Bug reports
Show the bug instead of describing it
A recording that pushes in on the thing that went wrong saves the round trip that starts with which button did you press.
Apple Silicon · macOS 14+ · one email when the first build is ready
Written bug reports lose a round trip to the same question every time: what exactly did you click. A recording answers it before it is asked, which is why every issue template has a line asking for one.
The reason people skip it is that the recording is usually worse than the description. It is four minutes long, most of which is finding the thing, and the moment that matters is six pixels wide.
The moment that matters, at a readable size
Prequel records where you click and type while it captures, and turns those moments into zooms. The click that triggered the bug is a click it noticed, so it is a push in the finished video without you placing one.
If the interesting thing is text rather than a pointer — an error message, a stack trace, a value in a config panel — draw a region zoom. It holds still on the area you drew rather than following the cursor around while somebody tries to read it.
Trim to the reproduction
The take is a real timeline, with a playhead that scrubs and a waveform under every clip. Cutting the ninety seconds where you were finding the right screen is a blade and a delete.
That is worth doing for its own sake, and it is also how the file gets small enough to attach. Export is hardware H.264 at a constant frame rate, which is dramatically smaller than the MOV a plain screen recording produces for the same seconds — and at 1080p rather than 4K, a thirty-second reproduction is an ordinary attachment.
What gets captured
Screen, microphone, system audio and webcam, as separate tracks. The system audio track is occasionally the whole report on its own, when the bug is something making a sound it should not. Narration is optional, and its gain is independent of everything else.
Nothing is uploaded to make any of this.
Automatic
It arrives already directed
A raw screen recording is flat — one distance from the viewer for the whole take, with the thing that matters too small to see. Prequel watches where you click and type while it records, and opens the editor with that pass already made.
- 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 in post
It opens by itself when you stop recording, on the take you just made. Nothing to import, nothing to line up.
Zooms that follow the work
Push in on the cursor, a region or whatever you are typing into. Level, speed, tilt and yaw, with progressive blur falling away from the focus.
A camera you frame afterwards
Circle, squircle, rounded or wide, in any corner and any size. The webcam is never burned into the recording, so none of it is decided while you record.
Backgrounds worth shipping
Your own wallpaper by default, seven bundled presets, gradients and solids. Padding, radius, border and shadow on top.
Cuts on a real timeline
Trim the dead air, slice by slice, with a waveform under every clip and a playhead that scrubs. Layout, background and audio can all change mid-take.
A cursor that behaves
Four pointer styles, resized to survive a zoom, and gone from the frame after a few seconds of stillness rather than parked over your work.
What you see is what exports
The preview and the exporter draw the same plan, so the file is the frame you approved — not a close approximation of it.
Quality
Exports that hold up
A video that looks produced is worth nothing if the file is soft. Capture and export run on your Mac's own media engine — hardware H.264 or HEVC, composited in Metal — so 1080p60 records without dropping frames and 4K is a setting rather than a compromise.
- 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
One MP4, shaped for wherever it is going
Switch a recording from landscape to vertical and the look holds — the framing is stored in proportions, not pixels, so nothing slides off the frame on the way.
- Landscape 16:9
- 4K
- Vertical 9:16
- Square 1:1
- Portrait 4:5
- YouTube
- Shorts
- TikTok
- Reels
- X
Be there for the first build
Prequel is in development. Leave an address and we will send it the day it is worth installing.
Curious about the internals? Read the blog
FAQ
Zooms, exports and the rest
How do I keep the file small enough to attach?
Trim to the reproduction and export at 1080p rather than 4K. Export is hardware H.264 at a constant frame rate, which is dramatically smaller than the MOV a plain screen recording produces for the same seconds.
Can I export a bug report as a GIF?
Yes. GIF is one of the export formats, which is often the right one for an issue tracker — it plays inline in GitHub and Linear instead of asking someone to download a file. It carries no audio, so keep the MP4 if the narration matters.
Can I cut out the part where I fumbled the setup?
Yes. The take is a timeline with a playhead that scrubs and a waveform under every clip, so cutting the first ninety seconds is a blade and a delete.
Does the recording show what I actually clicked?
Yes, and more clearly than a raw capture does. Prequel records where the pointer went and where you pressed, then pushes in on those moments — so the answer to which button did you press is in the video rather than in the reply.
How do I record the console and the interface together?
Record the whole display rather than a single window. Cursor zooms follow the pointer across it, so moving from the app to the console and back keeps whoever is watching with you.
Can I record system audio so an error sound is captured?
Yes. System audio is recorded alongside your microphone as its own track, with no virtual audio driver to install first.
My recording came out black. What happened?
The Screen Recording permission, nearly always. macOS hands back empty frames instead of an error when it has not been granted, so the app looks broken rather than blocked. Grant it under Privacy & Security in System Settings and record the reproduction again.