How to Recover a Lost Screen Recording on Mac

To recover a lost screen recording on a Mac, search for it before assuming it's gone. Recordings made with the Screenshot toolbar (⇧⌘5, Command-Shift-5) are saved to the Desktop by default as Screen Recording <date> at <time>.mov, so a Finder search for "Screen Recording" is the fastest first check. If Screen Bolt quit or crashed in the middle of a recording, don't open Screen Bolt again yet. Copy its temporary files somewhere safe first, because the app deletes them the next time it launches.

What's recoverable, by situation

Search the default locations first

Symptom: you stopped the recording and nothing obvious appeared, or the file isn't on the Desktop.

Why it happens: the save location was changed at some point, the floating thumbnail was dragged somewhere, or the file landed in a folder you don't usually check.

Check where the Screenshot toolbar saves

1. Press ⇧⌘5 to open the Screenshot toolbar.
2. Click Options.
3. Look at the checked item under Save to. That is where new recordings go.
4. Press Esc to close the toolbar without recording.

If you dragged the floating thumbnail that appears after recording into another app or folder, the file went there instead. For every default folder, see where screen recordings go on Mac.

Search your whole Mac

1. Open Finder and press ⌘F (Command-F).
2. Make sure This Mac is selected as the search scope, not the current folder.
3. Type Screen Recording in the search field.
4. If that finds nothing, clear the search field, set the first filter to Kind is Movie, then click + and add Created date within the last day or two.
5. Switch to list view and sort by date so the newest files are on top.

From Terminal, this finds every indexed file with "Screen Recording" in its name:

mdfind -name "Screen Recording"

It only queries the Spotlight index and changes nothing. Check the Trash too, in case the file was deleted by accident.

Check Screen Bolt's folders

Finished Screen Bolt recordings are not on the Desktop. Each one is saved as a project package in ~/Screen Bolt Projects (or the folder set in Settings ▸ Recording ▸ Save new projects to), named Screen Bolt <date> at <time>.screenbolt unless you renamed it.

• File ▸ Open recent lists the 10 most recently modified items in that folder.
• File ▸ Show previous projects opens the folder in Finder.
• Exports from the editor go to the folder chosen in the Export sheet (the Desktop unless you changed it).
• If you used Export to file (quick export), the exported video is saved inside the project package. In Finder, Control-click the .screenbolt file and choose Show Package Contents to find it.
• A project you deleted with the trash button in the editor toolbar was moved to the Trash, and you can restore it from there.

Recover a QuickTime screen recording that didn't save

Symptom: the recording opened in a QuickTime Player window, and now it's gone.

Why it happens: when the Screenshot toolbar's Save to option is set to QuickTime Player, the recording opens as an untitled document instead of a file in a normal folder. If you closed it without saving, or QuickTime quit unexpectedly, there is no screen recording file on your Desktop.

Try these in order:

1. Reopen QuickTime Player. After a crash, it may reopen the unsaved recording. If it does, choose File ▸ Save right away.

2. Check QuickTime's autosave folder. In Finder, choose Go ▸ Go to Folder (⇧⌘G), paste this path and press Return:

   ~/Library/Containers/com.apple.QuickTimePlayerX/Data/Library/Autosave Information/
   

   If QuickTime autosaved the document, it's in this folder. Copy anything you find to your Desktop before opening it.

3. Search by date with the Finder steps above, in case it was saved under another name.

If you chose not to save when QuickTime asked, the recording was discarded and none of these steps will bring it back. If the searches turn up nothing, the file most likely was never written. Our QuickTime screen recording guide walks through the full record-and-save workflow.

Recover unfinished recordings in Screen Bolt

While you record, Screen Bolt writes raw files to the macOS temporary folder: ScreenBolt_<timestamp>.mov for the screen, plus ScreenBolt_webcam_<timestamp>.mov and ScreenBolt_webcam2_<timestamp>.mov for cameras. When the recording stops normally, they're moved into a new project. If something goes wrong, they can be left behind in the temporary folder.

What you do next depends on whether Screen Bolt is still open.

If Screen Bolt is still open

This applies after error banners such as "The recording could not be finalized, so there is nothing to edit. Please try recording again." or "Recording stopped unexpectedly: …".

1. Choose File ▸ Open recent and check for a new project with today's date. If it's there, the recording was saved and you're done.
2. If not, choose File ▸ Recover unfinished recordings.... Screen Bolt opens the newest ScreenBolt_*.mov from the temporary folder in the editor. If there is none, you'll see "No unfinished recordings".
3. On the timeline, Control-click (right-click) the clip and choose Reveal Source in Finder.
4. In Finder, select the file (and any ScreenBolt_webcam files with the same timestamp) and press ⌘C.
5. Open your Desktop or another folder and press ⌘V to paste a copy.

