The cinematic screen recorder for Mac
Record on macOS and get an auto-edited video with smart zooms, a framed camera and a polished background, ready to fine-tune.
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- Record your screen and cameraPick a display, a window or an area you drag out, with your camera, microphone and system audio each on their own track.
- Zooms and layout are applied automaticallyPrequel reads where you clicked and typed, then places the zooms, frames your camera and sets a background behind it.
- Edit, export and shareMove a zoom, trim a clip or fix a caption, then export one MP4 at up to 4K or send a link that plays anywhere.
Zoom and pan
Zooms that follow the action
Prequel automatically zooms in when you click or type, then softens the rest of the window so viewers know where to look. Every zoom is added to the timeline, so you can move, retime or delete it at any time.
Layouts
Switch layouts clip by clip
Choose from fourteen layouts for the same take: camera in the corner, beside the screen, split with it or hidden entirely. Use one layout for the whole video, or change it clip by clip.
Subtitles
Subtitles you can edit like text
Prequel transcribes every word on your Mac when the editor opens. Fix captions by typing in the transcript, choose a subtitle style or delete a sentence to remove it from the video.
Thisisthecheckoutweshippedlastweek
Thisisthecheckoutweshippedlastweek
Thisisthecheckoutweshippedlastweek
Thisisthecheckoutweshippedlastweek
Thisisthecheckoutweshippedlastweek
Thisisthecheckoutweshippedlastweek
Instant edit
Start with the edit already done
Prequel records where you click and type, then opens the editor with zooms already placed, a framed camera and a polished background. Spend less time building the first cut and more time fine-tuning.
- Zooms placedOn every click and every burst of typing
- Camera framedShaped, sized and set in a corner
- Background appliedPadding, radius, border and shadow
- Audio balancedMicrophone and system on separate gains
- Cursor cleaned upSmoothed, resized, hidden when it idles
The editor
Everything you would have done by hand
It opens by itself when you stop recording, on the take you just made. Nothing to import, nothing to line up.
Guide attention automatically
Prequel zooms into the part of the screen that matters: the cursor, a region you draw, or whatever you are typing into. Set the level, the speed and how much the rest of the frame blurs.
Look present without taking over the video
Your camera stays framed and out of the way: circle, squircle, rounded, wide or portrait, in any corner and any size. It is never burned into the recording, so none of it is decided while you record.
Make recordings look designed
Add a background, padding and a shadow without editing any of it by hand. Your own wallpaper by default, seven bundled presets, gradients and solids.
Cut the parts nobody needs to see
Trim the pauses yourself, slice by slice, with a waveform under every clip. Layout, background and audio can all change mid-take.
Keep the pointer out of the way
Fifteen pointer styles, resized so the cursor survives a zoom. Smoothed while it travels, and hidden after a few seconds of stillness.
Export the frame you approved
The preview and the exporter draw the same plan, so the file matches what you signed off in the editor.
Quality
Videos stay sharp at 4K
Capture and export run on your Mac's own media engine. 1080p at 60 fps records without dropping frames, and 4K is a setting you pick.
- Resolution
- Up to 4K
- Frame rate
- Up to 120 fps
- Codecs
- H.264 · HEVC
- Encoding
- Hardware, VideoToolbox
- Compositing
- Metal
- Output
- Constant frame rate MP4
Formats
Export in any frame
Turn one recording into different formats without manually reframing every element. Switch from landscape to vertical and the layout stays intact.
- Landscape 16:9
- 4K
- Vertical 9:16
- Square 1:1
- Portrait 4:5
- YouTube
- Shorts
- TikTok
- Reels
- X
Record demos worth sharing
Free for 7 days. No watermark on anything you export.
No credit card required
Curious about the internals? Read the blog
FAQ
Zooms, exports and the rest
What is Prequel?
Prequel is a screen recorder for macOS that does the editing for you, so you spend less time editing screen recordings. It records your screen, your camera, your microphone and system audio, then opens an editor on the take with the zooms already placed, the camera framed and a background applied. Export is one MP4 at up to 4K, rendered on your Mac's own media engine.
How do the automatic zooms work?
Prequel records where you click and type while it captures. When the editor opens on the take, those moments have already been clustered into zooms: pushed in on what you were doing, and pulled back out when you moved on. There is nothing to set up before you record.
Can I change or delete the automatic zooms?
Yes. Every generated zoom is an ordinary slice on the timeline, identical to one you add yourself. Move it, retime it, point it somewhere else or delete it. Nothing it placed for you is baked in.
Can I zoom in on something other than the cursor?
Yes. A zoom can target the cursor, a fixed region you draw, or whatever you are typing into. Region zooms hold still, which is what you want for a form or a diff. Cursor zooms follow the pointer around the screen.
Does zooming in make the recording blurry?
It depends on how much headroom the recording has. Capture runs at your display's native resolution, so a Retina Mac recording a 3024 by 1898 screen and exporting at 1080p has roughly three times the pixels it needs, and a 2x zoom still lands on real detail. Push past the source resolution and it softens, the same as any crop.
Can I control how fast a zoom moves?
Level, speed, tilt and yaw are all set per zoom, and blur falls away from the focus, so a push reads as depth rather than a jump cut. Slow and shallow for a walkthrough, faster and tighter for a highlight.
Do I need to set anything up before I record?
No. Pick a screen, a window or a dragged region and start. The zooms, the camera framing, the background and the cuts are all decided afterwards, on a take you can already see.
Can I move the webcam after recording?
Yes. Your camera is never burned into the screen recording, so its shape (circle, squircle, rounded or wide), its size, its corner and whether it is mirrored are all still yours once the take is finished.
What can Prequel export?
One MP4, in H.264 or HEVC, at up to 4K and up to 120 frames per second, at a constant frame rate. Frame presets cover 16:9, 4K, vertical 9:16, square, 4:5 and the usual social sizes.
Can I make a vertical version of a landscape recording?
Yes, and the look survives the switch. Framing is stored in proportions rather than pixels, so moving a take from 16:9 to 9:16 keeps the camera and the padding where you put them instead of sliding them off the frame.
Are the microphone and system audio recorded separately?
Yes, as separate tracks with separate gains. A notification landing at full volume over your voice is a slider afterwards rather than a reason to record the whole thing again.
What do I need to run Prequel?
An Apple Silicon Mac on macOS 14 or later, and the Screen Recording permission. Zooms driven by typing also want Accessibility; without it that one input is simply absent rather than broken.
Does my recording leave my machine?
Not to make one. Recording, editing and export all happen locally, on your Mac's own media engine. There is no upload step and no cloud render. Uploading a finished export to get a shareable link is something you ask for, on a file you have already made.