Stop Using a Separate Screen Recorder - Canva Already Has One

Most people creating tutorial content don't realize that Canva has its own screen recorder built in. And actually there are two tools that make this kind of content so much easier to create. So today we're going to walk through how to find those tools, how to record your screen, and how to edit that footage directly inside Canva. No extra software needed. I'll also cover a few ways screen recording can genuinely elevate your brand experience and share some tips to make the final result look super professional. Shortcuts to both of the tools I refer to can be found when you're inside a design from the Uploads shortcut in the left menu bar. Just under the big Upload Files button is another button that says Record Yourself. Now if you hit that button you get some options and it's the top two ones that we're looking for. Now it's really worth noting how each of these is different and what they are specifically designed to do. To record a talking head it's designed to just record you. Although it can also record a screen from the Canva web app, the primary use is recording your own video and it runs inside the design that you're currently editing. And it adds a finished clip directly into that design's timeline or page as a new layout, which is really helpful because you can resize or move and get creative with it. But it also puts it in the Uploads folder. This is best for Canva first work like Canva presentations, explainers, or clips you want to put straight into the same design. Now in my tests when I did try to record another window or screen as well it did cause some staggering. Now the screen recorder for desktop is a little different. It runs as a desktop recorder in the Canva desktop app. So it creates a standalone recording and it then uploads that into Canva as a video file. You can then insert that into any design, but the talking head is not a separate layer to the rest of the screen recording. So it's definitely best for longer walkthroughs, tutorials, or recordings across multiple different apps or windows. And that's the one that we're going to be focusing on today. As soon as you click the option to use the screen recorder for desktop, it will prompt you to download the Canva desktop app or to open it if you already have it downloaded. Once you've done that with your usual Canva login, you will automatically see the screen recorder toolbar. Now no matter what app or window you have open, this will be visible. This is the clue that the tool records everything on your screen. For example, I'm going to open Affinity which is a completely separate app. And you can see the recording tools stay above everything else. Now on the recording toolbar we have a few options. You can click the little dots to drag the toolbar around and place it somewhere that doesn't obscure your view. And you can choose which camera, which microphone, and which screen you want to use if you have multiple screens available like me. Now when I select the screen that we are currently looking at and I choose to have a camera and mic selected, a small picture-in-picture window of me on camera will appear. Now I can then move that around to position it anywhere that works best. And because the screen recorder records the whole screen, I can even position multiple windows or apps on the screen. And when I'm ready, I then just hit record. You get a really big bold countdown and recording begins. Now during the recording you can select and move windows around and you can even move the talking head too. Although currently you can't resize the talking head video. You can pause recording to take a breath or check your notes or you can just trash it and start again. And then once you're done with your recording you just hit finish. What it will do is it will drop the video into a new design and it will upload it to your uploads folder as a single video recording. So bear in mind you can't rearrange anything within the clip once you've done that. But now you can edit this like you would any other video clip. You can either stay in the desktop app to do this or move back to the web app and just open the new design let's say in your recents. You can add text, you can add graphic layers above it to make the explanations clearer or to call attention to certain things. And of course you can animate all of those just like you would in any other camera design. Now before we look at exporting and some tips and ways to use screen recording, if you want more Canva tutorials and insights from a professional art director on building a creative business and brand, I would love it if you would join my Meaningful Creations newsletter. It's completely free and you can join by going to the link on the screen right now or in the description. Okay, so a few things worth noting before you start using this regularly. Screen recordings are limited to a maximum duration of 25 minutes. Although personally I would suggest breaking things down into much shorter videos wherever possible just to make them easier to edit and export. But I would encourage you to get creative with text and shapes and shadows and other elements when you're editing to create on-brand and really effective styles for your final export. Also one thing worth noting, you can move the screen recording clip from the base layer to a regular layer in the timeline and then you can crop and resize it to your liking and maybe add in a branded background as your base layer. This gives you so much more creative control and you can make space for captions or for additional notes or elements that can appear alongside your screen recording in a more creative layout. This would also allow you to use match and move to create some really slick zoom effects to make the whole thing look super professional. And of course remember you could always record just the screen demo and then use the record talking head tool to record a separate video of you which would then give you full control over the size and shape and placement of that talking head video on screen. It's a little more work but it will give you a lot more flexibility. Now when you're happy with the edit you just export as you would any Canva video design. Just head to share and download. Now for social media and general use MP4 at standard quality is absolutely fine. If you're delivering it to a client or you're publishing it to a course platform the high quality option may be worth choosing just because the difference in sharpness is kind of noticeable on larger screens. And remember Canva also lets you publish or share via just a Canva link which is really useful if you want to send something to a client or someone without needing them to download anything. There are so many ways that screen recordings can enhance your brand experience whether you're a client-based business or a product business or a coach. You could try creating things like client onboarding walkthroughs instead of the usual sort of written PDFs. You could create template or product guides instead of the boring manual or instruction sheets that normally go with products. You could do feedback and review interviews or video clips. Obviously there's course and tutorial content that we all know and use and there's also tech walkthroughs you could do for maybe new clients or staff on how to use your apps or systems. And then there's demo content for social media. You could just resize the relevant window when you're recording to work for a vertical orientation and then crop and edit that in the final design. And you could even remove the background of your talking head and layer that over the demo like you see on so many social media videos and remixes. And really that's it. A simple introduction to Canva's screen recording feature. Now sure it may not be the most robust screen recording tool out there but it's certainly one of those tools that once you start using it regularly gets easier and quicker to use particularly if you work with clients, you build course material or you want to create more tutorial based content without the added hassle of juggling multiple apps. Now if you found this helpful please do make sure that you subscribe to the channel so I can keep creating content like this for you. And I would be really interested to know if there is a specific way that you plan to use screen recording or would like to use screen recording. So please drop a comment and let me know so I can see if there are other tools that could help with that. That's it for this week folks. Have a fabulous weekend and I will see you next week.