Onboarding
Onboarding that customers actually finish
A recording that pushes in on the thing being clicked is a recording people watch to the end. Prequel places those pushes for you.
Apple Silicon · macOS 14+ · one email when the first build is ready
Onboarding videos have a completion problem. The metric that matters is not whether someone pressed play, it is whether they were still watching at the step that makes the product click — and most of them are not.
Part of that is length. A larger part is that a flat screen recording gives the viewer no signal about what to look at. Everything on screen is the same size and the same distance away, for eleven minutes.
Give the eye somewhere to go
Prequel watches where you click and type while it records, and turns those moments into zooms before you ever open the editor. The effect is that the video moves with the task: in on the field being filled, out when you move to the next part of the screen.
That is the thing viewers read as production value, and it is the thing nobody has time to do by hand on a video that will need re-recording next quarter.
Because it will need re-recording
Onboarding videos go stale faster than any other kind. The interface changes and suddenly minute four is showing a screen that no longer exists.
The take is a timeline of slices, so the fix is a trim and a replacement recording rather than a fresh start. Layout, background and audio can change mid-take, so the ninety seconds you record today do not have to match the framing choices you made last spring for the rest of it to keep working.
One take, several videos
The same recording is usually wanted at several lengths — the full walkthrough for the help centre, ninety seconds for the in-app tour, thirty for an email.
Trim it down and export again at a different frame preset. Framing is stored in proportions rather than pixels, so the short vertical cut keeps the camera and the padding where you put them instead of cropping them out of frame.
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 long should an onboarding video be?
Under two minutes for the one that plays on first launch, and one video per job rather than one covering everything. Completion falls off a cliff somewhere around the three-minute mark, which is an argument for cutting a long take into several short ones — the same take can produce all of them.
How do I keep an onboarding video current?
Re-record the step that changed rather than the whole video. The take is a timeline of slices, so replacing ninety seconds in the middle is a trim and a new recording, not a fresh start.
Can I make a short version for the in-app tour?
Trim the take down and export it again at a different frame preset. The look survives the change, because the geometry is stored in proportions rather than pixels.
Can I record onboarding videos without being on camera?
Yes. The webcam is optional and, when it is on, it is recorded as its own track — so a video can ship with the camera, without it, or with it appearing only for the introduction.
How do I make the interface readable in a small embedded player?
Let the zooms do it. Prequel pushes in on what you clicked, so the control being explained fills the frame rather than sitting as twelve pixels of text in a corner. A region zoom holds still over a form, which is what a signup step usually needs.
Can I fix the sound if a notification lands mid-recording?
Yes. The microphone and system audio are separate tracks with separate gains, so a notification arriving over your voice is a slider afterwards rather than a reason to start again.
What does Prequel need to run?
An Apple Silicon Mac on macOS 14 or later and the Screen Recording permission. Zooms that follow what you type also use Accessibility; without it that input is absent rather than broken.