Screen Recording Not Working on Mac? How to Fix It

When screen recording is not working on a Mac, the app usually doesn't have Screen Recording permission. The other common cause is that you granted the permission but haven't quit and reopened the app since. Open System Settings > Privacy & Security, click Screen Recording (labeled Screen & System Audio Recording on macOS 15 Sequoia and later), turn the app on, then quit it completely and open it again.

If that doesn't fix it, work through the sections below. They are ordered from the most likely cause to the least likely. The steps work for any recording app. Where Screen Bolt, our recorder, shows a specific message, we quote it so you can match the message to its cause.

Check whether screen recording is not working in one app or on your whole Mac

The built-in recorder tells you where to look.

1. Press ⇧⌘5 (Shift-Command-5) to open the Screenshot toolbar.
2. Click Record Entire Screen, then click Record.
3. After a few seconds, click the stop button in the menu bar.

If that recording plays back normally, your Mac can capture the screen and the problem is limited to the other app. That usually means a permission problem, covered in the next three sections. If the built-in recorder also fails after a restart, go to the last section, "When to contact Apple or the app's developer".

Check the Screen Recording permission

Symptom: the app shows an error when you try to record, the record button does nothing, or the window list is empty.

Why: macOS blocks apps from capturing the screen until you allow it. If you clicked Deny at the first prompt, or never saw the prompt, the app has no access.

1. Open the Apple menu and choose System Settings.
2. Click Privacy & Security in the sidebar.
3. Click Screen Recording on macOS 14, or Screen & System Audio Recording on newer versions. If you can't find it, type "Screen Recording" into the search field at the top of System Settings.
4. Turn on the switch next to the app you record with.
5. If macOS offers to quit and reopen the app, accept. If the switch is grayed out or won't stay on and you're using a work Mac, your organization's device management may control the setting. Ask your IT team.

In Screen Bolt: choose Help > Screen Bolt Help (⌘?, Command-Question Mark). The Permissions panel shows the live status of Screen Recording, Microphone, Camera and Input Monitoring. Screen Recording shows either "Granted" or "Denied", and the other three can also show "Not Determined". Click Open Settings next to a permission to go straight to its pane in System Settings. The red error banner under the recording bar has no button for this, so use the Help window.

Quit and reopen the app after granting permission

Symptom: you turned the permission on, but the app still can't record.

Why: many apps only pick up a new Screen Recording grant when they start. On macOS 14 Sonoma, Screen Bolt needs a full relaunch before the grant takes effect.

1. Quit the app with ⌘Q (Command-Q). Closing its window isn't always enough. In Screen Bolt, the close button on the floating recording bar quits the app.
2. Open the app again from your Applications folder.
3. Make a short test recording.

On macOS 15 Sequoia, the system periodically asks you to confirm that an app should keep screen access. For Screen Bolt this prompt appears about once a month, and it's safe to allow again. If the repeated prompts are what's bothering you, see why your Mac keeps asking for Screen Recording access.

Remove the app from the list and add it again

Symptom: the switch is on and you've relaunched, but recording still fails. This can happen after an app update, or when there's more than one copy of the app on your Mac.

Why: the permission entry can point to a different copy of the app, so the copy you're running doesn't have access.

1. Quit the app.
2. Open System Settings > Privacy & Security > Screen Recording (or Screen & System Audio Recording).
3. Select the app in the list and click the − (minus) button below it.
4. Click +, choose the app in your Applications folder, and click Open.
5. Make sure its switch is on, then open the app and try again.

You can also reset the permission in Terminal. Always include the bundle ID. If you run tccutil reset ScreenCapture without one, Screen Recording access is removed for every app on your Mac, and you have to grant it again one app at a time.

This command clears Screen Bolt's Screen Recording entry, so macOS asks again the next time the app needs access:

tccutil reset ScreenCapture com.screenbolt.Screen-Bolt

To undo it, allow access when the prompt appears, or turn the switch back on in System Settings.

For a different app, use that app's bundle ID. This command prints it (replace "Screen Bolt" with the app's name as it appears in Applications):

osascript -e 'id of app "Screen Bolt"'

Free up disk space

Symptom: recording won't start, or it fails partway through.

