If you ever want to show someone else what you’re doing on your Chromebook, making a video by recording your screen can be a great way to do that. So today, I’m going to show you how to record a video of your Chromebook’s screen.
There are a lot of screen recording extensions on the Chrome Webstore that can do this, but most of them aren’t that great, and even the good ones aren’t that easy to use. But, there is actually a great screen recording feature built right into Chrome OS, so in this article, that’s what I’m going to show you how to use.
Prefer to watch a video about how to screen record on a Chromebook? Click here.
How To Record The Screen Of Your Chromebook
To record the screen of your Chromebook, all you need to do is click on the time in the bottom right hand corner.
Then, in the menu that appears, click “Screen capture”.
Now, the screen will go dim, and you’ll see a bar across the bottom of the screen with a few different capture options. But, by default, it will be taking a regular still screenshot, so to switch it to video mode and record a video of the screen, you’ll need to click on the video icon.
Now, it will be ready to record a video, but before you start recording anything, there’s one important setting you should be aware of. If you click on the settings icon…
You’ll see that the option “Record microphone” is not turned on which means it won’t record any audio from your microphone.
This is fine if you want the video to be silent, but if you want to be able to speak while recording the video and have your voice included in the recording, you’ll need to turn this option on.
Now that that’s all taken care of, you’ll be ready to record. But as you may have already noticed, there are actually three different recording options.
If you click on the button to the left, it will record your Chromebook’s entire screen. This option is perfect if you want to be able to open multiple different apps during the video and do all kinds of different things and just have it all recorded.
The middle button, (the one that’s selected by default), allows you to record just a specific portion of the screen. It allows you to click and drag a box over the screen, and then anything within that box will be recorded, while anything outside that box will not.
This can be useful sometimes if, for example, you wanted to record a website you’re using in Google Chrome, but you didn’t want to show all your tabs across the top of the screen or your apps across the bottom of the screen.
And if you click the button to the right, that will allow you to select a specific window you want to record. Meaning you could select a specific Google Chrome window or a window from any other app, and only that window would be recorded.
This can be great if you want to film everything in a specific app, but don’t want to share anything else that’s on your screen.
How To Record Your Entire Screen
To record your Chromebook’s entire screen, just click the button on the left.
And then, your mouse cursor will turn into a video icon, and when you’re ready to start recording, click any random spot on the screen, and it will then count to three, and begin recording the entire screen.
While it’s recording, you’ll see a little red circle in the bottom right hand corner of the screen to let you know it’s recording. And once you’re finished recording, you’ll need to click on the red circle to stop the recording.
Now, the recording will finish, and a notification will appear letting you know the screen recording has been taken.
And, if you click on that notification, it will open up the files app and show you where the recording has been saved!
And that’s all there is to it! You now have a video that you can watch, send to people, or do whatever you want with.
How To Record A Portion Of Your Screen
To record just a portion of your screen, you’ll just need to click on the middle button if it’s not already selected.
And then, your mouse cursor will turn into a cross, and you’ll need to click and drag it over the screen to create a box.
Start at the top left corner of the portion of the screen you want to be recorded, and then, click and drag to the bottom right corner of what you want to be recorded so that you’ve drawn a box over the screen (a bit like creating a text box in Google Slides if you’ve ever done that).
Now, there will be a highlighted box on the screen, and you can click and drag any of the four corners if you need to adjust it slightly.
But then, when you’re ready to record, just click the “Record” button in the middle of the box, and after counting to three, it will start recording everything inside that box.
Just like when you’re recording the entire screen, there will be a little red circle in the bottom right hand corner the entire time you’re recording, and when you want to stop recording, you’ll just need to click that circle.
Then, the recording will be stopped, and you’ll get a notification letting you know the video has been recorded.
And, if you click on that notification, it will open the files app and show you the recorded video.
How To Record A Specific Window
To record a specific window on your screen, you’ll just need to click on the third button.
And then, hover the mouse over the window you want to record so that it gets highlighted blue (for the purpose of this demonstration, I’m recording the files app).
Then, when you’re ready to record, just click anywhere on that window to start recording. And after counting to three, it will start recording just that window.
While you’re recording, there will be a red circle in the bottom right hand corner of the screen, and the window you’re recording will be lit up while everything else on the screen will be dim.
And then, once you’re finished recording, just click on the red circle in the bottom right hand corner…
And it will stop recording and you’ll get a notification letting you know your recording has been recorded.
And, if you click on that notification, it will open the files app and show you the recorded video.
That’s all there is to it! Whichever way you chose to record your Chromebook’s screen, you will now have the recording saved to your Chromebook waiting to be watched, shared, or edited.
How To Find The Screen Recording On Your Chromebook
So now that you know how to record the screen of your Chromebook, if you want to find your recording, you’ll just need to open up the files app. And the recording will be in the downloads folder, so if you double click on “Downloads” to open the downloads folder…
The recording(s) will be there!
And that’s all there is to it! Hopefully, you found this tutorial helpful, and if you want to read more Chrome OS tips and tutorials like this, you can check out all our other Chrome OS related articles here.
