Step 1: download and install OBS Studio from their official website (obsproject.com) if you haven't done so already, then open the OBS Studio.
Step 2: at the bottom of the window, you'll see various panels labelled Scenes, Sources, Audio Mixer, Scene Transition, and Controls. On the Sources panel, click the plus (+) button at the bottom to add a source, a popup menu will appear. Select one of the appropriate options for source type:
- Display Capture: records your entire screen.
- Window Capture: records on window.
- Game Capture: records a program that is in full-screen mode.
After you click on any option, a dialog box titled Create/Select Source will appear.
Step 3: on the Create/Select Source dialog, leave everything on its default values and just click OK. The default values are, for example, Create new checked, and the name set to "Display Capture," with Make source visible checked. Doing this will open another dialog box to configure the properties of the source.
Step 4: on this properties dialog, customize the source to fit your needs. For example, if you have multiple monitors and you selected the Display Capture source type, this dialog will let you choose which monitor to record. If you selected Window Capture, you'll be able to select which window to capture.
Check Capture Cursor if you want the mouse cursor to appear in the recording. Uncheck it otherwise.
Click OK to finish adding the source. Doing this the new source will appear in the Sources panel.
You can remove a source by selecting it and clicking the button with the trash icon next to the plus you pressed to add it.
Step 5: click Start Recording on the Controls panel to start recording.
Note: if you forgot to add a source or removed all your sources, a dialog box titled "No Sources" will appear displaying the following error message: "It looks like you haven't added any video sources yet, so you will only be outputting a blank screen. Are you sure you want to do this?" In this case, click "No" and add a source as explained above.
After you start recording, the Start Recording button will change and read Stop Recording instead, indicating that OBS Studio is currently recording.
Step 6: click Stop Recording when you want to stop recording. The video file will be saved automatically to your Videos folder. You can find this folder by searching for "Videos" in the start menu or in the sidebar of the File Explorer. By default, it will be saved in the MKV format (i.e. a Matroska file).
Common Issues
Saving as MP4
It's possible to make OBS Studio save a MP4 file instead of MKV. Note that, generally, you may want to simply take the MKV file and import it into a video editor like DaVinci Resolve, and just export as MP4 from there after you're done editing. However, if you want the recording to be saved as MP4 directly from OBS Studio, you can do it with the following steps:
Step 1: click on the Settings button in the Controls panel. The Settings dialog will appear.
Step 2: click on Output on the sidebar, between Stream and Audio.
Step 3: click on the Recording tab.
Step 4: change Recording format from Matroska Video (.mkv) to MPEG-4 (.mp4).
Step 5: click OK to save the changes.
Wrong Video Size
It's possible that the default output video resolution of OBS Studio doesn't match your screen resolution, so the recorded video may end up being smaller than what it should be. To fix this, follow the following steps:
Step 1: click on the Settings button in the Controls panel. The Settings dialog will appear.
Step 2: click on Video on the sidebar, between Audio and Hotkeys.
Step 3: change Base (Canvas) Resolution and Output (Scaled) Resolution to your screen resolution.
Note that if your screen is very large and your graphics card not powerful enough, you may have trouble recording the video smoothly.
Hide OBS Studio from Recording
Because OBS Studio starts recording the instant you press the record button and requires you to press a button on its window to stop, the OBS Studio window ends up becoming part of the recording, and when you minimize it, its icon will appear in the taskbar. There are ways to fix this.
To hide OBS Studio's window from the recording, you'll need to edit the video. This means you'll need to use a video editor like DaVinci Resolve, to remove the start and the end of the video. Some say DaVinci is too complex to use, and if all you need is to remove the start and end of the video, there are simpler alternatives, such as Avidemux.
To hide OBS Studio's icon from the taskbar, open the Settings dialog, click General on the sidebar, and select Always minimize to system tray instead of task bar. The next time you start recording, click the minimize button on OBS Studio's window. This will minimize OBS Studio to the system tray instead of the taskbar. You'll need to click on its icon in the system tray later to reopen the window in order to stop recording.
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