Screen Recording on Windows 10

Screenshots are easy to take in Windows 10. You can quickly snap your screen using the handy Print Screen button on your keyboard and fine-tune it via the Snip & Sketch tool. Capturing video of your screen is more difficult, but Microsoft makes it possible through the use of a built-in video capture tool called Game Bar.

This tool was designed to record games you play directly on your PC or those you stream from an Xbox One, but Game Bar can just as easily capture video of screen activity from your web browser, Microsoft Office applications, and many other programs. Your screen activity is then automatically saved as an MP4 video file.

The directions below cover screen recording on PCs with the Windows 10 October 2018 Update.

Set Up Screen Recording

First make sure that Game Bar is enabled. Open Settings > Gaming > Game bar. Turn on the switch to "Record game clips, screenshots, and broadcast using Game Bar" if it's not already on. From this screen you can also change any of the keyboard shortcuts associated with opening the Game Bar, taking a screenshot, and recording video.

Open the app or screen you wish to record. You can start a recording from most applications and windows, but there are exceptions. You can't kick off a capture from the Windows desktop, File Explorer, or certain Windows apps such as Maps and Weather. Otherwise, the field is pretty wide open.

Record Your Screen

Press Win+G to open Game Bar. The Game Bar pane pops up with controls for capturing screenshots, recording video and audio, and broadcasting your screen activity. The pane also displays the name of your current app, file, or window as the source for the video capture.