Tab capture follows the tab rather than a screen region, so notifications, other windows and your desktop wallpaper never appear. It also gives the cleanest audio, because it captures that tab's sound specifically.

Once the page has loaded, yes. There is no request to make during a recording, so the recorder keeps working with the network switched off. That is also the simplest way to confirm for yourself that nothing is being uploaded.

The recording itself never leaves your machine, so the tool adds no exposure. The remaining risk is the file you have just created: it sits in your Downloads folder like any other video, so treat it with whatever care its contents deserve, and be aware that anything visible on screen — notifications, tabs, bookmarks — is now in the recording.

The recording ends and is saved, exactly as if you had pressed stop here. You will not lose what you had already captured.

Yes. Choose Screen, and the browser's picker lists every connected display. Pick the one you want. Each recording captures a single display, so to cover two monitors at once, choose the window or tab you actually need instead.

Because they are separate decisions and the browser treats them that way. Screen sharing is granted per recording through the picker; camera and microphone are granted per site. Declining either one only removes that input — the recording still goes ahead without it.

Recording your own screen is generally fine. What can cross a line is what is on it: recording other people's voices or video without consent, capturing copyrighted films or paid courses, or exporting company data. The tool cannot judge any of that, so the responsibility for it stays with you.