Free · Private · 100% local
ReelCap captures any browser tab straight to video — with a highlighted cursor, click ripples, your voice and a webcam bubble. No account, no upload, no watermark.
v0.1.0 · Chrome 116+ · Edge, Brave, Arc and other Chromium browsers
5 output sizes · 3 frame rates · 27 languages
In a screen recording, the system cursor is a 12-pixel arrow and a click leaves no trace at all. Viewers spend the whole video hunting for where you just clicked — and that is exactly the moment they stop watching. ReelCap draws the cursor into the video itself.
Without ReelCap
A desktop recorder grabs the whole window: tabs, bookmarks bar, your other monitor. The cursor is tiny, clicks are invisible, and you spend an evening cropping and zooming in an editor.
With ReelCap
Only the page is recorded — never the browser UI. A hand-drawn cursor and a ripple on every click are painted into the frames, so the finished file already looks edited the moment recording stops.
How it works
There is nothing to sign up for and nothing to install beyond the extension itself. Everything runs inside your browser.
Go to the page you want to demo and open the popup. Choose an output size and frame rate, and switch on tab audio, your microphone, a camera bubble or the highlighted cursor.
A 3-2-1 countdown gives you a beat to get ready, then just use the page as normal. Pause and resume whenever you need to, and stop from any tab with the keyboard shortcut.
The recording opens in a preview tab with its duration, dimensions and file size. Play it back, then download the WEBM — or discard it and go again.
Prefer the keyboard? Alt+Shift+R opens ReelCap on the current tab, and Alt+Shift+S stops recording from anywhere.
Features
Built for the video you actually ship: a product walkthrough, an onboarding clip, a bug report, a Product Hunt teaser.
Capture the active tab straight to a WEBM video. Only the page is recorded — never tabs, bookmarks or your desktop — so the result is clean without a single crop. Restricted pages like the Chrome Web Store can't be captured, which is a browser rule, not a ReelCap limit.
ReelCap draws its own cursor into the video and puts a ripple on every click. Viewers always see where you are pointing and when you tapped — and because the hardware cursor is hidden while recording, there is never a double cursor in the export.
Narrate over the page while keeping the page's own sound. Both are mixed into one clean track, and you still hear the tab normally while recording.
Overlay your camera as a circle or a rounded rectangle in any corner, at the size you want. Enough face to make the demo personal, not enough to cover the UI.
Export at the tab's native size, 1080p, 720p, square or vertical, at 24, 30 or 60 fps. Pick the shape once and the file is ready for YouTube, Product Hunt or social.
A 3-2-1 countdown to get set, pause and resume mid-take, and one shortcut that stops the recording from any tab — no hunting for a floating toolbar.
Capture, compositing and encoding all happen in your browser. No account, no server, no analytics — your recordings never leave your device, because there is nowhere for them to go.
A look inside
The whole extension is three screens. Here they are.
Tab audio, microphone, camera bubble and the highlighted cursor are one toggle each. Choose a size and frame rate, then hit record — your choices are remembered for next time.
Every recording lands in a preview tab with its duration, dimensions, file size and format. Play it back, download the WEBM, or discard it and record another take.
Pick your microphone and camera, set the bubble's shape, corner and size, adjust the cursor and click effects, and choose how recordings are named.
Permissions
Screen recording needs real permissions. Here is every single one, and exactly what it does.
| Permission | What it's for |
|---|---|
| tabCapture | Captures the rendered video and optional audio of the tab you chose to record. It only starts on an explicit action by you. |
| offscreen | Runs an offscreen document — the only place a Manifest V3 extension is allowed to use getUserMedia and MediaRecorder — to grab the stream, mix the audio, composite the canvas and encode the file. |
| activeTab | Grants one-time access to the current tab at the moment you press record, so its stream can be captured. |
| scripting | Injects the drawn cursor and click-ripple overlay into the page being recorded, on demand. There is no persistent content script. |
| tabs | Reads the active tab's title and URL to name the recording and to route the finished clip to the preview tab. |
| storage | Keeps your settings and the recording state so an in-progress recording survives the service worker being recycled. |
| unlimitedStorage | Lets long recordings buffer locally in IndexedDB instead of hitting the small default storage quota. |
| downloads | Saves the finished WEBM video to your Downloads folder. |
Host access to all sites is required for one reason only: the cursor and click effects have to be drawn on whatever page you record. It kicks in when a recording starts, ReelCap reads no page content, and the microphone and camera are not in the manifest at all — the browser asks you for those at runtime, and only if you turn them on.
ReelCap has no backend. The tab stream, your microphone, your camera and the finished video are captured, mixed and encoded by your own browser, and the file goes straight to your Downloads folder. There is no account to create and no upload step to opt out of.
Read the full privacy policyGuides
Practical walkthroughs for the recordings people actually make — with and without an extension.
FAQ
If yours isn't here, the support page has more — or just email us.
Install the extension, open the tab you want to show, and press record. That's the whole setup.
Free · no account · nothing leaves your browser