If you don't plan to stream, choose 'Optimize just for recording.

When you launch OBS for the first time, if you haven't already, you will be asked whether you want to optimize it for streaming or recording only. Record apps and webinars, Zoom meetings and Whatsapp calls, video tutorials. However, you can also use OBS to record the entire screen in Windows 10 or Windows 11 and save it as an MP4 file, without ever streaming what you do.ġ. Icecream Screen Recorder is an easy-to-use software to record screen with audio. OBS Studio is very popular in the game streaming community because it's free and great at broadcasting games out to Twitch and other sites. Windows 10 is a new operating system released in Windows 8.1 and it includes a new feature called Screen recording.

To capture your entire desktop and all the windows on it with a full suite of options, you need a third-party app and, while there are many, we like OBS Studio for this purpose. Snipping Tool can capture more but it doesn't support audio and it is rather feature-limited. The biggest drawback to using the Xbox Gamebar to screen record Windows is that it can only work with one app at a time and will not show the desktop or File Explorer.

(Image credit: Tom's Hardware) Recording the Whole Screen with OBS Studio

Screen recording software windows 10