GUIDE
How to record your screen on Windows, with audio
6 August 2026
Windows can record your screen out of the box. Whether that is enough depends entirely on what you need to do with the file afterwards.
The built-in options
Xbox Game Bar (Win+G) records the active window with sound and is already installed. Snipping Tool records a region on Windows 11. Both produce an MP4 and neither costs anything.
What neither does is let you change the recording afterwards. If you misspeak at 0:40, your options are to keep it or record the whole thing again.
Recording something you can edit
Clarus records to the same MP4, then opens it on a timeline. You can trim the start and end, split out a mistake and close the gap, add arrows or text that appear only for the seconds they are relevant, zoom into a detail, and blur anything private. The blur is baked per frame from the source, so it stays over the thing you blurred even while the content moves.
Audio
Microphone and system sound are recorded separately and mixed, so you can narrate over what you are demonstrating. The microphone can be muted mid recording without breaking the take.
If you miss the moment
Instant Replay keeps a rolling buffer of the last few minutes on disk. When something happens that you were not recording, press the shortcut and Clarus saves what already happened. It is off by default because it is always writing while armed.
How to start
Press Ctrl+Alt+R or choose Record Screen from the tray.