Making Mac how-to videos for parents and less technical users
A Mac how-to that a parent can follow shows one task, slowly, with every click and every key visible on screen and named out loud. Make the pointer bigger before you record, record only the part of the screen that matters, and say each key by its name, its symbol and where it sits. macOS can show your clicks in a recording by itself; to show the keys too you need an app such as Typebar, which lights up each key you press on an on-screen keyboard.
Below: how to pick the task, how to set up your Mac, how to talk about keys, and how to make the video easy to find again.
One task per video
Less technical viewers watch a how-to to get one thing done, often with the video on a phone and the Mac in front of them. A long video that covers five things loses them at the first moment their screen looks different from yours.
- Pick a task with a clear finish: attach a photo to an email, make the text in Safari bigger, find a file you downloaded.
- Put the task in the title and the file name, in their words rather than Apple’s: “Send a photo in an email”, not “Mail attachments”.
- Start from a place they will recognize, such as the desktop with the Dock showing, and leave the finished result on screen for a few seconds at the end.
- If a task has two parts, make two videos. A second short video is easier to find again than minute six of a long one.
Set up your Mac before you record
Your Mac is set up for you: text sized for your eyes, a pointer moving at your speed, a menu bar full of icons. Spend five minutes making it look like a simpler Mac.
Make the pointer bigger. Open System Settings, choose Accessibility, then Display, and in the Pointer section drag Pointer size to the right. Partway is enough; at the maximum it starts to hide what it points at. Pointer outline color, in the same section, can make it stand out against white windows. Make the Mac pointer bigger and easier to find goes further.
Make text bigger. In System Settings, choose Displays, and if your display shows a row of sizes, pick one toward Larger Text. Everything on screen grows, so the video stays readable on a phone. Switch back when you are done.
Quiet the Mac. Open Control Center, click Focus and turn on Do Not Disturb. Quit Messages, Mail and any chat app, so no banner with your own messages lands in the middle of the video.
Record only what matters. Press Command-Shift-5 (⇧⌘5) to open the Screenshot toolbar and choose Record Selected Portion, then drag the box around the window you are using. A cropped recording shows everything larger than a recording of the whole screen, which matters on a phone. Before you click Record, open Options and choose Show Mouse Clicks, so each click gets a circle around it. To stop, click the stop button in the menu bar or press Control-Command-Escape.
Say each key by its name, symbol and place
Mac menus write shortcuts in symbols, so Copy in the Edit menu shows ⌘C. It is easy to use a Mac for years without learning which key ⌘ is. Say the name, point out the symbol, and say where the key is, every time, even when it feels repetitive.
| Key | Symbol | Where it is |
|---|---|---|
| Command | ⌘ | Either side of the space bar |
| Option | ⌥ | Next to Command, one key further out |
| Control | ⌃ | Bottom row on the left, next to Option |
| Shift | ⇧ | Both ends of the bottom row of letters |
| Delete | ⌫ | Right end of the number row |
| Return | ↩ | Right end of the middle row of letters |
| Tab | ⇥ | Left end of the top row of letters |
| Escape | ⎋ | Top left corner, marked esc |
Three habits help beginners most:
- Say how to press a shortcut, not only which one. “Hold Command, keep holding it, now press C, then let go of both.” New users often press the keys one after the other.
- Give the menu route as well. “Or open the Edit menu at the top of the screen and choose Copy.” Some viewers will never use the shortcut, and that is fine.
- Explain the keys that behave differently. Delete on a Mac removes the letter before the cursor, like Backspace on a PC. A right-click is a click with Control held, or a click with two fingers on a trackpad.
Mac keyboard symbols explained is a good page to send along with the video.
Make every key and click visible on screen
Show Mouse Clicks covers the clicks. The Screenshot toolbar has no option for keys, so a viewer hears “press Command-C” and sees nothing happen. For a beginner, that is exactly where they get lost.
Typebar puts the keys on screen in two ways, and for less technical viewers it helps to show both. Choose Keyboard and Pill from the Show submenu in its menu bar menu.
- The keyboard. Every key you press lights up on an on-screen keyboard. Typebar can draw a MacBook keyboard or a Magic Keyboard, so pick the one your viewer owns and they see the key in the same place as on the keyboard in front of them.
- The pill. Each shortcut appears as keycaps with the name it has in the app’s own menus, so Command-C shows up with the word Copy beside it. Typing gathers into one chip instead of a stream of letters, and with Show clicks in the pill turned on in the Mouse settings, clicks appear too, as Click, Right Click or ⌘ Click.
For the pointer, Typebar adds click ripples, with a different shape for left, right and middle clicks, and a cursor halo, a circle that follows the pointer. Its Spotlight dims everything except a circle around the pointer, which helps when you say “this button here” on a crowded screen. All of these appear in the recording, as long as you record the whole screen or an area that includes them. How to show mouse clicks in a screen recording on a Mac compares the options.
If the task involves signing in, you can still record. When macOS marks a field as a password field, nothing you type there shows, and the pill says “Typing hidden in a password field”.
Record slowly and narrate what you see
- Move the pointer slowly and stop before you click. Rest on the button for a beat, say its name, then click.
- Describe what things look like, not only what they are called. “The blue button at the bottom right that says Send” is easier to find than “Send”.
- Leave the waiting in. If an app takes a few seconds to open, your viewer needs to see that this is normal and not a mistake.
- Keep a mistake if it is one they could make, and show the way back: “If this happens, press Command-Z to undo.”
- Watch the result on a phone before you send it. If you have to squint at a menu, so will they. Record it again with the area cropped tighter.
Send it so it can be found again
A how-to gets watched more than once if it is easy to find. Name each file by its task, and keep the videos in one place: a shared folder, or an unlisted YouTube playlist so there is a single link to bookmark. When a macOS update moves a setting, record that one video again; keeping videos to one task each makes that quick.
Typebar is $9 once for up to five Macs, and free for 24 hours with everything on, so you can record a first video before you decide.
Questions
What is the easiest way to record a Mac how-to video?
Press Command-Shift-5 and record with the Screenshot toolbar. In QuickTime Player, File > New Screen Recording opens the same toolbar. Both are built in and free.
How do I show which keys I am pressing in a recording?
The built-in recorder does not show keys. An overlay such as Typebar draws them on screen, and the recording picks them up like any window, so include it in the area you record.
Should I record the whole screen or one window?
For beginners, a portion drawn around the window you are using is usually better, because everything looks larger. If you show keys on screen, place the overlay inside that area.