How to Screen Record on a Chromebook
ChromeOS has a built-in screen recorder — no install, no account. How to start it, capture audio, find your file, and turn a Chromebook recording into a shareable interactive demo.
ChromeOS has a screen recorder built in — no extension, no account. Press Shift + Ctrl + Show windows (the overlapping-rectangles key, sometimes F5), then pick Screen record in the toolbar that appears. Choose full screen, a window, or a region, and click to start. Turn on the microphone in the settings gear first if you want narration — the built-in recorder captures your mic but not internal system audio. Recordings save to Downloads as .webm, with a notification link when you stop. For a walkthrough you'll share or reuse, the next step is turning that recording into an interactive demo.
Recording
- Press Shift + Ctrl + Show windows. (The Show windows key shows all open windows; it's usually in the top row, sometimes labelled F5.)
- In the toolbar at the bottom, click the Screen record icon (a circle inside a dashed square) rather than the screenshot icon.
- Choose the capture area: full screen, partial (drag a region), or window.
- Click anywhere (full screen) or click Record (region/window). A 3-second countdown runs.
- Stop from the red circle in the shelf (taskbar), or press Shift + Ctrl + Show windows again and stop from the toolbar.
Audio
- Open the settings gear in the screen-record toolbar before recording.
- Toggle Microphone on to capture your voice.
- There's no internal-audio option — if you need a video's sound, you'd play it through a speaker into the mic (poor quality) or use a third-party recorder.
Finding the file
- The recording lands in Downloads as a
.webm. - A notification with an open link appears when you stop.
- To share it, move it to Google Drive via the Files app, or upload it wherever you host video.
Turning it into an interactive demo
A raw Chromebook recording is fine for a one-off — showing a teacher a bug, sending a colleague a quick "here's how." For a walkthrough you'll reuse — onboarding, a support answer, a demo for prospects — a linear .webm has the usual limits: the viewer can't set the pace, can't skip, can't click, and you re-record it whenever the UI changes.
Capturing the same click-path as an interactive demo fixes that — the viewer drives, each step has a short explanation, and edits happen in one place:
See how to make a clickable product demo and how to record a software demo.
.webm from ChromeOS plays in Chrome and most modern players but not everywhere. If you need broad compatibility, convert to MP4 — see how to compress a video, which covers format conversion too.
Related: how to record a Chrome tab, how to record your screen on a Mac, how to screen record on Windows.
Frequently asked questions
Does a Chromebook have a built-in screen recorder?
Yes. Press Shift + Ctrl + Show windows (the key with the overlapping-rectangles icon, or F5), then choose Screen record in the toolbar that appears. You can record the full screen, a window, or a selected region. It is built into ChromeOS — no extension or account needed.
How do I screen record with audio on a Chromebook?
In the screen-record toolbar, click the settings gear and toggle on the microphone before you start recording. ChromeOS captures your mic; it does not capture internal system audio in the built-in recorder, so a video playing on screen will not have its sound recorded.
Where do Chromebook screen recordings save?
To the Downloads folder by default, as a .webm file. A notification appears when the recording stops with a link to open it. You can move it to Google Drive from the Files app.
How long can you screen record on a Chromebook?
There is no hard time limit, but recordings are saved locally and .webm files grow steadily, so a Chromebook with limited storage will fill up on long recordings. For anything more than a few minutes, keep an eye on free space or record in shorter segments.