Free browser tool
Record yourself in the browser
Turn on your camera, pick the frame you are posting to, then record and download the file. Your face never leaves the tab.
- No sign up
- Nothing uploaded
- No watermark
- Up to 30 minutes a take
Turn on your camera
Your browser asks for the camera and the microphone. You see yourself before anything is recorded.
Frame
1080 by 1920
Camera
Sound
Recorded and saved in this tab. Nothing is uploaded.
It asks what you are posting to
Pick the frame first: vertical 9:16 for a Reel or a Short, square for a feed, 4:5 for a post, landscape for everything else. The recording comes out at that size, so there is nothing to reframe afterwards.
Your camera is cropped to the middle of its frame rather than squeezed into the shape you picked. A 1280 by 720 webcam filling a 1080 by 1920 video is a crop either way; cropping to the centre keeps your face where it was and keeps your proportions right.
Mirror is on when the camera opens, because that is the version of your face you know. Turn it off for anything with words in shot: text on a shirt, a whiteboard behind you, a product label held up to the lens.
Check the sound before the take
The level moves as soon as the microphone opens, before the countdown. It reads the device in the picker and follows the level slider, so a microphone pointing at the wrong thing shows up in the first second rather than at the end of ten minutes.
Every camera and microphone your browser can see is in those pickers, including a USB webcam, a capture card and an iPhone on Continuity Camera. Switch between them with the preview running.
What the Mac app adds
This page records one camera into one file. Prequel on a Mac records your camera and your screen as separate tracks, so the shape, size and corner of your camera are still yours when the take is finished, with a background behind it and the zooms over your screen already placed.
How it works
Recording in 3 steps
- Turn on your cameraClick Turn on camera and allow access. You see yourself straight away, mirrored, the way you expect to look.
- Pick the frameVertical for a Reel or a Short, square for a feed, landscape for anything else. Your face stays centred in all of them.
- Record and downloadRecord, stop, play it back and save it. Record again as many times as you like: nothing is kept between takes.
What it does
Free, and still worth using
Record vertical without reframing afterwards
The camera is cropped to the middle of the frame rather than squeezed into it, so a 16:9 webcam fills a 9:16 video with your face still in the centre.
Use the camera you meant to
Every camera your browser can see is in the picker: a built in one, a USB webcam, a capture card, an iPhone on Continuity Camera. Switch with the preview running.
Hear yourself before you commit
The level moves as you speak, before the countdown. Picking the wrong microphone is the fault you only notice after a ten minute take.
Keep your face on your own machine
The camera stream is composited and encoded in the tab. Nothing is uploaded, and there is no account to attach a recording to.
On a Mac, the editing is already done
Prequel records your screen at its full resolution, then opens an editor with the zooms already placed, your camera framed and a background applied. Export one MP4 at up to 4K.
No credit card required
- Zooms placed on every click
- Camera shaped, sized and framed
- Background, padding and shadow
- Microphone and system on separate gains
- Cursor smoothed and resized
More tools
The rest of them
Free browser tool
Free online screen recorder
Your screen, your camera and the sound, recorded in a tab and downloaded as a video.
Free browser tool
Free online voice recorder
A microphone, a level you can watch, and an audio file at the end of it.
Free browser tool
Free online screenshot editor
Arrows, text, redactions and a background, on a screenshot you paste in.
FAQ
Cameras, frames and the file
Where does the video of me go?
Into your browser's memory, and then into your downloads folder if you save it. The camera stream is drawn into a canvas in the tab and encoded there, so no frame of it is sent anywhere.
Can I record a vertical video for Reels or Shorts?
Yes. Pick Vertical 9:16 and the recording is 1080 by 1920. Your camera is cropped to the centre of its frame rather than squashed, so you stay in the middle at any shape.
Why am I the wrong way round?
Mirror is on by default, because that is the version of your face you know from a mirror. Turn it off in the Camera group and the recording matches what everyone else sees, which is what you want for text on a shirt or a whiteboard behind you.
Can I use an external camera?
Yes. Every camera your browser can see is in the Camera picker, including a USB webcam, a capture card and an iPhone on Continuity Camera. Switch between them while the preview is running.
Is my microphone recorded too?
Yes, on the same file, with a level slider that keeps working while the take runs. Turn it off in the Sound group for a silent clip.
Does it work on a phone?
Yes. A phone browser has a camera and a microphone, so the tool records and downloads as it does on a laptop. Where a phone cannot help is a screen recording, which has no mobile API at all.
How long can I record for?
Thirty minutes a take. The whole recording is held in the tab until you save it, so the ceiling is there to hand you a file rather than run the tab out of memory.
What does Prequel add on a Mac?
Prequel records your camera and your screen as separate tracks, so the shape, the size and the corner of your camera are still yours once the take is finished. It also exports at up to 4K.