Performance

Optimize Recorded’s performance on your system for smooth recording and fast exports.

During Recording

Reducing CPU Usage

• Use 30 FPS instead of 60 FPS — this halves the amount of data being captured and encoded.
• Choose Monitor mode when possible — it tends to be more efficient than Window or Area mode on most systems.
• Close unnecessary applications — especially browsers with many tabs, which consume significant CPU and memory.
• Disable webcam if you don’t need it — camera capture and preview add processing overhead.

Managing Memory

• Long recordings consume more memory as cursor tracking and audio data accumulate over time. For very long sessions (30+ minutes), ensure you have at least 8 GB of RAM available.
• Close memory-heavy applications before starting a long recording session.
• Recorded stores raw recording data on disk rather than in memory, but the editor preview and audio waveforms do use RAM proportional to recording length.

During Editing

Preview Performance

• The editor preview renders zoom effects, cursor overlays, webcam compositing, and motion blur in real time. If the preview stutters:
  • Lower motion blur quality — Reduce the sample count from 16 to 4, or disable motion blur during editing and only enable it for export.
  • Close other GPU-intensive apps — Motion blur and zoom rendering use WebGL, which shares GPU resources with other applications.

Timeline Performance

• For very long recordings with many segments, the timeline can become slower to interact with. Use zoom to focus on the section you’re currently editing rather than viewing the entire timeline at once.

During Export

GPU Acceleration

Hardware-accelerated encoding is 3–10x faster than software encoding. Ensure it’s working by:

• Updating GPU drivers — The most common cause of slow exports is outdated drivers that prevent hardware encoders from initializing.
• Checking GPU compatibility — See Hardware Acceleration for supported GPUs.

Export Speed Tips

• Lower resolution exports faster — 720p encodes roughly 4x faster than 4K.
• Twitter preset (8 Mbps) encodes faster than YouTube preset (15 Mbps) because the “fast” FFmpeg preset is used.
• Shorter recordings obviously export faster — trim unnecessary content before exporting.
• GIF export can be slow for long clips because GIF encoding is inherently less optimized. Keep GIFs short (under 15 seconds) for reasonable export times.

Large File Handling

Long recordings produce large project folders. File sizes vary depending on content complexity, resolution, and frame rate, but as a rough guide:

• Raw recording files can range from several hundred MB to over 1 GB for a 5-minute capture at 1080p60
• Audio tracks (system + microphone) add 50–100 MB
• Metadata and project files are typically under 10 MB
• Exported MP4 files depend on the quality preset and duration

Ensure you have sufficient disk space before starting long recording sessions. Recorded will show an error if it runs out of space during recording.

System Requirements Recap

For the best experience: