Best Loom Alternatives for Mac in 2026 (Free and Paid)

The right Loom alternative depends on why you're leaving. If your team relies on sending a link, pick another share-link tool: Cap or Tella. If you only need free screen recording on a Mac, QuickTime Player is already installed (press ⇧⌘5), and OBS Studio is free if you want more control. If you want edited-looking demos and tutorials saved as local files with no subscription, look at Screen Bolt or Screen Studio.

We make Screen Bolt, so weigh our view accordingly. We've tried to be fair to every app here, and we say plainly where ours doesn't fit. Screen Bolt has no share links, so if links are the reason you use Loom, it is not your replacement.

Why people look for a Loom alternative

Loom is built for async video messages. You record, get a link, and your team watches, comments and sees who viewed it. As of November 2026 it runs on several platforms and is sold as a subscription (Loom is part of Atlassian).

People usually start looking elsewhere for one of these reasons:

• Price model. They don't want another monthly subscription for something they use occasionally.
• Cloud storage. They'd rather keep recordings on their own Mac than on someone else's server. This matters for client work, internal tools and anything under NDA.
• Polish. Loom is designed around quick messages. If your videos have turned into product demos, landing-page videos or tutorials, you may want a tool built around zooms, backgrounds, cleaner audio and trims.
• Length limits. If a plan limit is what pushed you out, compare the limits below. We only list the ones we could verify (Tella and Screen Bolt).

If you're mainly asking whether Loom's own free plan is enough, see Is Loom free?.

Quick picks

These are ordered by how close each one stays to Loom's way of working: share-link tools first, then free recorders, then local editors for polished videos (including ours).

• Cap: best for keeping instant share links with an open-source app.
• Tella: best for share-link videos with subtitles and AI editing, if a subscription is fine.
• QuickTime Player: best for quick, free clips with nothing to install.
• OBS Studio: best for free recording with full control, plus live streaming.
• Screen Bolt: best for polished demos and tutorials as local files, one-time price.
• Screen Studio: best known for automatic zoom and cursor polish on Mac.

Cap: open source, keeps the share-link habit

Cap is an open-source alternative to Loom and Screen Studio for Mac and Windows. It gives you instant share links, and it also has a studio mode for recordings you want to work on more.

Good at: keeping Loom's record-and-send-a-link habit while moving to open-source software. It runs on both Mac and Windows, which helps mixed teams.

What we can't tell you: we couldn't verify Cap's pricing, plan limits or full feature list as of November 2026, so check cap.so before you commit.

Pick it if your team watches videos through links and you want an open-source tool. For other options in the same space, see Cap alternatives.

Tella: share links, subtitles and AI editing, on a subscription

Tella records your screen, camera, microphone and system audio. It works in the browser, as a Chrome extension, and as native apps for Mac and Windows. It adds AI editing, layouts, subtitles and share links.

Good at (as of November 2026, from Tella's help pages and listings):

• Recording up to 4K, with 60 FPS export on the Premium plan.
• Screen and camera recorded as separate tracks.
• Clips up to 6 hours long.
• Background blur in the web recorder. The Mac app works with macOS Portrait mode blur.
• Recording a specific window or area, and recording several clips.

Lacks: a free plan. Without a subscription you can still view and share existing videos, but you can't record, edit or export. Pricing is per user, so cost grows with the team. A third-party listing says custom branding, custom domain and analytics sit on higher plans.

Price (as of November 2026, USD per user): Pro is $26/month billed monthly or $13/month billed yearly ($156/year). Premium is $39/month billed monthly or $19/month billed yearly ($228/year). Enterprise is custom. There's a 7-day free trial.

Pick it if you want share links to stay central and you also want layouts, subtitles and AI editing. Details at tella.com.

QuickTime Player: free and already on your Mac

For a quick clip, you may not need anything new:

1. Press ⇧⌘5 (Shift-Command-5) to open the Screenshot toolbar. In QuickTime Player, File ▸ New Screen Recording opens the same toolbar.
2. Choose Record Entire Screen or Record Selected Portion.
3. Pick a microphone under Options if you want narration.
4. Click Record.
5. Stop with the stop button in the menu bar, or press ⌃⌘Esc (Control-Command-Escape).

The file lands on your Desktop by default. You can trim it in QuickTime Player with Edit ▸ Trim (⌘T).

Good at: short, unedited clips at no cost, with nothing to install or sign up for.

Lacks: share links, automatic zoom, cursor smoothing and a timeline editor. If you want your face in the frame, a common workaround is to open a camera window (File ▸ New Movie Recording in QuickTime Player) and keep it on screen while you record.

Pick it if you send a few short clips a month and just need a video file. Full walkthrough: QuickTime screen recording on Mac.

OBS Studio: free, open source, more setup

OBS Studio is free, open-source software for recording and live streaming on Windows, macOS and Linux. On Mac it needs macOS 13 or newer, and there are separate Apple silicon and Intel installers. As of November 2026 the official site lists version 33.0.1.

Good at: high-quality H.264/AAC recordings, built around scenes and sources you set up yourself. It also streams live to Twitch, YouTube and other services, which QuickTime and Screen Bolt don't do.

Lacks: editing. The sources we checked show no editing, zoom or styling features, so plan to edit elsewhere. Recordings are files on your Mac, so there are no share links either. Setting up scenes and sources takes longer than a one-button recorder.

Price: free.

Pick it if you want a free recorder you can configure in detail, or you also stream. We compare it directly with Loom in Loom vs OBS.

Screen Bolt: polished local videos, one-time price

Screen Bolt is our native Mac screen recorder with a built-in timeline editor. You record a display, a single window or a dragged area, with your webcam, microphone and system audio. You can also add a second camera, such as an iPhone over Continuity Camera. When you stop, the editor opens with zooms already created from your mouse clicks, a smoothed cursor and a background behind the recording. Good at:

• Looking edited without a separate video editor. Auto zoom from clicks, cursor size and click effects, backgrounds, text, arrows, blur regions and a 3D tilt. Export MP4 (H.264), MOV (HEVC) or GIF, up to 4K at 30 or 60 fps.
• Camera styling. Put the webcam in any of the four corners, set its size, roundness and border, or let it take over the whole frame for a section ("Fullscreen Moments"). The live preview bubble you see while recording isn't captured.
• Privacy. Recordings are processed locally and never uploaded, and there's no account. The app does go online to validate your license and check for updates.
• Blur. You can draw blur zones on screen before you record. They show on your own screen too, and they don't blur Window-mode recordings. In the editor, a scan on your Mac can find and blur email addresses (plus phone numbers and your own keywords if you turn those on).
• Voice. On-device noise reduction, loudness normalization and voice clarity for the microphone track.
• Scripted videos. A teleprompter window that doesn't show up in the recording.

Lacks, compared with Loom:

• No share links, cloud upload, comments, viewer analytics or team workspaces. You get a video file.
• The editor's Share button sends the raw, unedited recording through the macOS share sheet. To share the edited version, export first (see the workflow below).
• No captions, subtitles or transcripts.
• Mac only, macOS 14 (Sonoma) or later.
• Recording shortcuts (⌥⌘3, ⌥⌘4, ⌥⌘5, that is Option-Command-3/4/5) only work while Screen Bolt is the active app. There are no global hotkeys.
• A few editor looks, such as device frames and speed ramps, show in the preview but aren't in the exported file.

Price and length (as of November 2026): recording length is unlimited in both versions. The free version has no time limit, but exports are capped at 3 minutes and 720p, carry a "Made with Screen Bolt" watermark, and can't be GIFs. The 3-minute cap is checked against the full recording, so a 5-minute take trimmed to 2 minutes is still blocked. Keep free recordings short from the start. Pro is a one-time $79 with a 14-day money-back guarantee, and removes those limits.

Pick it if you make product demos, tutorials or support videos, you want them to look finished, and you're happy to share a file instead of a link. Compare plans on the Screen Bolt pricing table.

Screen Studio: the reference for auto-zoom polish

Screen Studio is the Mac recorder that popularized automatic zoom, a smoothed cursor and backgrounds behind a recording. It's the app we get compared with most often. Screen Bolt covers similar ground (zoom from clicks, cursor smoothing, backgrounds, webcam).

