How to screen record in Windows 10 or Windows 11

I sometimes need to record screen activity in Windows for a tutorial, demonstration, or online class. Whether you’re creating a presentation, devising a how-to video, or cooking up something for YouTube, you may also want to record certain screen activity in Windows. 

A variety of third-party tools can handle that job — some free and some paid. But rather than download and install an external program, you can take advantage of a feature built right into Windows.

Available in Windows 10 and 11, the Xbox Game Bar video capture tool is designed to record gameplay on your PC. But it’s a versatile tool in that it will capture just about any other type of screen activity.

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With Xbox Game Bar, you can easily record your screen, turn on the microphone to grab your voice or other audio, and then save the recording to your PC. You’re then able to see and manage all the recorded clips within the Game Bar interface and play any specific video. The video itself is saved as an MP4 file, so you can easily modify or spruce it up using any video editor. Here’s how this works.

How to record your screen in Windows with Xbox Game Bar

Run Game Bar

Now, let’s display the Game Bar and activate it to record your screen activity. Set up the activity you wish to record. When ready, press Windows key+G. The top toolbar and the Capture pane for Game Bar should appear.

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The top toolbar lets you show or hide the different menus and panes for Game Bar, including Widget, Audio, Capture, Performance, Resources, and Xbox Social. At a minimum, you’ll want to see the Capture pane so you can start, control, and stop the capture. You may also want to see the Audio pane if you’re including audio in the capture and the Performance pane if the activity you’re performing is resource intensive.

To start a recording, tap the Record button in the Capture pane. Then perform the screen activity you want to capture. A small recording panel appears on the screen.

When you’ve completed the activity being captured, press the stop button on the small panel to stop the recording. A message pops up telling you that the game clip was recorded.

Click that message or press Windows key+G to return to the Game Bar interface. A Gallery window appears with the name, date, and time of the recording, and the video available for playback. Tap the Play button in the viewer. 

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From there you can pause the video and raise or lower the volume.

To kick off a recording without launching Game Bar first, press Windows key+Alt+R. The small recording panel appears on the screen. Click the stop button when finished and then open Game Bar. Your new recording now appears in the Gallery window for you to play. If you need to capture the last 30 seconds of screen activity, press Windows key+ Alt+G.

To work with one of your recorded videos directly, go to c:\users\[username]\Videos\Captures. You’ll see your videos saved as MP4 files, which you can open in a video editor or other application to play or modify them.

Finally, you can tweak several settings for Game Bar. Press Windows key+G. On the top toolbar, click the Settings icon. Here, you can view and change any of the shortcut keys, modify the visual theme of the Game Bar interface and the transparency of the menus and panes, and control how and when audio is recording as you capture your screen activity.