Export a video at the size you need

Press ⌘E in the editor, or choose File › Export….

Choose a shape

At the top of the Export sheet, pick:

• Wide (16:9): for YouTube, docs and slides.
• Vertical (9:16): for Shorts, Reels and stories.
• Square (1:1): for feeds.

File › Make a vertical video… and Make a square video… open the sheet with that shape picked.

For a client embed or an unusual placement, click the aspect pill below the preview and choose Custom…. Enter a width and height for the ratio (for example 5:4), then the exact even pixel dimensions (for example 1500 × 1200). Ratio locked changes the other pixel dimension as you type; unlock it to set both independently. Content: Fit keeps the recording’s edges visible against the background; Content: Crop fills the canvas. The preview shows the chosen framing. The encoder accepts at most 3840 pixels on the long side and 2160 on the short side; an unsupported value shows the limit before it is saved. Save preset… opens Presets to name and reuse this canvas and look. In Export, Custom uses these exact pixels; choose it again after trying a standard shape.

To rename a saved preset, open Presets, click the options button on its row and choose Rename…. Type the new name and press Return. Projects that use the preset stay linked to it.

A new vertical or square video starts on Fit with background: all of the screen recording shows, with the background above and below, so nothing is cut off. Follow the action fills the frame instead and keeps the cursor, the active zoom or the typing in frame, with smooth camera moves; Centre fills it with a fixed frame. To place the screen and camera exactly where you want them, drag them on the preview (see Camera).

Choose a format

• MP4: the video. The usual choice.
• GIF: up to 60 seconds, for a quick loop. Play GIF sets how often it plays: Forever, Once, or a set number of times (use − and +).

Also export adds more files from the same export: Subtitles (SRT), Chapters (YouTube), the Current frame (PNG), Cursor on its own layer (ProRes 4444) or Separate audio files (WAV): one edit-aligned WAV per part of the mix and a timing file, for finishing the sound in another app (see Shape the sound).

Size and quality

• Resolution: 720p, 1080p, 1440p or 4K for standard shapes. A custom canvas uses the exact pixels set in the editor.
• Quality: Master (near-lossless, for editing again), Social, Web or Compact (smallest file).

The estimated file size updates as you choose. Quality changes the file size, not the export time. Under the Quality choice, On this take lists what each quality would weigh, so you can see what a smaller file saves before you choose it. Hold the pointer over that line for what the chosen quality is for, and over Smaller file (HEVC) for what HEVC trades.

The footer’s last line says where the estimates come from and how far to trust them. Until this Mac has finished two exports, they are rough (figures from a typical Mac, low confidence). After that, they are calibrated on this Mac from your recent exports. They show medium confidence, or high confidence once six exports agree with each other.

Export

Click Start export. The export runs in the background, and the activity bar at the foot of the window shows its progress. When it is done, the window shows a preview of the file when one is available, its name, and its length, size and folder. You can show it in Finder, copy the file or share it. While the share menu is open, the window says so, and once you choose a service it names it (for example, Sharing to Mail.).

Export part of a recording

To export only part of the timeline, move the playhead to where the clip starts and press ⇧I (In), then to where it ends and press O (Out). The Export sheet then shows Selection only · 0:12–0:48, switched on. Turn it off to export the whole recording. The file is named for where the range starts, for example Demo-0m12s.mp4. Subtitles, chapters and separate audio files cover the same range, and their times start at zero. Press ⌥X to clear the In and Out points.

Title and chapters

Title & chapters suggests a title and description from your transcript. Exported MP4 and MOV files carry your chapter markers, and Copy YouTube chapters copies them in YouTube’s format. Add markers with M on the timeline, or use Suggest chapters.

Cursor on its own layer

To grade or cut your video in Premiere Pro, DaVinci Resolve or After Effects without baking the cursor under the colour correction, tick Also export › Cursor on its own layer. Next to the main video, Slyve writes:

• -clean.mp4: the same edit with the cursor and its clicks left out. Privacy covers, keystrokes, captions and the camera stay in it.
• -cursor.mov: the cursor and its clicks in Apple ProRes 4444 with a transparent background, at the same size, frame rate and length.
• -layers.json: the timing they share (frame rate, frame count, start and length) and what each file contains.
• -cursor-preview.png: one frame of the cursor layer on a checkerboard, so you can see what is transparent.

Put the cursor layer on the track above the clean movie with a normal blend. Together they look the same as the main video. A window or device frame can’t be separated from the cursor, so set Frame to None before you export a cursor layer.

Step-by-step guide

Tick Also export › Step-by-step guide to turn a recording into written instructions. Next to the video, Slyve makes a Guide folder with a README.md and one picture per step (step-01.png, step-02.png and so on). Each click is one step (clicks less than 1.2 seconds apart count as one), pictured exactly as the export shows it, zoom, cursor and privacy covers included. The step says what you clicked when Slyve could read it while recording (“Click Export”), or “Click here” when it could not. What you typed is added (“Type ‘quarterly’”), never anything typed into a password field, and what you said becomes the step’s note. Chapter titles become headings. The folder works on GitHub as it is; Copy as Markdown on the done message copies the text for pasting elsewhere. An agent’s film offers Export guide in its ⋯ menu in the Library.

When an export fails

If an export fails, Slyve shows where it stopped:

• Stage: the step that failed (reading the recording, joining the audio, rendering, encoding or writing the file), and the take it was in.
• Where: the time on the timeline. Jump here moves the playhead there.
• Try: what to change before you try again.

Render 2-second sample renders the two seconds around that point with the same settings, so you can check whether the problem is still there without exporting the whole video again. Copy report copies what failed and where, without the names of your folders or files, for a bug report. Retry exports again.

None of these steps turns off a privacy cover. Samples and retries keep every cover.