Screen Recorder Online — Record Your Screen, Tab, or Window

Record a browser tab, app window, or entire screen with optional system audio and microphone narration, entirely in your browser.

Recording your screen through a browser tab means asking the operating system's own screen-sharing picker for permission, not accessing your display directly — this tool calls getDisplayMedia and MediaRecorder, mixes in your microphone through the Web Audio API if you ask for it, and writes a WebM file with its duration metadata patched afterward, since MediaRecorder's own output is famously missing that field until something fixes it.

How to record your screen

Leave Include tab or system audio when the browser offers it ticked (it is on by default) and tick Mix microphone narration if you want to talk over the capture.
Click Choose source & record to open your browser's own screen-sharing picker.
Pick a browser tab, an app window or the entire screen; for tab sound, switch on the Share tab audio option in that picker before you confirm.
Use Pause and Resume while you change steps, then click Stop & preview; the browser's Stop sharing control ends the take the same way.
Watch the preview, check the duration and size, and click Download recording to save the WebM file.

The permission prompt is the browser's, not this site's

Clicking record calls navigator.mediaDevices.getDisplayMedia, which hands control entirely to your browser and operating system: a native picker appears letting you choose a screen, a specific window, or a browser tab, and nothing about which source you can select or whether system audio is offered is under this page's control — that's Chrome, Firefox, or Safari's own screen-share dialog, unchanged from what any screen-sharing site would show you. If you cancel that dialog or deny it, the tool reports a specific, readable explanation rather than a raw browser exception, and the same applies if the OS reports no shareable source was available, or if the chosen source turned out to be unreadable once selected.

System audio and microphone are mixed, not just concatenated

If you request the microphone alongside system/tab audio, the two audio tracks aren't simply both attached to the same recording — they're routed through a real AudioContext: each track becomes its own MediaStreamAudioSourceNode, and both connect into one createMediaStreamDestination node, whose combined output track is what actually gets recorded. This produces one genuinely mixed audio track rather than two separate tracks the container format would have to reconcile at playback, and it's why microphone access being denied mid-setup doesn't abort the recording — the tool falls back to screen-only audio and tells you why, rather than failing the whole capture over one denied permission.

System audio itself is opt-in and only works at all if your browser and the specific source you picked support it — sharing an entire screen versus a single browser tab affects which sources actually offer captured audio, which is a platform-level distinction outside this tool's control.

Codec selection happens before recording starts, not after

The tool asks MediaRecorder directly which of three candidate WebM configurations it actually supports — VP9 with Opus audio first, VP8 with Opus as a fallback, then plain WebM with no explicit codec string as a last resort — and uses the first one the browser confirms rather than assuming VP9 is universally available. Video is targeted at a 6 megabit-per-second bitrate regardless of which codec wins that negotiation, and the browser is asked for a new data chunk every second during recording so a crash or an unexpected tab close loses at most a second of footage rather than the whole session.

Why the exported file needs its duration patched

MediaRecorder's WebM output is a known, longstanding quirk: the container is built incrementally as chunks arrive, and the file it produces often lacks a correct duration value in its own metadata, which can make some players unable to seek properly or show an unknown/incorrect length. This tool tracks wall-clock elapsed recording time itself — accounting for any time spent paused, which is excluded from the final duration — and runs the finished blob through a duration-fixing pass before offering the download. If that pass fails for any reason, the recording still downloads with the original unfixed metadata, along with a plain explanation that some players might not support seeking on it.

Screen recording length, format and bitrate

Free takes stop automatically after 30 minutes of recorded time, and everything captured up to that moment is kept for preview and download.
A Pro licence removes that timer, so one take can run as long as you need.
Time spent paused counts neither toward the 30 minutes nor toward the file's duration.
The file is always WebM: VP9 video with Opus sound where the browser supports it, otherwise VP8 with Opus, otherwise the browser's plain WebM.
Frames are requested at 30 per second (60 at most) and encoded at a target of about 6 Mbps, which works out to roughly 45 MB per minute depending on how much the picture changes.
No watermark, logo or end card is ever added to the video.
The site's video trimmer takes MP4, MOV or M4V only, so it cannot open this WebM; the Audio Extractor does accept WebM if you just need the soundtrack.