What we can't tell you: our sources disagree on its price model, so check screen.studio for current pricing before buying. We also couldn't verify whether it offers share links.

Pick it if cursor and zoom polish is your main goal and you've confirmed the pricing works for you. See Screen Studio alternatives and our Screen Studio vs Loom vs Screen Bolt comparison.

Replacing a share link with a local-file workflow

If you move to a local recorder (QuickTime, OBS or Screen Bolt), you still need a way to get the video to people. Most teams already have one: a shared drive, a chat tool, a docs page or a help center. In Screen Bolt it looks like this:

1. In the recording bar, select Display, Window or Area.
2. Click the red record button, and click Stop when you're done.
3. Trim mistakes in the editor: split with S, or set an In point with I and an Out point with O, then click Cut I-O.
4. Click Export in the toolbar.
5. Choose MP4 ("Plays everywhere. Best default for sharing.") and a quality. Free exports are 720p; Pro adds 1080p, 4K and Original.
6. Check the size estimate in the sheet, then click Export. The file is saved to your Save to folder (Desktop by default) and shown in Finder.
7. Upload it where your team already watches videos, or right-click it in Finder and use the Share option to send it with Mail, Messages or AirDrop. A few details that save time:

• Smaller files: open Settings ▸ Quick export and set Compression to Web or Web (Low). This also applies to editor exports. MOV (HEVC) gives smaller files at matching quality, but MP4 is the safer choice for playback anywhere. Our MP4 vs MOV guide explains the trade-off, and the video file size calculator estimates sizes before you export.
• Quick messages without the editor: set Settings ▸ Recording ▸ After recording to Export to file. Screen Bolt then renders straight away with auto zooms and the cursor, in a plain style without a background, saves the file inside the project and reveals it in Finder. Only the first camera is included, and in the free version a recording over 3 minutes fails without a message.
• Don't use the editor's Share button for the final video. It sends the raw recording, not your edits.

More on formats and quality presets is in the export documentation.

What you give up compared with a link: you won't see who watched, viewers can't comment on the video itself, and changing a video means sending a new file.

Should you switch at all?

Stay on Loom if your videos are mostly quick messages to teammates and the value is in the link, the comments and knowing who watched. No local recorder replaces that, ours included. Loom also works across platforms, which matters if half your team isn't on a Mac.

Switch if the subscription doesn't match how often you record, if recordings shouldn't leave your Mac, or if your videos have become product demos and tutorials that need editing.

How to choose

• Your team watches through links: Cap (open source) or Tella (subscription).
• You need subtitles: Tella. Screen Bolt and QuickTime don't make captions or subtitles.
• You want free and simple: QuickTime Player. Our best free screen recorders for Mac lists more.
• You want free and configurable, or you stream: OBS Studio.
• You want polished demos as local files, no subscription: Screen Bolt, or Screen Studio once you've checked its pricing.
• Recordings must stay on your Mac: a local recorder. Our local vs cloud screen recorders page covers what that means in practice.
• You're not sure Loom-style apps are what you need: see our best screen recorders for Mac.

FAQ

Is there a free Loom alternative for Mac?

Yes. QuickTime Player is built into macOS and OBS Studio is free and open source; both save local files. Cap is open source and keeps share links. Screen Bolt has a free version with no time limit, but its exports are watermarked, 720p and up to 3 minutes.

Which Loom alternatives have share links?

Of the apps on this page, Cap and Tella. Screen Bolt, QuickTime Player and OBS Studio save video files to your Mac, which you then share yourself. We couldn't verify Screen Studio either way.

Can I edit an existing video file in Screen Bolt?

You can open a video file for a quick trim and export, but edits to it aren't saved as a project. Auto zoom and cursor effects only work on recordings made in Screen Bolt, because they rely on click and cursor data captured during recording. You can still add zoom regions by hand.

Does Screen Bolt work on Windows?

No. Screen Bolt is Mac only and needs macOS 14 or later. For a mixed Mac and Windows team, Cap, Tella and OBS Studio all run on both.