Using Screen Recorder

The Descript Screen Recorder makes it easy to capture video of your desktop and webcam for your projects. You can even share your recordings, or add them to a project to edit the recording further!

Screen Recorder Menu

The Screen Recorder menu provides quick access to your main recording options.

Screen / Camera Selector

Switch between Screen (computer desktop) or Camera (full-screen webcam) views.

Recording Setup

The Recording Setup section allows you to enable and disable additional options for your screen recording by clicking the icons to the left of the dropdown selector, as well as specify a recording device in the dropdown menu to the right. When a device is disabled, it will be a lighter grey color, and a slash line will appear over the icon:

• Webcam selection - selecting a webcam will open a small preview window in the lower-left corner of your screen. You may click on the webcam preview and drag it to any location on your desktop.
• Audio input device - choose which input device / microphone you would like to record your audio from.
• Computer audio recording - This allows you to enable recording system audio from other applications.
• Automatic transcription - When enabled, this feature will automatically transcribe any recorded speech from the microphone track, as well as the Computer Audio track.
• Studio Sound - When enabled, the Studio Sound feature will automatically be applied to your recorded tracks. Studio sound is a non-destructive effect, so it can always be disabled after-the-fact to revert to the original source audio.
•  Other options (ellipsis button) - This provides access to the following additional options:
  • Preferences - this will open additional Screen Recorder Preferences.
  • Open Drive View - this will open a new Drive View window.
  • Quit - click this to exit Descript and the Screen Recorder application.

Making a Screen Recording

To make a screen recording, click on the Start screen recording button on the Screen Recording menu, or press the configured Start/Stop recording keyboard shortcut.

You will be prompted to use your mouse to drag a box outlining the desired screen area you would like to record. Alternatively you may press Space on the keyboard or Click with the mouse to begin recording the full desktop.

If necessary, you may adjust the selected screen area before starting the recording to get the dimensions set how you would like. To do so, click and drag one of the white circles in the selection box.

If you've enabled the Camera preview window, you can also adjust its position, shape and size by hovering over the preview window to see additional options.

Recording Dock

Once the recording begins, you will notice a small recording timer on the right-hand side of the recording area. If you are recording in fullscreen mode, or with a near-fullscreen manual recording area this timer will be located within the viewable recording space.

Here you have the option to stop the recording. macOS users may also pause a screen recording.

Windows users may avoid recording with this timer in the viewable recording area by drawing a manual selection area for the recording, making sure to leave a sufficient right-hand buffer so that the recording timer/stop button will be left outside of the viewable space. Pause and minimize support for Windows will become available in a future update.

Mouse click indicator

While recording, Descript will automatically indicate any on-screen mouse clicks with a black circle border around the mouse:

Stopping a Recording

Once you have completed a recording, you may either click on the Stop icon in the recording dock, or press the recording shortcut which you can set in your Screen Recorder preferences menu.

Quick Editor

Next you will be prompted to edit and publish your Screen Recorder using the Quick Editor. Here you can tidy up your screen recording, then click Publish and copy link to send it to the web. Or, if you're looking for the full features of the Descript editor, you can click Edit in Descript.

Copying your Screen Recording to a Project

Descript allows you to easily paste your screen recording directly into Descript to begin editing the file immediately. To do so, click the "Copy to clipboard" icon at the bottom of the Quick Editor.

You can then paste it in the following ways:

As a clip in the pinned track

Place the cursor at the beginning of or within a paragraph and paste the link.

As a clip in the timeline track

Place the cursor on a newline and paste the link.

Viewing Screen Recordings

You can view all of your screen recordings by navigating to the Drive View (File > Open Drive View) and clicking on the Recordings option in the "My Workspace" section of the left-hand sidebar. 

Quitting the Screen Recorder App

To quit Screen Recorder, you can simply close out the Descript app:

• macOS - click Command + Q, or Descript > Quit Descript
• Windows - Click the 'X' button at the top-right of the open windows, or File > Close Window on all of the open windows.

If you have the Screen Recorder option to "Run in background" enabled in your Screen Recorder Preferences you will need to close the Screen Recorder directly by:

1. Opening the Screen Recorder Menu
2. Clicking on the Preferences ellipsis (...) button at the right.
3. Selecting Quit.