The best paid screen recorder I’ve reviewed is Flashback Pro from Blueberry Software. Whether you want a more precise way to capture specific parts of your screen or if you want to record entire videos, you should ditch the built-in basics and get a dedicated screen recorder. If you do any kind of digital tutoring, offer or need tech support, or use video conferencing, using your operating system’s default screen capture system won’t be good enough to record you properly.

There are plenty of reasons why you might want to record your screen, and documenting your instant message threads to make hilarious jokes is just one of them. This basic method has some major drawbacks, however – you can’t specify which part of the screen you want to capture, and you can only record a single image. While it doesn’t actually create a printout of your screen, as you might guess, it will copy your screen into your computer’s digital clipboard. If you don't plan to stream, choose 'Optimize just for recording.You may or may not be aware, but that obscure button on every PC keyboard labeled ‘PrtScn’ actually means ‘Print Screen’.

When you launch OBS for the first time, if you haven't already, you will be asked whether you want to optimize it for streaming or recording only. However, you can also use OBS to record the entire screen in Windows 10 or Windows 11 and save it as an MP4 file, without ever streaming what you do.ġ. OBS Studio is very popular in the game streaming community because it's free and great at broadcasting games out to Twitch and other sites. To capture your entire desktop and all the windows on it with a full suite of options, you need a third-party app and, while there are many, we like OBS Studio for this purpose.

Snipping Tool can capture more but it doesn't support audio and it is rather feature-limited. The biggest drawback to using the Xbox Gamebar to screen record Windows is that it can only work with one app at a time and will not show the desktop or File Explorer. (Image credit: Tom's Hardware) Recording the Whole Screen with OBS Studio

Best screen recording software