Performance

Optimize Recorded’s performance on your system for smooth recording and fast exports.

During Recording

Reducing CPU Usage

• Choose Monitor mode when possible — it tends to be more efficient than Window or Area mode on most systems.
• Close unnecessary applications — especially browsers with many tabs, which consume significant CPU and memory.
• Disable webcam if you don’t need it — camera capture and preview add processing overhead.

Managing Memory

• Long recordings consume more memory as cursor tracking and audio data accumulate over time. For very long sessions (30+ minutes), ensure you have at least 8 GB of RAM available.
• Close memory-heavy applications before starting a long recording session.
• Recorded stores raw recording data on disk rather than in memory, but the editor preview and audio waveforms do use RAM proportional to recording length.

During Editing

Preview Performance

• The editor preview renders zoom effects, cursor overlays, webcam compositing, and motion blur in real time. If the preview stutters:
  • Lower motion blur quality — Reduce the sample count from 16 to 4, or disable motion blur during editing and only enable it for export.
  • Close other GPU-intensive apps — Motion blur and zoom rendering use WebGL, which shares GPU resources with other applications.

Timeline Performance

• For very long recordings with many segments, the timeline can become slower to interact with. Use zoom to focus on the section you’re currently editing rather than viewing the entire timeline at once.

During Export

GPU Acceleration

Hardware-accelerated encoding is much faster than software encoding, and Recorded uses it automatically when available. Ensure it’s working by:

• Updating GPU drivers (Windows) — The most common cause of slow exports is outdated drivers that prevent hardware encoders from initializing.
• Checking how encoding works on your platform — See Hardware Acceleration for details.

Export Speed Tips

• Lower resolution exports faster — 720p or 1080p renders much faster than 4K, Original, or Retina on large displays.
• Skip Optimize File Size if you don’t need it — it adds a second encoding pass after the export.
• Use Share instead of exporting a file when you just need a link — sharing uploads your recording and edits without rendering a video locally.
• Shorter recordings obviously export faster — trim unnecessary content before exporting.
• GIF export takes an extra conversion step and slows down for long clips. Keep GIFs short, and use a lower resolution or frame rate (480p, 10–15 FPS) for faster exports.

Large File Handling

Long recordings produce large project folders. File sizes vary depending on content complexity, resolution, and frame rate, but as a rough guide:

• Raw recording files (captured at 60 FPS on macOS, 30 FPS on Windows) can range from several hundred MB to over 1 GB for a 5-minute capture, depending on resolution and content
• Audio tracks (system + microphone) add 50–100 MB
• Metadata and project files are typically under 10 MB
• Exported MP4 files depend mainly on the export resolution and duration — the export dialog shows an estimated size before you export

Ensure you have sufficient disk space before starting long recording sessions. Recorded will show an error if it runs out of space during recording.

System Requirements Recap

For the best experience: