The best screen recording apps for Mac

App	Price	How you pay	Mac	iPhone	iPad	App Store	Developer	Setapp	Rating
CleanShot X	$35 once	Pay once							Too few ratings
Screen Studio	From $9	Subscription							Too few ratings
Cap	Free to start	Free, with paid upgrades							Too few ratings
Loom	Free to start	Free, with paid upgrades							4.8
Gifox	Free to start	Free, with paid upgrades							Too few ratings

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1. 1

   CleanShot X

   $35 onceOur pick

   Pick it if you take screenshots and record short how-to clips every day and want 1 tool for both.

   The Mac's built-in screenshot tool can't grab a whole scrolling page or blur a name before you share it. CleanShot X does both, copies text out of any capture, records your screen as a video or GIF, and its Studio Mode adds cursor-following zooms to recordings. It costs $35 once with 1 year of updates and has no free trial, so try Shottr, free for personal use, before you buy.

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2. 2

   Screen Studio

   From $9

   Pick this if you publish product demos or course videos and want them zoomed and smoothed without a video editor.

   Record your screen once and get back a video that zooms in wherever you clicked, with a smoothed cursor and a clean background, so it looks like an edited product demo. The cursor is recorded separately so you can restyle it later, and editing the transcript cuts filler words. It is subscription only now, from $9 a month billed yearly, so CleanShot X is the better buy if you mostly take screenshots.

   Prices and full verdictDeveloper's siteCompare
   
3. 3

   Cap

   Free to startBest free

   Pick it if you want Loom-style share links for free and like that the code is open source.

   Free for personal use, this open source recorder works like Loom: it uploads while you talk and the share link is copied when you stop. Studio Mode records screen, camera and mic in 4K on separate tracks and adds automatic zooms. Free share links stop at 5 minutes and commercial use needs the $58 license, and CleanShot X is the better buy if you want screenshot tools in the same app.

   Prices and full verdictDeveloper's siteCompare
   
4. 4

   Loom

   Free to start4.8

   Pick it if your team already shares Loom videos, or you need to record from an iPhone or iPad too.

   The Mac's Shift-Command-5 tool records your screen, but Loom records your camera and voice with it and hands you a share link the moment you stop. Viewers leave time-stamped comments and reactions, and you see who watched. The free plan caps you at 25 videos of up to 5 minutes in 720p, and Business is $18 per user a month, so Cap is worth a look if you want shareable links for less.

   Prices and full verdictApp StoreCompare
   
5. 5

   Gifox

   Free to start

   Pick this if your recordings last a few seconds and need to play as GIFs inside Slack or email.

   Free with every feature, Gifox records part of your screen or a single window as an animated GIF, though the free version stops at 10 seconds and adds a small watermark. Its editor trims, crops and reorders frames, converts videos to GIFs and tunes colors so files stay small. Pro removes those limits for $14.99 once, and Kap is free if you also want MP4 and WebM.

   Prices and full verdictDeveloper's siteCompare
   

• CleanShot X vs Screen StudioPick this if you publish product demos or course videos and want them zoomed and smoothed without a video editor.
• CleanShot X vs CapPick it if you want Loom-style share links for free and like that the code is open source.
• CleanShot X vs LoomPick it if your team already shares Loom videos, or you need to record from an iPhone or iPad too.
• Screen Studio vs CapPick it if you want Loom-style share links for free and like that the code is open source.