Tool
Cap (Mac, Windows)
Price
Free for personal use, business licence from US$29/year
Time
10 min
Level
Beginner, no terminal

A two-minute video often beats a long email: showing a client how to use their new tool, explaining a bug, presenting an offer. The trouble is that a raw screen recording is unreadable on a phone. Zooms fix that: the view moves in where you click.

Install Cap

  1. Download the appOn cap.so/download, pick the version for your Mac (Apple silicon or Intel) or for Windows. On a Mac you can also use Homebrew:
    Terminal
    brew install --cask cap
  2. Grant permissionsOn your first recording, the Mac asks for screen recording, microphone and camera access. If you refused by mistake: System Settings, Privacy & Security, then enable Cap and restart it.

Record and edit

  1. Pick Studio modeStudio mode records to your computer with no time limit, then opens an editor. Instant mode uploads the video while you record so you get a link straight away.
  2. Choose what to captureA display, a window or an area, with or without camera and mic, then click Record. Close any tabs and notifications that should not appear first.
  3. Generate the zoomsIn the editor, on the Zoom track, choose “Click to generate zoom segments”: Cap creates a zoom around each recorded click. You can then move, shorten or delete each zoom, or draw one by hand (from 1x to 4.5x).
  4. Clean upCut the dead time, and use a mask to blur or pixelate a sensitive area (an email address, an amount).
  5. ExportAs MP4 (720p, 1080p or 4K) or GIF, to a file or the clipboard. The share link option needs a Cap account.

Good to know

  • Automatic zooms need the clicks Cap recorded: they do not work on an imported MP4. There, you place zooms by hand.
  • On the free plan, cloud share links are limited to 5 minutes per video. Local recording in Studio mode has no time limit.
  • Most of the code is under the AGPLv3 licence and can be self-hosted, but that is a developer project, not a step you need to record.

Licence and privacy. The free version is for personal use only. As soon as the video serves your business (a client, a paid course, your team), Cap asks for a commercial licence: US$29 a year or US$58 once, according to its pricing page on 17 October 2026. And in Instant mode the video goes to a server: do not film client data without masking it.

Sources

Do you explain the same thing to every new client? One video plus an automatic onboarding flow and it is handled: that is the kind of automation I set up.