How to Screen Record on Android

Swipe down twice from the top of the screen, tap the Screen record tile, pick your sound and tap Start. For your camera and voice, recorder.video also runs in Chrome on the phone.

Jump to the step-by-step guide

Online Screen Recorder

ReadyTurn on your camera, mic or screen below

Choose a recording source

Start a new scene from one source or combine screen and camera.

New scene

Turn on your camera or mic above

Screen recording on an Android phone

Most recent Android phones come with a screen recorder, started from a tile in Quick Settings. It can capture the sound your apps make, your voice, or both, and it can mark each tap with a dot. The tile’s name and the menus around it differ between Samsung, Pixel and other brands, so treat the steps below as the usual pattern rather than an exact script.

A web page can’t do this job. Android browsers give websites no way to capture the screen, which rules out every online screen recorder, recorder.video too. Read on for the built-in tool, what the browser recorder offers on a phone, and a way to capture the phone from a computer.

How to screen record on Android from Quick Settings

Open Quick Settings

Swipe down from the top of the screen once to see your notifications, then swipe down again to expand the full panel of tiles.
Add the tile if it’s missing

Look for a tile called Screen record or Screen recorder, which may sit on a second page. If it isn’t there, tap the edit button, often a pencil icon, and drag the tile into your active tiles.
Pick your sound and touches

Tap the tile. Most phones then let you choose no sound, device audio, the microphone or both, and switch on an option that shows your touches.
Start recording

Tap Start. Some phones first ask whether to record the entire screen or a single app, and most count down for a moment before they begin.
Stop and open the recording

Pull down the notification panel and tap the screen recording notification, or press stop on the floating control if your phone shows one. The video goes to your gallery or photos app.

How to screen record on Android with sound

Phones usually offer three sound choices. Device audio, which Samsung calls media sounds, records what your apps play, such as a game or a video. Microphone picks up your voice and any noise in the room. The combined option takes both, which suits talking someone through an app while its sounds play.

Apps can opt out of having their sound captured, so parts of a recording may stay silent even with device audio on. Phone calls and some streaming apps are common examples, and protected video often turns black as well.

Show your touches on screen

For a tutorial, turn on the touches option in the recording menu before you start. Each tap then appears as a small circle in the video, so viewers can follow where your finger went.

Android also has a Show taps setting in Developer options that marks touches across the whole phone. The recorder’s own switch is simpler, because you don’t have to unlock Developer options first.

Where Android screen recordings are saved

Finished recordings are MP4 videos kept in your phone’s storage. Open Google Photos or your phone’s Gallery app to find them among your latest videos. A file manager shows the same files, often inside the Movies or DCIM folder.

From the gallery you can trim a recording or send it to a chat, an email or a cloud drive. If Google Photos backup is on, each recording is copied to your account like any other video you take.

What recorder.video can do on Android

In Chrome on Android, recorder.video is a recorder for your camera and microphone. You won’t see a Screen button there, for the reason above. Your clips are stored in Chrome on the phone and never sent to a server.

Load recorder.video in Chrome, and when the permission prompt appears, let the site use your camera and microphone.
The front camera starts by default. Pick the rear camera from the camera menu if you want to film what’s in front of you.
Choose a frame under Size, for example TikTok or Instagram Story for a video that fills a phone held upright.
Tap the large record button at the bottom, wait for the 3, 2, 1 countdown, and tap again to finish. Cut the ends with the yellow handles and save the scene from its menu.

You get an MP4 when Chrome can record that format, otherwise a WebM. Chrome on Android puts downloads in the Download folder, which you can reach from your file manager or from Downloads in Chrome’s menu.

A screen that dims mid-take isn’t a worry, since the recorder holds a wake lock while you record. Leaving Chrome is: open another app or lock the phone, and the camera can drop out.

The webcam recorder page explains the camera tools in more detail, and the voice recorder handles audio-only notes on a phone as well.

Record your Android screen from a computer

Want the phone’s screen next to your webcam, or a narrated walkthrough made at a desk? Mirror the phone to a computer and record it there.

Mirror the phone with scrcpy

scrcpy is a free, open-source tool for Windows, macOS and Linux that shows an Android phone’s screen in a window on your computer. On the phone, unlock Developer options by tapping Build number several times in the About phone section of Settings, then turn on USB debugging. Connect the phone with a cable, accept the prompt to allow debugging, and start scrcpy.

Then open the online screen recorder, click Screen and pick the scrcpy window. Browser window sharing carries no sound, so this suits silent demos or ones you narrate through the computer’s microphone.

Troubleshooting Android screen recordings

There’s no screen recording tile

Open the tile editor and scroll through the unused tiles, where the recorder often waits. If it isn’t listed even there, your phone may not include a built-in recorder.

The recording has no sound

The sound choice in the tile’s menu may have been set to none. Pick device audio, the microphone or both, then record again.

Part of the video is black

Streaming and banking apps commonly block screen capture, which leaves a black area or a blank frame. The app decides this, and no recorder can get around it.

Screen recording is turned off

An employer or school that manages the phone can disable screen capture by policy. Only whoever manages the device can switch it back on.

Recording questions

How do I screen record on my Android phone?

Open Quick Settings and tap the Screen record tile, which Samsung phones call Screen recorder. Set the sound, press Start, and end the take from the notification or the floating control.

How do I screen record on Android with sound?

Choose device audio for app sound, the microphone for your voice, or both, in the tile’s menu before you tap Start.

Where do screen recordings go on Android?

With your photos and videos, usually in an album called Screen recordings or Movies inside Google Photos or Gallery.

Can a website record my Android screen?

No. That only works from the phone’s own Quick Settings recorder, or from a computer that mirrors the phone.

Can I use recorder.video on an Android phone?

Yes. Open it in Chrome to film yourself or record your voice, with nothing to install from the Play Store. The screen is the one thing it can’t capture there.

How do I show taps in an Android screen recording?

Switch on the option to show touches in the recorder’s menu before tapping Start. Viewers then see a circle wherever your finger lands.

Can I put my webcam over an Android screen recording?

Not from the phone’s browser. Mirror the phone to a computer with scrcpy and share that window in recorder.video, and your webcam joins it in a bubble.