Tutorials
Software tutorials people can follow
Record the steps once. The zooms land on what you clicked, the cursor stops wandering, and the result is a tutorial rather than a screen capture.
Apple Silicon · macOS 14+ · one email when the first build is ready
A tutorial is a sequence of small targets. Click this, type that, notice the thing that changed in the corner. Every one of those is a moment where the viewer needs to be looking at a specific part of a screen that is mostly not that part.
Screen recorders do not help with this. They capture the whole display faithfully and hand you the problem.
Zooms that land where you were working
Prequel records your clicks and keystrokes alongside the picture. When you stop, the editor opens with those moments already grouped into zooms, so the tutorial pushes in on each target as you reach it and pulls back out between them.
You are editing a first draft rather than raw footage. Every generated zoom is an ordinary slice — move it, retime it, delete it, or point it somewhere else entirely.
Two kinds of push, for two kinds of step
A cursor zoom follows the pointer, which is right for a step where you are moving across the interface.
A region zoom holds still on an area you draw, which is right for anything the viewer has to read: a form, a config file, a diff, an error message. A zoom that follows the cursor while someone is trying to read a paragraph is actively worse than staying wide.
There is a third target — whatever you are typing into — for the steps where the interesting thing is the text appearing rather than the pointer.
The cursor itself
At tutorial scale the pointer matters more than it sounds. Prequel draws it in one of four styles, resized so it is still visible after a 2x push, smoothed so it stops skidding, and removed from frame after a few seconds of stillness instead of sitting on top of the thing you just explained.
Export is one MP4, up to 4K and up to 120 frames per second, with no watermark and no upload.
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 record a software tutorial on a Mac?
Pick a display, a window or a dragged region, and start. Prequel records the screen along with your webcam, microphone and system audio, then opens an editor on the take with the zooms already placed on what you clicked. Trim what you fumbled and export one MP4.
Do I have to place the zooms myself?
No. Prequel records where you click and type as it captures, and those moments are clustered into zooms before the editor opens. Every one of them is an ordinary slice afterwards, so moving, retiming or deleting one is the same work as adding your own.
Can I zoom in on a form rather than the cursor?
Draw a region zoom over it. A region is one of three things a zoom can aim at, and it is the one that stays put — which is what a form wants, because the viewer is reading it rather than watching the pointer. Aim at the cursor instead and the frame travels with the mouse.
The cursor is tiny once I export. Can I fix that?
There are four pointer styles and the cursor is resized to survive a zoom. It also leaves the frame after a few seconds of stillness, rather than sitting parked over the thing you are explaining.
Can I record one window instead of the whole screen?
Yes. A window and a dragged region are both capture targets alongside a full display, which keeps the rest of your desktop out of the tutorial without cropping it back out afterwards.
Can I just use QuickTime for this?
For a plain screen capture, yes. What QuickTime will not do is record your camera in the same pass, capture system audio without a virtual audio driver, or push in on what you are doing — all of which are the difference between a screen capture and a tutorial someone can follow.
What do I need to record a software tutorial?
An Apple Silicon Mac running macOS 14 or later and the Screen Recording permission. Accessibility is optional and only feeds the zooms that follow what you type.