What to capture with the screen recorder

Software tutorials and walkthroughs, with microphone narration mixed into the soundtrack.
Product demos for a colleague or client who could not join a live call.
Bug reproductions: capture the smallest window that shows the fault and attach the WebM to the ticket.
Slide presentations shared from a single tab, with tab audio if the deck plays video.
Online meetings and webinars, but only when everyone taking part has agreed to be recorded.
Short gameplay clips from a browser game or a game window.

Where your screen recording is saved

While you record, the capture is collected in the tab's memory one-second chunk at a time; when you stop, those chunks are joined into a single file and handed to your browser's normal download, named braketools-screen-recording followed by the date and time. BrakeTools keeps no server copy, share link or cloud library of screen recordings, which also means a take you close the tab on before clicking Download recording is gone for good.

Questions people ask about Screen Recorder

Why does my browser show a screen-sharing picker instead of the site just starting to record?: Screen capture in a browser is only possible through the operating system's own getDisplayMedia permission flow. This tool has no way to see or record your screen without that native picker, which is a browser-level security boundary, not a design choice this site could bypass even if it wanted to.
Can I record my microphone and my system audio together?: Yes — both are mixed into a single audio track through a real Web Audio API graph rather than just both being attached separately. If microphone access fails or is denied partway through setup, the recording still proceeds with system audio only, and the interface tells you the microphone wasn't included.
Why does the downloaded video sometimes say its length is unknown until it plays?: MediaRecorder's WebM output frequently omits a correct duration value in its own container metadata — a known limitation of how the format is built incrementally during recording. This tool measures actual elapsed recording time and runs a duration-fixing pass on the finished file before download to correct this.
What video format does the recording download as?: WebM, using whichever of VP9+Opus, VP8+Opus, or plain WebM your specific browser confirms it supports, checked in that priority order before recording starts. Video targets 6 megabits per second regardless of which codec combination your browser ends up using.
Does pausing the recording affect the final video length?: No — time spent paused is tracked separately and excluded from the recording's final duration, so resuming picks up cleanly without a frozen or skipped segment, and the exported file's length reflects only the actual recorded time, not the total wall-clock time the session was open.
Is there a time limit on recordings?: On the free tier a single take can run for 30 minutes of recorded time. At that point the recorder stops by itself and keeps everything captured so far; paused time isn't counted, and a Pro licence removes the limit.
Will my recording have a watermark?: No. The downloaded file contains exactly the picture and sound your browser captured, with no logo, banner or end card added, on the free tier as well as with Pro.
Do I need to install anything or sign up?: No install, extension or account is required. The recorder uses the screen-capture and MediaRecorder features already built into current desktop browsers, so you just open the page and click Choose source & record.
Where is my recording saved — is it uploaded?: It is never uploaded. The WebM lands wherever your browser saves downloads, named braketools-screen-recording plus a timestamp. Until you download it, the take exists only inside the open tab, so save it before closing the page.
Can I record my screen and webcam at the same time?: Not in one file. This tool captures a screen, window or tab plus audio, nothing else. Record yourself separately with the Webcam Recorder and combine the two clips in a desktop video editor afterwards.
Does it work on Windows, Mac, and Chromebook?: The browser matters more than the operating system: the page needs getDisplayMedia and MediaRecorder, and it recommends current desktop Chrome, Edge or Firefox. Whether system or tab audio can be shared depends on both the operating system and the browser, and the picker only offers it when it is available.
Can I record my screen on a phone?: Only if your phone's browser exposes screen capture through getDisplayMedia. When it doesn't, the page shows a notice that screen recording is unavailable and the record button stays disabled, so a desktop browser is the dependable choice.

Related tools on BrakeTools

Webcam Video Recorder — Record webcam video or take full-resolution photos with quality, camera, microphone, echo-reduction, and mirror controls in your browser.
Voice/Sound Recorder — Record audio with a live mixing channel strip — gain, EQ, compressor, and noise gate — right in your browser.
Audio Extractor — Pull just the audio track out of an MP4, MOV, or WebM video file.

Content reviewed 2026-09-27.