Training
Record the training video once
Do the process on your screen while Prequel watches where you click and type. What comes back is the video you would have spent an afternoon editing.
Apple Silicon · macOS 14+ · one email when the first build is ready
Most internal training video is made once, badly, by someone who was not hired to make video. It shows the process, it is twenty minutes long, and it is recorded at one distance with a cursor skidding around the screen.
It still beats writing the process down, which is why people keep making them. The gap is that the tooling assumes you will edit afterwards, and nobody editing an internal training video has ever had the afternoon for it.
Do the process, get the video
Start recording, do the task the way you would do it anyway, stop. Prequel notes where you click and where you type as it captures, and the editor opens on the take with those moments already turned into zooms — pushed in on the field being filled, pulled back when you move on.
A process that spans several applications works the same way. Record the whole screen and cursor zooms follow the pointer between them, so moving from a browser to a spreadsheet does not lose the person watching.
The details that make it look careless
Two things give an internal recording away. The cursor is the first: at export size it is either invisible or it sits parked over the thing being explained. Prequel offers four pointer styles, resizes the cursor so it survives a zoom, and takes it out of frame after a few seconds of stillness.
The second is audio. Something always arrives at full volume in the middle of a take — a notification, a call, a video someone left playing. Microphone and system audio are recorded as separate tracks with separate gains, so that is a slider afterwards rather than a reason to record the whole thing again.
Keeping it current
The take is a timeline. When step four changes, trim step four out and record a replacement. The rest of the video does not have to be touched, and the new section does not have to match the old one's framing to sit next to it.
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 does it take to turn a screen recording into a training video?
The recording, plus the trimming. There is no import step, no render queue and no zooms to place by hand — the editor opens on the take with those already decided, so the work left is deciding what to cut.
Can I record a process that spans several apps?
Record the whole screen and the take follows you between them. Cursor zooms track the pointer across the display, so moving from a browser to a spreadsheet does not lose the viewer.
What about the notification that lands mid-recording?
It lands on the system audio track, not on your voice. The two are captured separately and mixed only at export, so pulling the alert down is a gain on one clip — no part of the narration has to be recorded twice.
Can I narrate a training video as I record it?
Yes. The microphone is captured in the same pass as the screen, on its own track, so the narration and the demonstration are recorded together and mixed separately.
How do I keep internal data out of a training video?
Two ways, both decided before you record: point Prequel at a single window rather than the whole display, or drag a region around the part of the screen you want captured. Anything outside it was never recorded. If something slips through mid-take, the timeline is the other answer — cut those seconds out.
Can I pause partway through a long process?
Yes, with a global shortcut that works while another app has focus. Paused spans are removed from the recording rather than left as a freeze, so a ten-minute take paused for half an hour is still a ten-minute file.
Does it work on macOS Sonoma?
Yes — macOS 14 is the floor, and Sonoma is 14. An Apple Silicon Mac and the Screen Recording permission are the other two requirements.