How to Record SOP and Process Videos on Mac

To record an SOP video on a Mac, record one process at a time from a known starting point. Then label each step on screen ("Step 2 of 5: Approve the invoice"), blur any customer data, and export an MP4 named after the process. The built-in recorder (⇧⌘5) handles the capture. For step labels, blur and a look that stays the same across a whole library, you need an editor.

We make Screen Bolt, a Mac screen recorder with a timeline editor. Below, the built-in route comes first, with a note on when it's enough.

What a good SOP video looks like

A process documentation video works when someone who has never done the task can follow it once and get the same result. In practice that means:

• One process, one outcome. The video starts from a stated starting point and ends when the task is done.
• Every step is labeled on screen, so a viewer can scrub to step 4 without rewatching steps 1 to 3.
• Viewers can see where you click, at the size people actually watch.
• No real customer data is visible: names, emails, phone numbers, account IDs.
• It looks like every other video in the library: same background, same label style, same label position.
• The file name says what the process is, so people can find it without opening it.

When a video SOP beats a written one

A video is the better format when:

• Location matters: where a button sits, which tab to open, which of three similar menus is the right one.
• The process crosses several apps or screens, and a text description would turn into "then go back to the other tab".
• The task is infrequent. People forget quarterly or yearly tasks, and watching once is faster than reconstructing them from text.
• You're onboarding new hires who don't know the tools yet.

A written doc is the better format when:

• The reader needs to copy exact values, such as account codes, URLs or field contents.
• The steps are mostly decisions ("if the amount is over the limit, escalate") rather than clicks.
• The UI changes often, so a video would be out of date before people watch it.

The setup that holds up best is usually both: a short written checklist with the video embedded at the top. The checklist is searchable and quick to update. The video shows what the checklist can't.

One process per video

Keep each video to a single process with a clear end state. "Create a vendor" and "Pay a vendor" are two videos, even if people often do them together. Splitting pays off in three ways:

• When one step changes, you re-record a short video, not a long one.
• Each video can be linked from exactly the place where someone needs it.
• Viewers can see from the timeline how long the task takes.

If a process has phases that people do on different days, make a numbered series ("Month-end close 1: Reconcile accounts", "Month-end close 2: …").

A simple rule: if you catch yourself saying "now, a separate thing", stop and start a new video.

Plan the steps before you record

Write the steps down before you hit record. That list becomes your step labels, your narration and your written checklist. A template:

Phrase each label as an action plus its object ("Open the invoice queue", not "Invoices"). Use the same wording in the video and in the written checklist so people can match them.

If you narrate, write the narration too. Screen Bolt has a built-in teleprompter (the Script button in the recording bar) that floats over your screen but isn't captured. Cue markers like [PAUSE] remind you to stop talking while a page loads. See how to read a script while recording for that setup.

Record the process

Use a test or sandbox account if you can. Not showing customer data is safer than blurring it later. Close chat apps, turn on a Focus mode, and clear anything personal from your bookmarks bar. Preparing your Mac for a clean recording covers the rest.

With the built-in recorder

1. Press ⇧⌘5 (Command-Shift-5) to open the Screenshot toolbar.
2. Choose Record Entire Screen or Record Selected Portion.
3. Open Options, pick your microphone if you're narrating, and turn on Show Mouse Clicks so viewers can see each click.
4. Click Record.
5. To stop, click the stop button in the menu bar or press ⌃⌘⎋ (Control-Command-Escape).

The recording is saved as a .mov file (to the Desktop unless you changed the location in Options). You can trim the start and end in QuickTime Player with Edit ▸ Trim (⌘T).

When this is enough: a quick internal walkthrough with narration, no customer data on screen, and no library to keep consistent. What it can't do: pause mid-recording, add step labels, blur part of the screen, or apply the same styling across videos.

With Screen Bolt

1. In the recording bar, choose Display, Window or Area. Window records one app window on its own, even if other windows cover it. Use Display or Area if the process moves between apps.
2. Click Mic and choose your microphone if you're narrating.
3. Optional: click Script and paste your step script into the teleprompter.
4. Click the red record button.
5. When you're waiting for a slow page or a report to generate, click Pause, then Resume. The pause gap is removed from the recording, so viewers don't sit through it.
6. Click Stop. By default the editor opens with zoom regions already created from your clicks, so each click target is shown up close.

For SOPs, make clicks obvious. In the editor's Cursor panel, turn on Highlight on Click (off by default), and adjust Size if the cursor is hard to see. How to show mouse clicks in a screen recording covers the options.

Add step labels with text overlays

Step labels let viewers jump straight to the step they're stuck on. In Screen Bolt:

1. Move the playhead to where step 1 begins.
2. Press T, or open the Text panel and click Add Text Overlay. A 3-second "Title" appears at the playhead.
3. Under Edit Text, replace the text with your label, for example "Step 1 of 5: Open the invoice queue".
4. Set Position. The default is Bottom Center. If the app you're documenting has important buttons at the bottom, use a top position instead.
5. Turn on Background and raise BG Opacity until the label stays readable over busy UI.
6. Set Duration so the label covers the whole step. It can be 0.5 to 30 seconds. For a step longer than 30 seconds, add a second label with the same text right after the first.
7. Set Animate In to Fade In. The other styles (slides, Scale Up, Typewriter) show in the preview, but exports render them as a fade.
8. Repeat for each step, then check the Text Items list to confirm the order and numbering.

You can also drag and resize a label directly on the preview.

Write down your label style. Presets don't include text overlays or their settings, so every video's labels have to be set up the same way by hand. Keep a short spec in your team's style notes, for example:

For more ways to use text (titles, callouts, emphasis), see how to add text to a screen recording. If you need to point at a specific field, the Annotations panel adds arrows, rectangles, circles, highlights, lines and callouts.

Hide customer data before you share

SOP videos often show real records. Blur them in the editor, where you can review each region before exporting.

Blur a fixed area:

1. Move the playhead to where the data appears.
2. Press B, or open Effects ▸ Blur / Privacy and click Add Blur Region. A 5-second blur appears at the playhead.
3. Under Edit Blur Region, choose a Style: Gaussian, Pixelate or Solid Color. Solid Color covers the area completely. With the other styles, check at full size that the text underneath isn't still legible.
4. Set Region (X, Y, W, H) to cover the data, and Duration to match how long it's on screen (up to 60 seconds).

Find emails and other text automatically: In Effects ▸ Blur / Privacy, use Auto-Detect Sensitive Text. It scans the recording on your Mac and blurs every email address it finds. It can also blur phone numbers (turn on Also detect phone numbers) and any words you enter under Custom keywords, such as client names or your internal domain. These blurs follow the text through zooms and scrolling. Review the added regions on the Blur track before exporting.

Two things to know about auto-detect:

• Run it after you've finished cutting and reordering. Detected regions aren't re-timed when you make cuts, change speed or move clips afterward.
• The matched text is saved in the project file as the blur item's label. Share the exported MP4, not the .screenbolt project.

Screen Bolt can also place blur zones on screen before you record (the Blur button in the recording bar). For SOPs they're the weaker option: they're visible on your own screen, stay at fixed screen positions (so they don't follow a window that moves or scrolls), only appear on the main display, don't blur a recording made in Window mode, and you can't click through them. The editor blur above is more dependable.

Keep every video looking the same with presets

A library where every video has the same background and framing is easier to trust and easier to watch in sequence. Set the look up once:

1. In a finished project, choose your background, padding, corner radius, aspect ratio, cursor and zoom settings.
2. Click Presets in the editor toolbar and choose Save Current as Preset....
3. Give it a name such as "SOP Ops".
4. For each new SOP video, open Presets and apply it.

A preset stores padding, corner radius, shadow, inset, aspect ratio, background, cursor, zoom, device frame, speed, 3D camera, audio volumes and enhancement toggles, sound effects, and styling for the first camera. It doesn't store text labels.

Build the preset from settings that survive export. Wallpaper and Image backgrounds export, so a company-branded image works well. Several settings appear in the preview but not in the exported file: custom Gradient and Color backgrounds, Background Blur, screen Shadow and Inset, and device frames. A preset built on those produces videos that don't match what you designed.

If you want every new recording to start with the last project's look, turn on Use last project settings as default for new recordings in Settings ▸ Editing.

Sharing the look with a team: user presets are saved in UserPresets.json in ~/Documents/Screen Bolt Presets (you can change the folder with Save presets in). File ▸ Import preset... reads a preset .json file, but there's no export command. The reliable route is to list your preset values in the same style notes as your label spec, so anyone on the team can rebuild them. Keeping screen recordings on-brand with presets goes further.

Export settings for an SOP library

Set the frame rate before you record: Frame rate in Settings ▸ Quick export (30 or 60 FPS) applies to recording and export. 30 FPS is plenty for clicking through forms and keeps files smaller. Then, in the editor:

1. Click Export in the editor toolbar.
2. Choose MP4. It uses H.264, which plays in every major browser, so it's the safe choice for a wiki or intranet.
3. Choose a Quality. 1080p keeps small UI text readable. The free version exports at 720p only.
4. Under Save to, click Change… and choose your SOP folder. The default is the Desktop.
5. Click Export, then rename the file. Exports are named Screen Bolt <date> at <time>.mp4 by default.

For a large library, file size adds up. Compression in Settings ▸ Quick export also applies to editor exports; Web gives smaller files than the default Social Media. You can estimate sizes with the video file size calculator, and how to make text readable in screen recordings helps you check legibility.

The Share button in the editor toolbar sends the raw, unedited recording, without labels or blur. To share the finished SOP, export it first and share that file.

Store and update SOP videos

Processes change, so plan for updates from the start.

• Name files after the process, plus a version or date, for example AP-03 Approve vendor invoice 2026-11.mp4. Put the same name in the written checklist.
• Keep the project, not just the MP4. Each recording is a .screenbolt project in ~/Screen Bolt Projects (change this in Settings ▸ Recording ▸ Save new projects to). Opening the project keeps your labels, blur regions and zooms editable. Don't move files out of the project package: clips whose media is missing are dropped when the project opens.
• Note the date you recorded it in the written doc, so readers can tell whether the video still matches the current UI.

When something in the process changes, match the fix to the change:

• A label or a blurred field changed. Open the project (File ▸ Open recent, or ⌘O), edit the label or blur region, and export again.
• A step was dropped from the process. Mark it with I and O, then click Cut I-O. Renumber the labels that follow ("Step 4 of 5" becomes "Step 3 of 4") and check that every label and blur region still lines up. Auto-detected blurs don't move with cuts, so delete them on the Blur track and run Auto-Detect Sensitive Text again.
• The clicks themselves changed. Re-record the whole process and apply your preset. Patching a new take into the old project doesn't work well: Screen Bolt hides the system cursor while recording and draws it back in the editor, so a raw recording dropped onto another project's timeline shows no cursor, and an exported file would bring its own background. With one process per video, a re-record is usually a few minutes.

Common mistakes

• Recording several processes in one take. It's harder to label, harder to find, and the whole video goes stale when any part changes.
• Label styles that drift between videos. Presets don't carry text settings, so use a written label spec.
• Relying on speed ramps to skip waiting. Speed ramps play in the preview but aren't exported. Pause while recording, or cut the wait.
• Using J and L to skim. They change the project's speed, and that speed is applied to the whole export. Check the speed menu reads 1x before exporting.
• Trimming a long free-version recording down to under 3 minutes. The free export limit is checked against the full recording length, so record short takes from the start.
• Running auto-detect before editing. Detected regions don't move when you cut or reorder clips.
• Sharing the project instead of the export. The project contains the raw recording and the matched sensitive text.

FAQ

How long should an SOP video be? As long as one process takes, and no longer. If it keeps growing, it's probably two processes and should be split.

Do I need narration? Not always. Clear step labels plus visible clicks can carry a simple process on their own, and they work for people watching with the sound off. Narration helps when a step needs a "why".

Can Screen Bolt add captions or a transcript? No. Screen Bolt has no captions, subtitles or transcription. Put the key information in step labels and the written checklist.

Screen Bolt's free version includes every editor feature; exports are watermarked, limited to 3 minutes at 720p, and can't be GIFs. Pro removes those limits for $79 once (as of November 2026); see Free vs Pro. If your SOPs live in a help center for customers, how to make how-to videos for your help center covers that variant.