Exporting Your Video

Formats, quality presets, aspect ratios, and where files are saved.

Export in Screen Bolt is a single render pass that bakes everything on your timeline — the screen capture, webcam overlay, cursor effects, auto zooms, background, annotations, text, blurs, and any audio you've layered in — into one self-contained file. You pick the format, a quality preset, and an aspect ratio in the right-hand Export panel, hit the big Export button, and Screen Bolt writes the file into your project folder. No second pass. No "preview" versus "final" quality divergence. What you see in the preview is what lands in the file.

Formats

Screen Bolt exports to three formats.

  • MP4 (H.264) — the default and the right answer almost every time. Plays everywhere, uploads cleanly to YouTube, Twitter/X, LinkedIn, Slack, and email. Pick this unless you have a specific reason not to.
  • MOV (HEVC/H.265) — higher visual quality per megabyte than MP4, and smaller files at matching quality. Good for archival masters, handoff to Final Cut or DaVinci, or feeding another editor. Some web platforms still re-encode it — test before assuming it'll play inline.
  • GIF — for README embeds, support threads, and anywhere a muted autoplaying loop is the point. GIF trades color fidelity and smoothness for universal inline playback. GIF export requires a Screen Bolt license.

Quality presets

The Quality dropdown controls the pixel dimensions of the output. Screen Bolt scales down from the source — it never upscales, so choosing a higher preset than your source resolution just gives you your source back. Heights are clamped to even pixel counts so encoders don't choke.

  • Original — whatever you recorded at. Full Retina resolution, no resampling. Pick this when you're handing off to another editor or you want maximum clarity and don't care about file size.
  • 4K (2160p) — scales the long edge down to fit 2160 px tall. Use for YouTube, where 4K gets better bitrate allocation even when viewers watch at 1080p.
  • 1080p — the safe default for almost every web destination. Sharp enough for screen content, light enough to upload in seconds.
  • 720p — smaller files, faster uploads, fine for casual shares and Slack. Text in dense UIs starts to soften here, so avoid it for tutorials where legibility matters.

GIF has its own width-based ladder: Standard (640 px wide) and HD (960 px wide), capped at ~10 fps so file sizes stay reasonable.

Bigger presets mean bigger files. A one-minute 1080p export lands around 30–80 MB at Screen Bolt's default compression; 4K roughly triples that. For H.264, expect larger files than HEVC at the same resolution.

On the free tier, exports are capped at 720p. Apply a Screen Bolt license to unlock Original, 4K, and 1080p.

Compression

The Compression picker sets how aggressively Screen Bolt squeezes the output. Four tiers:

  • Studio — highest bitrate. Use for archival or further editing.
  • Social Media (default) — tuned for YouTube, X, LinkedIn, etc.: high enough quality that the platform's re-encode still looks good, low enough to upload fast.
  • Web — leaner files for embedding or sending over Slack / email.
  • Web (Low) — smallest files, smallest hard drive footprint. Visible compression artefacts in dense UIs; only pick this when bandwidth or storage is the constraint.

The bitrate ladder is internal — Screen Bolt picks values per resolution and compression so you don't have to dial bitrates by hand.

Frame rate

The Frame rate picker on Quick Export and the export sheet offers 30 fps or 60 fps. Screen recordings render fine at 30 fps for most demo content; 60 fps is worth it when you're showing animation-heavy UI or scrolling motion that benefits from the extra smoothness.

Aspect ratios

The Aspect Ratio dropdown reshapes the canvas around your footage. Pick based on where the video is going.

  • Original — preserves your source's aspect ratio untouched. Default.
  • 16:9 — YouTube, most web players, desktop-first demos.
  • 4:3 — older tutorial/presentation feel; rarely the right call for new work.
  • 21:9 — ultrawide, cinematic banner look for hero videos.
  • 1:1 — square. Strong on LinkedIn and Instagram feeds because it eats more vertical real estate on mobile.
  • 9:16 — TikTok, Instagram Reels, YouTube Shorts.
  • 3:4 — vertical but less extreme than 9:16. Useful when 9:16 crops too aggressively.
  • 4:5 — the Instagram feed-optimized portrait ratio.

Non-matching ratios letterbox or crop inside the canvas; pair them with a Background style (gradient, solid, wallpaper, or custom image) so the bars look intentional rather than empty.

Watermark and free-tier limits

On the free tier, Screen Bolt renders a subtle "Made with Screen Bolt" wordmark in the bottom-right of every export. It's drawn directly into the pixel buffer at the tail end of the render pipeline, so it lives on top of your background, webcam, and any overlays.

Applying a license strips the watermark, removes the 720p cap, unblocks GIF export, and lifts the 3-minute export limit. Enter your key under Screen Bolt → Enter License Key… (⇧⌘L).

Where exports go

Exports land inside your active project folder under ~/Screen Bolt Projects/ — the same folder as recording.mov, webcam.mov, and project.json. Each filename is timestamped (Screen Bolt 2026-04-19 at 14.32.18.mp4) so you can re-export with different settings without overwriting.

You can change the parent directory under Settings → Recording → Save new projects to. To jump to your current project, use File → Show previous projects.

Quick Export

For after-recording exports that skip the editor (the Record → Export and save to file flow), Screen Bolt uses the defaults you set under Settings → Quick Export:

  • Format — MP4 or GIF.
  • Frame rate — 30 or 60 fps.
  • Resolution — 720p, 1080p, or 4K (paid).
  • Compression — Studio, Social Media, Web, or Web (Low).

Quick exports save to the location you used last (defaulting to your Desktop), and Screen Bolt remembers it across sessions.

Progress and cancellation

While the render is running, the Export button turns into a progress bar with a percentage. Screen Bolt renders in the background — you can keep scrubbing and editing, but the timeline won't reflect changes made mid-render (they'll apply to the next export). Hit Cancel to abort; the partial file is cleaned up automatically.

Export speed depends on duration, resolution, and how much compositing is happening — heavy zoom animations, blurs, and webcam overlays slow things down. On Apple silicon, a clean 1-minute 1080p MP4 usually renders in under 10 seconds.

Tips

  • For YouTube — MP4, 4K or 1080p, 16:9. Export at the highest resolution you have; YouTube's compression gives 4K sources more bitrate even at 1080p playback.
  • For Twitter/X — MP4, 1080p, 16:9. Keep it under 2:20 so it autoplays in the feed. Lower bitrate is fine; X re-compresses aggressively.
  • For LinkedIn — MP4, 1080p, 16:9 or 1:1. Square takes more vertical space on mobile and tends to hold the scroll longer.
  • For Shorts / Reels / TikTok — MP4, 1080p, 9:16. Pair with a solid or gradient background so the crop doesn't chop off your UI.
  • For embedding in docs or READMEs — GIF if it needs to autoplay inline; MP4 otherwise. Keep GIFs short (under 10 seconds) and use 720p to keep the file small.
  • For archival or further editing — MOV with HEVC at Original resolution. You lose nothing and save disk space versus MP4 at the same quality.

If a destination compresses your upload into mush, the fix is almost always "export at a higher resolution, not a lower one." Platforms allocate bitrate based on source quality — you want to give their encoder more to work with, not less.