Why: video files are large, and recorders need room to write them as they go.

Before every recording, Screen Bolt checks that there's room for 60 minutes at the estimated bitrate. If there isn't, it won't start and shows:

"Not enough free disk space to record safely. Need at least [X] available, only [Y] free on the output volume. Free up space and try again."

If space runs low during a recording, an amber banner says "Low disk space — only [X] free on the output volume. Recording continues; consider stopping soon." Stop soon after you see it.

To check and free up space:

1. Open System Settings > General > Storage to see how much space is free.
2. Empty the Trash and delete or move large files you don't need.
3. Look at old recordings. By default Screen Bolt saves each recording as a project in ~/Screen Bolt Projects, and each project holds the full raw screen video plus any camera files. Move finished projects to another drive, or delete them.

A related amber message, "Recording finished with [N] dropped frame(s)…", means the recording completed but skipped frames. Screen Bolt names the likely cause as a slow disk or thermal throttling. If your recordings stutter, see fixes for choppy or laggy screen recording.

Black or blank recordings

Symptom: the recording finishes, but the video is black, shows only your wallpaper, or shows the wrong screen.

Check these causes in order:

• Missing permission. In some apps, a missing Screen Recording permission doesn't produce an error. You get a black video, or one that shows only the desktop. Go back to the permission steps above.
• Protected video. Copy-protected video, such as content from streaming services, usually appears black in screen recordings. This is intentional and there's no setting to change it.
• Wrong display. If you have more than one monitor, Screen Bolt's Display button becomes a menu that lists each screen, and the checked screen is the one that gets recorded. The Record display shortcut ⌥⌘3 (Option-Command-3) always records the first display, which may not be the one you're looking at.

For more causes and fixes, see screen recording shows a black screen on Mac. If the picture is fine but there's no sound, see Mac screen recording has no sound.

When Screen Bolt won't start a recording

These problems aren't caused by permissions, but they can make the recorder look broken:

• The red record button is disabled. Choose Display, Window or Area first. Clicking a source only selects it, and the red button starts the recording.
• The shortcuts do nothing. ⌥⌘3, ⌥⌘4, ⌥⌘5 and ⌃⌘↩ (Control-Command-Return) only work while Screen Bolt is the active app. They aren't global hotkeys.
• Your window isn't in the picker. Select Window to Record lists only titled windows that are on screen and at least 150×150 points. Minimized windows, the Dock, Control Center and Spotlight don't appear.
• The area won't confirm. A dragged area must be larger than 20×20 points.
• The microphone blocks the recording. If Mic is on but microphone access was denied, recording won't start and you'll see "Microphone access is required to record mic audio." Either grant access under Privacy & Security > Microphone, or choose Don't record microphone in the Mic menu.

What Screen Bolt's error messages mean

Errors appear in a red banner under the recording bar, and warnings appear in amber.

If a recording ends with an error, try to recover it before you quit Screen Bolt. The app deletes leftover temporary recordings at its next launch, so File > Recover unfinished recordings... only finds files from the current session. If a file was left behind, it opens in the editor without creating a project, which means your edits to it aren't saved, so export it once it looks right. Also avoid quitting Screen Bolt while you're recording: the app quits without finishing the file. For more, see how to recover a lost screen recording and why a Mac screen recording stops by itself.

When to contact Apple or the app's developer

Contact the app's developer when the built-in ⇧⌘5 recorder works, the permission is on, and you've relaunched the app and removed and re-added it, but that one app still fails.

For Screen Bolt:

1. Choose Help > Screen Bolt Help.
2. Click Copy Diagnostics. This copies your app version and build, macOS version, Mac model and the four permission states.
3. Click Contact Support, or choose Help > Report an Issue…. Either one opens a pre-filled email to us with the diagnostics included. Nothing is sent until you send the email yourself.
4. In the email, include the exact banner text you saw and what you were recording (display, window or area). The Screen Bolt troubleshooting docs also cover audio, webcam and export problems.

Contact Apple Support if the built-in ⇧⌘5 recorder also fails after a restart, or if the Screen Recording switch won't stay on and your Mac isn't managed by an organization. Tell them your macOS version, what happens when you press ⇧⌘5, and which of the steps above you've already tried.