How to record your screen in Chrome with automatic zoom

A plain screen recording is hard to watch: the interesting part is a small button in a big screen, and viewers lose the mouse. Automatic zoom fixes that by moving in on each action. This guide shows how to do it in Chrome with Lensprout, from setup to export, in about five minutes.

Lensprout is coming soon to the Chrome Web Store. The steps below describe the extension as it works today.

Before you start

• Use desktop Chrome.
• Close tabs and notifications you don’t want on screen. Chrome’s picker can record a single window, which keeps the rest of your desktop private.
• Plan the clicks. Automatic zoom works best when each step is a deliberate click or a field you type into.

1. Set up the recording

Click the Lensprout button in Chrome’s toolbar, or press Ctrl+Shift+Y. A recorder page opens with a few choices:

• System audio: include the sound your computer plays.
• Camera: pick a webcam. It is recorded as a separate file, so you can place and style it later.
• Microphone: pick a mic and set its level. Chrome’s noise suppression is available.
• Countdown: off, 3, 5 or 10 seconds.

Your choices are remembered for next time.

2. Start and pick what to share

Click Start recording. Chrome’s picker appears: choose the whole screen or a single window. You return to your page, and the countdown appears there. It is never part of the video, and Esc cancels it.

3. Use the page normally

Click, type and scroll as you would in a real demo. Lensprout notes three kinds of moments that become zooms:

• clusters of clicks, such as filling in a form;
• long presses of more than two seconds;
• typing in text fields.

A single stray click doesn’t trigger a zoom, which keeps the video calm. Password, one-time-code and card fields are never measured, and plain typed text is never stored.

You can pause and resume at any time. To finish, click Stop & open editor or the toolbar button.

4. Review the automatic zooms

The editor opens with your zooms already on the timeline. Play it back, then adjust what you don’t like:

• Drag a zoom to move it, or drag its edges to change when it starts and ends.
• Depth sets how far it zooms in.
• Follow or fixed: a zoom can follow the pointer, or stay on a spot you place on a small map.
• Offset keeps the cursor off-center, so there is room to see where it is heading.
• Add a zoom at the playhead for anything automatic zoom missed, like activity outside Chrome.

5. Make it look good

In the Style panel, pick a background (image, gradient or color), padding, rounded corners and a shadow. Optional touches:

• an overlay cursor and a highlight that makes the pointer easy to follow;
• click animations and generated click and key sounds;
• a webcam layout: picture in picture, side by side, stacked or full;
• a 3D stage with a device frame, if you want something more cinematic.

Save the look as a preset to reuse it on your next recording.

6. Trim the boring parts

Open Smart trim to get suggestions: speed up still stretches and typing, and cut silent pauses. Accept the ones you like; each becomes a normal segment you can still edit or undo.

7. Export

Click Export video and choose MP4 (720p to 4K, depending on what your computer’s encoder supports) or GIF. Rendering happens on your computer, and the file downloads when it is done. Nothing is uploaded.

Tips for better auto-zoom recordings

• Slow down slightly before each important click; the zoom needs a moment to arrive.
• Type real values into forms. Typing creates zooms on the field, which reads naturally.
• Use a bigger browser zoom (Ctrl and +) for small UIs. It makes text readable even at full width.
• Record short takes. Several 30-second clips are easier to edit than one long one.

Next: turn the same recording into a vertical video or a GIF.