Do the copy step even if the video plays fine in the editor. A recovered video is opened without creating a project, so your edits to it are not saved, and the source file is still in the temporary folder that the next launch clears. The menu only opens the newest file. If you need an older one from the same session, use the Terminal steps below.

If Screen Bolt has quit or crashed

Don't launch Screen Bolt. Open Terminal and copy the files out first.

1. List Screen Bolt's leftover files:

   ls -l "$TMPDIR" | grep ScreenBolt_
   

   This lists matching files in your user temporary folder and changes nothing.

2. Copy them to your Desktop:

   cp "$TMPDIR"ScreenBolt_* ~/Desktop/
   

   This copies the files and leaves the originals in place.

3. If you prefer Finder, run open "$TMPDIR" to open the temporary folder, then copy the ScreenBolt_ files out by hand.

If step 1 lists nothing, run a wider search of the system's temporary folders. It only reads and prints paths:

find /private/var/folders /private/tmp -name 'ScreenBolt_*' 2>/dev/null

If that also finds nothing, the files are gone, for example because Screen Bolt was launched again after the crash.

Open what you recovered

Once your copy is safe, open it with File ▸ Open project... (⌘O) in Screen Bolt, or double-click it to try it in QuickTime Player. Know what to expect:

• The cursor is missing. Screen Bolt hides the system cursor in the raw capture and redraws it in the editor from recorded cursor data. A recovered file has no cursor data, so there's no cursor, no auto zoom and no cursor effects. You can still add zoom regions by hand on the zoom track.
• The file may be incomplete. A recording that wasn't finalized may be cut short or may not open at all. If neither Screen Bolt nor QuickTime can open it, recording again is the only option.
• Edits aren't saved. To keep your changes, export from the editor. Free-mode limits apply (3 minutes, 720p, watermark), and the 3-minute check uses the full recording length, not the trimmed length.

Why you must recover before relaunching Screen Bolt

Every time Screen Bolt launches, it deletes every file starting with ScreenBolt_ in the temporary folder to clear out leftovers from earlier runs. That includes the camera files.

Two things follow from that:

• File ▸ Recover unfinished recordings... only finds files from the current session. If the app crashed or quit, opening it to use that menu deletes the very files you want.
• A restart can trigger the cleanup. If Settings ▸ General ▸ Start Screen Bolt at login is on, restarting your Mac launches Screen Bolt, which clears the folder. Copy the files out before you restart.

Quitting Screen Bolt with ⌘Q during an active recording ends the app without finalizing the recording. That leaves exactly this kind of leftover file, and it disappears at the next launch.

Prevent losing the next recording

• Stop before you quit. In Screen Bolt, click Stop in the recording bar, or press ⌃⌘↩ (Control-Command-Return) while Screen Bolt is the active app, and wait for "Finishing..." to disappear. For the Screenshot toolbar, see how to stop a screen recording on Mac.
• Keep disk space free. Screen Bolt refuses to start if the output volume lacks room for 60 minutes at the estimated bitrate, and shows an amber "Low disk space" banner during recording. Stop soon after that warning appears.
• Use Discard and restart only when you mean it. It deletes the take and creates no project.
• Leave project packages intact. If media inside a .screenbolt package goes missing, Screen Bolt drops those clips without a warning when you open the project.
• Save QuickTime recordings immediately. If Options ▸ Save to in the ⇧⌘5 toolbar is set to QuickTime Player, choose File ▸ Save right after stopping, or switch the option to a folder so the screen recording is saved as a file automatically.

If recordings keep ending on their own, why Mac screen recording stops by itself covers the causes.

When to contact support

For Screen Bolt: if recordings fail to finalize more than once, choose Help ▸ Report an Issue…. It opens a pre-filled email with diagnostics (app version, macOS version, Mac model, permission status), and nothing is sent until you send it. Include the exact text of any red or amber banner, what you were doing when it stopped, and whether you had relaunched the app. The Screen Bolt troubleshooting page and support page cover other recording errors.

For macOS: if Screenshot toolbar or QuickTime recordings repeatedly fail to appear even after the searches above, contact Apple Support with your macOS version and the location shown under Options ▸ Save to.

FAQ

Can Time Machine bring back a lost recording? Only if the file existed when a backup ran. Open the folder where the recording was saved in Finder, then open Time Machine and browse back to a time after you recorded.

Are deleted screen recordings in the Trash? Files deleted in Finder and Screen Bolt projects deleted from the editor toolbar go to the Trash, so check there first. Once the Trash is emptied, a backup is your only route back.

Why doesn't my recovered Screen Bolt video show the cursor? The raw capture never includes the system cursor; the editor draws it from data saved with the project. A recovered raw file has no project, so the cursor can't be redrawn.