Recording Controls

Manage your recording sessions with Recorded’s intuitive floating control panel.

Starting a Recording

After you select your capture target (monitor, window, or area) and click Start Recording, a separate floating control panel window opens and recording begins. The panel displays:

• A pulsing red dot with “REC” text to indicate active recording
• An elapsed time counter in MM:SS format
• A webcam preview (if the camera is enabled)
• Audio waveform indicators showing microphone and system audio levels in real time

Stopping a Recording

Click the Stop button (filled red button) on the control panel to end your recording. Recorded will then process the captured data through several stages:

1. Encoding — Finalizing the video file
2. Metadata — Saving cursor and keyboard event data
3. Waveform — Processing audio for the editor timeline
4. Webcam — Saving the webcam video (when the webcam is enabled)

A progress bar shows the current stage. Once processing completes, the editor opens automatically with your recording loaded.

Canceling a Recording

Click the Cancel button (outline button) on the control panel to discard the current recording entirely. This immediately stops the recording, deletes all captured files, and returns you to the main window. This action cannot be undone.

Control Panel Behavior

The floating control panel is designed to stay out of your way during recording:

• Draggable — Grab the drag handle on the left side to reposition the panel anywhere on screen.
• Semi-transparent when unfocused — The panel reduces its opacity and blur when you click away from it, so it doesn’t distract from the content you’re recording.
• Focused appearance — When you click the control panel, it returns to full opacity.

Recording can’t be paused — to leave something out, keep recording and cut that part in the editor afterward.

Recording States

The control panel displays different information depending on the current state: