Getting Started
Install MeCorder, allow the permissions it needs, make your first recording and find your way around the editor.
Installation
MeCorder needs macOS 14 or later on a Mac with Apple Silicon.
Move MeCorder to your Applications folder and open it. The home window shows recording setup on the left and your recordings on the right.
Permissions
macOS asks you to allow a few things. Only Screen Recording is required; the rest switch on features as you need them.
| Permission | Why MeCorder asks | Needed for |
|---|---|---|
| Screen Recording | Captures your display or a window. | Always |
| Microphone | Records your narration as its own track. | Microphone audio |
| Camera | Records your webcam as a separate layer. | Webcam |
| Input Monitoring | Records shortcuts like ⌘K so they can be shown in your video. Only shortcuts are stored, never what you type. | Keyboard shortcut display, Key Press events |
| Speech Recognition | Turns your narration into captions, on your Mac. | Captions |
| Accessibility | Reads the name and kind of what you click (a button’s title, a field’s placeholder). Never a field’s contents, and nothing from password fields. | Named events and Program targets |
The home window shows an Allow… button next to anything that’s missing. After you allow Screen Recording in System Settings, quit and reopen MeCorder so macOS applies it.
MeCorder → Settings… (⌘,) → Permissions lists every permission with its current state (Allowed or Not allowed). Allow… asks for a missing one; Open Settings opens its page in System Settings, for example to turn it off again.
Why Accessibility matters
Recording works without Accessibility, but MeCorder then only knows where you clicked, so clicks are named by position (Click top left). With it, MeCorder also stores what you clicked: a button called Save, a text field called Search. That is what lets the Timeline show Click Save, and what lets a Program say “when the Save button is clicked” and find that button in any recording, wherever it was on screen.
Names are read while you record, so allow Accessibility before recording. Recordings made without it keep their position names, and Programs can’t target anything in them.
The first time you record without Accessibility, MeCorder explains what it’s for and offers Open System Settings or Record Without. It only asks once.
First Recording
- Open MeCorder.
- Under Record, choose the display or window to record. See Screen Recording for every option.
- Turn on the microphone, system audio or webcam if you want them.
- Press Start Recording (⇧⌘R).
- After the 3-second countdown, do your demo. A small floating panel shows the elapsed time, with pause and stop buttons. It is never captured in the video.
- Press the red stop button (⇧⌘2).
MeCorder saves the recording, adds automatic zooms on what you did, and opens it in the editor.
Editing Your Recording
The editor opens with your recording ready to play. Most recordings look good straight away; everything below is for when you want to change something.
The editor at a glance
| Part | What it does |
|---|---|
| Toolbar | New Recording, the Timeline | Program switch next to the project’s name, Commands (⌘K) and Export. In the Program view it also has Preview. While an export runs, its progress shows here. |
| Preview | Exactly what the export will look like, and the place to edit directly. A tool palette floats above it, and a contextual bar under it offers what applies to the current selection. |
| Transport | Go to start, previous frame (hold to rewind), play/pause, next frame (hold to fast forward), the current time, the Aspect ratio and Insert menus, Split and Keyframe. |
| Inspector | Shows whatever is selected: a scene, event, camera move, keyframe, effect, text or clip. With nothing selected, its title menu opens project settings by category. |
| Timeline / Program | Two views of the same edit, switched with ⌥⌘1 and ⌥⌘3. |
Timeline and Program
- Timeline (⌥⌘1) is where you edit what happened: tracks for scenes, your clips, the camera, clicks, keys, text, effects, webcam and audio.
- Program (⌥⌘3) is where you define what the video should do: blocks that say when something happens, do this. Programs produce ordinary camera moves and effects, which then appear on the Timeline.
Switching views never changes your project. A camera move made in one appears in the other at once.
Editing in the preview
The tool palette above the preview has Select (V), Focus (F), Spotlight, Highlight, Callout and Zoom. Pick a tool and click in the picture: Focus points the camera at what you click, Spotlight dims everything else, Highlight puts a glowing box around it, Callout adds a speech bubble, and Zoom adds a quick punch-in. Tools other than Select work once and hand back to Select; ⌥-click a tool to keep it until you press Esc.
Events light up under the pointer when they happen near the playhead, with their name (Click Search). Click one to select it, and the contextual bar offers what fits: for a click, Focus, Ripple, Burst, Punch Zoom, Highlight, Callout.
After each change a short message says what happened, with an Undo button.
The inspector
The inspector follows the selection: select a camera move and it shows the shot’s target, zoom and easing; select an effect and it shows that effect’s settings. Rarely needed values sit behind labelled disclosures.
For project-wide settings, use the inspector’s title menu, which lists the categories this project has: Camera, Cursor, Style, Webcam, Audio, Text, Captions, Effects, Keys and Trim. Clicking a track’s name on the Timeline opens that track’s settings too, and ⌘K finds every category by name (Camera Settings).
The ✦ button in the inspector’s header opens the AI Director (⇧⌘A).
Command palette
⌘K opens the command palette. Type what you want (focus, spotlight, split scene, confetti, a scene’s name) and press Return. Commands for the current selection are listed first.
Saving and undo
Every change is saved automatically, shortly after you make it. There’s no Save command. Undo (⌘Z) and Redo (⇧⌘Z) cover every edit, including AI Director changes and Program previews, which are each one undo step.
Exporting
Press Export in the toolbar, or ⌘E. The sheet asks Where is this going? and offers YouTube, Social (vertical), Send to someone, and GIF. Pick one, press Export…, and choose where to save. The export runs in the background, so you can keep editing.
See Export for every setting.