Free. Open source. Mac, Windows, Linux. No account, no paywall, no trial timer.
That link is the whole thing. Everything below is just how to get it running in the next five minutes — either by hand, or by letting your AI agent do it for you.
Step 1 — Download it (30 seconds)
- Go to recordly.dev
- Pick your OS
- Install
- Hit record
The GitHub repo is linked from the homepage if you'd rather build from source (that's the 24k-star one).
Step 2 — Or let your AI agent install it for you
If you already live in Claude Code, Cursor, or Codex, don't touch a terminal manually. Open your agent in a fresh folder and paste the prompt for your OS.
macOS
Install Recordly on my Mac. Start at https://recordly.dev/ and find the official download or GitHub repo link. If building from source, clone the repo, read the README, install the correct dependencies for macOS (check if I need Homebrew, Node, Rust, or Xcode command line tools and install anything missing), build it, and launch it. If macOS blocks the app as unsigned, tell me the exact steps to allow it in System Settings. Fix any errors you hit along the way and tell me when the app is open and running.
Heads up on macOS — the first launch will ask for Screen Recording and Accessibility permissions. Recordly needs both: screen recording to capture, accessibility to track your cursor for the auto-zoom. If you deny either one, the app opens but the zooms won't work and you'll have no idea why.
Windows
Install Recordly on my Windows machine. Start at https://recordly.dev/ and find the official download or GitHub repo link. If building from source, clone the repo, read the README, install the correct dependencies for Windows (check for Node, Rust, Visual Studio Build Tools, and anything else the README requires, and install what's missing), build it, and launch it. If SmartScreen blocks the installer, tell me exactly how to get past it. Fix any errors you hit along the way and tell me when the app is open and running.
Heads up on Windows — SmartScreen will almost certainly flag the installer the first time. That's normal for open source apps without a paid code-signing cert. Click "More info" → "Run anyway."
Linux
Install Recordly on my Linux machine. Start at https://recordly.dev/ and find the official download or GitHub repo link. Detect my distro and desktop session (X11 or Wayland) first. Then clone the repo, read the README, install the correct system dependencies for my distro, build it, and launch it. If I'm on Wayland and screen capture needs portals or extra permissions, set that up too. Fix any errors you hit along the way and tell me when the app is open and running.
Heads up on Linux — Wayland vs X11 is the thing that breaks screen capture. Tell your agent which one you're on (or let it detect it) before it starts, and it'll handle the portal setup instead of you debugging a black recording window later.
Once it's running, the install steps are done. Everything from here is identical on all three systems.
Step 3 — Your first recording (settings that actually matter)
Open the app and set these once. You'll never touch them again.
- Auto-zoom: ON. This is the whole reason you're here. It watches your cursor and places the zooms where a human editor would.
- Cursor smoothing: ON. Kills the jittery mouse wobble. Instant "this was edited" feel.
- Click animations: ON. That little bounce on every click that makes demos readable.
- Background: wallpaper or solid color, ~30% padding, ~34px corner radius. That's the framed look.
- Shadow: ON. Subtle. Don't crank it.
- Webcam bubble: on if you're narrating, off if it's a pure product demo. It scales with the zoom automatically either way.
Record something 20 seconds long as a test. Don't plan it. Just click around.
How you know it worked — play back the raw recording before you touch the timeline. If the zooms already happened on their own and the cursor glides instead of jumping, the permissions are set correctly and auto-zoom is running. If it looks exactly like a normal flat screen recording, go back and check Screen Recording + Accessibility permissions — that's the failure 90% of the time.
Step 4 — Clean it up on the timeline
You get a real visual timeline, not a toy one:
- Trim the dead air at the start and end
- Speed up any section where you're typing or waiting
- Annotate with text or arrows on the parts you're explaining
- Adjust zooms — the auto-placed ones are draggable if you want one earlier or held longer
Ninety percent of the time the auto-edit is already right and you just trim the ends.
Step 5 — Export
- MP4 — demos, docs, embeds, landing pages, sales calls
- GIF — social, Slack, GitHub READMEs, quick "here's the bug" clips
Export once, and you'll immediately see why paid screen recording apps charge monthly for this.
Bonus — the extensions
Because it's open source, there's a community marketplace of add-ons and plugins being built on top of it. Worth a look after your first export. If something's missing from the core app, someone has probably already shipped it there.
If you want your agent to go hunting for you:
Look through the Recordly repo and its extension marketplace. List the top community plugins by popularity, what each one does, and install the ones that would help me make cleaner product demo videos. Explain what you installed and how to use each one.
Your next step
Download it from recordly.dev, turn auto-zoom on, and record 20 seconds of whatever's on your screen right now.
That one clip will tell you everything. You'll never record raw footage again.