Zoom Effects

Zoom effects draw your viewer’s attention to important areas of your recording. They smoothly zoom into a specific point on the screen and then zoom back out, creating a polished, focused presentation.

Auto-Generated Zooms

Recorded automatically tracks your cursor position and click activity during recording. The first time you open a recording in the editor, Recorded analyzes this data and adds zoom segments at the points where you interacted with the screen. This gives you a solid starting point — you can then tweak, add, or remove zooms as needed.

Auto-generated zooms appear on the zoom lane of the timeline, separate from your video segments, so you can move or resize them without affecting your cuts.

Manual Zoom Points

Add custom zoom effects at specific moments in your timeline. Click an empty spot on the zoom lane of the timeline to add a zoom segment there, then drag its edges to set when it starts and ends. Select a zoom segment to edit it in the Zoom tab.

Zoom Level

Set the magnification level from 1.0x (no zoom) to 4.0x (400% magnification). Higher values focus on a smaller area of the screen, making details more visible.

Target Position

In the Zoom tab, click on the frame snapshot to set the zoom target — the point on the screen that the zoom focuses on. Use Reset to Center or Reset to Cursor Position to snap the target back. The target is stored as a normalized X/Y position, so it works correctly at any export resolution.

Easing Curves

Control how the zoom transitions feel with easing functions:

  • Ease Out — Starts fast and decelerates (default, natural feel)
  • Ease Out Circ — Circular deceleration, slightly more dramatic
  • Ease Out Expo — Exponential deceleration, very smooth finish
  • Ease In-Out Circ — Symmetrical acceleration and deceleration
  • Expo Out — Strong exponential ease-out for cinematic zooms

Transition Duration

Fine-tune how long the zoom-in and zoom-out animations take:

  • Start Animation: 0.1s to 2.0s — How long it takes to zoom in
  • End Animation: 0.1s to 2.0s — How long it takes to zoom back out

Shorter durations feel snappy and energetic; longer durations feel smooth and cinematic.

Removing Zoom Points

Select a zoom segment on the timeline and delete it, or change its zoom level back to 1.0x. You can also undo any zoom changes with Cmd/Ctrl + Z.

Tips

  • Don’t overdo it — A few well-placed zooms are more effective than zooming on every click. Let the viewer see the full context between zooms.
  • Match zoom to content — Use higher zoom levels (3–4x) for small UI elements like buttons and menus, and lower levels (1.5–2x) for larger areas like text editors.
  • Start with auto-zoom — Let Recorded generate zoom points automatically, then fine-tune the ones that matter most and remove any that feel unnecessary.