Vertical
The same take, vertical
Record once in landscape and switch the frame to 9:16. The camera and the padding stay where you put them instead of sliding off the edge.
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Vertical video from a screen recording is usually a crop, and a crop of a desktop is a bad video. The interface was laid out across a wide frame; taking the middle ninth of it throws away most of what you were showing and puts the webcam somewhere off the edge.
The alternative is recording everything twice, once per aspect ratio, which nobody does after the first week.
Framing that survives the switch
Prequel does not store the look in pixels. Every geometry setting — the camera size, its corner, the padding, the radius — is a fraction of the frame's shorter edge.
The practical effect is that switching a take from 16:9 to 9:16 keeps the camera a quarter of the way across the frame rather than sliding it out of shot, and keeps the padding proportional rather than enormous. The look holds. You are re-framing the same take, not rebuilding it.
That invariant is enforced in the code that computes geometry, and the preview and the exporter draw the same plan — so the vertical version you approve on screen is the vertical version in the file.
Which frames are there
Landscape 16:9, 4K, vertical 9:16, square 1:1 and portrait 4:5, plus named presets for YouTube, Shorts, TikTok, Reels, X and LinkedIn.
Switching between them is a setting on the take, so one recording can produce the long landscape cut and the vertical clip without a second capture.
The zooms matter more here
Vertical makes a desktop recording smaller, not larger, so the pushes are doing more work than they do in 16:9. Prequel places them from where you clicked and typed during the take, and every one is an ordinary timeline slice you can retime or aim somewhere else.
For a Short specifically, the useful move is usually a tighter level and a faster speed than you would want in a long-form video. Both are per-zoom settings.
- 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
Thanks so much for jumping on this call
Iwanttoshowyousomethingcool
[pause here]
we’ve been building for the past few months
Teleprompter
A teleprompter that follows your voice
Prequel hangs your script from the notch, just under the camera, and follows your voice — the word you're saying lights up as you say it. Wander off script and it waits for you; skip ahead or fall behind and it catches up within a couple of words.
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
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Curious about the internals? Read the blog
FAQ
Zooms, exports and the rest
Why does the layout not break when I switch to vertical?
Because none of it is stored in pixels. Every geometry setting is a fraction of the frame's shorter edge, so a camera sized a quarter of the way across a 16:9 frame is sized the same way in 9:16 rather than being cropped out of it.
Which vertical sizes are there?
Vertical 9:16, square 1:1 and portrait 4:5, plus named presets for Shorts, TikTok, Reels, X and LinkedIn. Landscape 16:9 and 4K are on the same list.
Can I make a vertical cut of something I recorded in landscape?
Yes, and it is the ordinary way to work — record once at whatever suits your screen, then switch the frame preset. Nothing is re-recorded and nothing is re-cropped by hand; the layout is re-solved for the new frame.
Can I import a video I recorded somewhere else?
No. Prequel edits takes it recorded itself, because the editor depends on things a finished file does not carry — the webcam as its own track, the microphone and system audio kept apart, and where the pointer was at every moment. A rendered MP4 has none of that left in it.
Where does the webcam sit in a vertical frame?
Wherever you put it, and it stays there. Its position is a fraction of the frame rather than a pixel offset, so a camera in the bottom-right of a landscape take is in the bottom-right of the vertical one instead of off the edge. Size, shape and corner are all still adjustable afterwards.
How long can a Short be?
Up to three minutes on YouTube Shorts now, though the ones that hold up are far shorter. Trimming to length is a scrub and a blade cut, with a waveform under every clip to find where you stopped talking.
What do I need to make vertical screen recordings on a Mac?
An Apple Silicon Mac on macOS 14 or later and the Screen Recording permission. The vertical frame is an export setting, so there is nothing to decide before you record.