Is a share link better than sending the file?

For anyone watching on a phone or in a chat, yes: the link opens and plays, where a 200 MB file has to download first. A file is better when the viewer needs to keep a copy or edit it further.

Can I stop a share link working?

With most tools, yes, by deleting the recording from your library. In Prequel, open the shared library at prequel.sh/app and delete the recording; its link stops working at once.

← Glossary

Glossary

Share link

A URL that plays a recording in the browser, sent instead of the file. The viewer needs nothing installed and the sender can take it down later.

Sharing

A share link is a URL that plays a recording in the browser. The recording is uploaded once; the link is sent as many times as needed; the viewer clicks and watches, with no file to download and nothing to install. Loom made the pattern familiar and most recorders now offer one.

Why not just send the file

A three-minute screen recording at 1080p is a couple of hundred megabytes. In a chat that is a download the viewer waits for, on a phone it is a download they skip, and in an email it does not send at all. A link opens at once and plays as it loads.

A link can also be taken back. A file that has been sent has been sent; a recording behind a link can be deleted, and every copy of the link stops working at the same moment.

What travels with it

The video, and whatever the recorder knows about it. A share page from a recorder that transcribed the take can show the transcript beside the player, offer the words as subtitles, and draw chapters from what was said, so a viewer who wants the second half can click to it. A bare video file has none of that.

The trade

A link means an upload. The recording leaves the Mac and sits on somebody's server, which is fine for a walkthrough and a decision for an unreleased product. The sensible arrangement is a recorder that asks: the file lands on the Mac first, and the upload is a button you press or do not.

Prequel's Share Link is that button, in the export dialog. The link is prequel.sh/v/ and a short code, the page carries the captions and chapters when the take was transcribed, and the shared library at prequel.sh/app is where a link is copied again or deleted.

Related terms

Aspect ratioThe proportion of a video's width to its height. 16:9 is landscape and the default for screens; 9:16 is vertical and what Shorts, Reels and TikTok want.

Questions people ask

Is a share link better than sending the file?: For anyone watching on a phone or in a chat, yes: the link opens and plays, where a 200 MB file has to download first. A file is better when the viewer needs to keep a copy or edit it further.
Can I stop a share link working?: With most tools, yes, by deleting the recording from your library. In Prequel, open the shared library at prequel.sh/app and delete the recording; its link stops working at once.