One setup for recording, another for teaching: switch in a click

27 October 2026 · 6 min read

A profile in Typebar keeps a whole overlay setup together: the look, which mode shows (keyboard, pill or both), the size and place of each, the pill, the mouse effects and the sounds. Three come ready-made, Recording, Presenting and Learning, and you switch between them from the menu bar menu, with a shortcut, or automatically by the app in front. So the same Mac can show a quiet pill in a corner for a tutorial and a large keyboard with a cursor halo for a class, without redoing settings in between.

Why one setup does not fit every job

The overlay you want depends on who is watching, and how.

Recording a tutorial. Viewers watch on a laptop or a phone, often at speed, and the overlay must stay clear of the action. A pill in a lower corner usually reads best, with click ripples so viewers can follow the pointer.
Teaching a room or a call. People sit further away while you talk and work. A larger keyboard helps, with a cursor halo so the pointer is easy to find, and the Spotlight shortcut ready for the moment you need everyone looking at one spot.
Learning shortcuts yourself. Nobody else is watching. The full keyboard sits where your eye falls, so holding a modifier shows what each key does in the app in front, and “Fade when idle” lets it step back while you read.

Switching between these by hand means changing the mode, the size, the position, the theme, the mouse effects and the sounds, every time. It takes a minute, and something always gets missed, usually the size or the sounds. You notice in the edit, or halfway through the class. A profile turns all of it into one choice.

What a profile keeps

A profile stores the parts of Typebar you would otherwise change between jobs:

The look: the theme, which also sets whether the pill is light, dark or glass. A recording can match your video’s style and a class can use something high in contrast.
The mode: Keyboard, Pill, or Keyboard and Pill.
Sizes and places. Each mode already has its own size and place on screen, and a profile remembers them.
The pill: whether it shows everything or only shortcuts, with or without keys like Return and Tab.
Mouse effects: click ripples, the drag trail, the cursor halo, and Spotlight’s size and dim. The Spotlight shortcut itself is not part of a profile; the one you set works whichever profile is on.
Sounds: which switch sound plays, if any.

Two other panes are worth a check before any session, whichever profile you are on. The Recording pane decides whether the overlay shows by itself when a screen recording or share starts. The Privacy pane hides typing in the apps you choose, or shows letters as dots for a live demo. Make a keystroke overlay appear only while you record covers the first.

Start from the three ready-made profiles

Typebar comes with Recording, Presenting and Learning, in Settings > Profiles. They stay in the list and can be changed, so treat them as starting points: pick the one closest to the job, adjust it to your screen and your taste, and use it.

To add your own, set the overlay up the way you want it, open Settings > Profiles and click +. The new profile is made from your current settings. Name it for the job, such as “Vertical video” or “Client calls”, so you can tell them apart at a glance in the menu.

Here is one way to set up four of them. Treat the details as a starting point, not a rule.

Profile	Mode	Place	Mouse	Sounds
Recording	Pill	A lower corner, clear of menus	Click ripples	Off
Presenting	Keyboard and Pill, larger	Bottom center	Cursor halo	Off
Learning	Keyboard	Where you glance most	Off	Your choice
Vertical video	Pill	Inside the area your crop keeps	Click ripples	Off

For the Recording and Vertical video rows, Where to put a keystroke overlay so it never covers the action goes through corners and crops in detail.

Four ways to switch

The menu bar menu. Click Typebar’s keyboard icon in the menu bar. The menu has a Profile section listing your profiles, and “Edit Profiles…” to open the settings. This is the “switch in a click” way, and the easiest to remember.

A shortcut for each profile. Each profile can have its own “Switch with” shortcut. Give Recording one and Presenting another, and you can switch without reaching for the mouse, even in the middle of a call. Pick combinations your apps do not use; Typebar tells you if one is already taken. Steer clear of the two Typebar comes with: Control-Option-Command-K (⌃⌥⌘K) shows or hides the overlay, and Control-Option-Command-T (⌃⌥⌘T) turns Click to Type on or off.

The app in front. Each profile can have “Switch when these apps are in front” rules. The next section is about these.

Automation. From Terminal, a launcher or a script, open -g "typebar://profile?name=Presenting" switches to Presenting. The Shortcuts app has a Set Profile action. Control a keyboard overlay from Raycast, Alfred or a script has more on both.

Let the app in front decide

This is the setting that makes profiles fade into the background. Add apps to a profile’s “Switch when these apps are in front” list, and Typebar switches to that profile when one of those apps comes to the front. When you move to an app with no rule, it goes back to the profile you picked.

A few pairings that make sense:

Keynote or PowerPoint with Presenting. Switch to your slides, and the overlay is already set for the room.
Final Cut Pro, Logic Pro or Figma with Learning. Open the app you are learning, and the board is set up the way you like it for practice.
Your code editor and Terminal with a screencast profile. Every coding take gets the same corner, the same size and the same theme.

An app can be on only one profile’s list, and Typebar will not add it to a second, so you always know which setup it brings.

The Mac’s side of the setup

A profile covers the overlay. A few things on the Mac itself are worth changing for the same jobs, and macOS has no single switch for them all:

Notifications. Turn on Do Not Disturb, or another Focus, from Control Center before you record or present, so banners stay out of the video and off the projector.
Text size. In System Settings > Displays, a resolution closer to Larger Text makes everything bigger, for a room or for viewers watching on a phone.
The pointer. System Settings > Accessibility > Display has a Pointer size slider, under Pointer.
A clean account. A separate macOS user account kept only for recording gives you a clear desktop, a plain Dock and no personal bookmarks every time.

The Shortcuts app can tie some of this together: one shortcut can turn on a Focus and switch the Typebar profile in a single run. Show and hide an on-screen keyboard from the Shortcuts app walks through a “start recording” shortcut.

Typebar is $9 once for up to 5 Macs, with a free 24-hour trial and no card.

Questions

Can I change the built-in Recording, Presenting and Learning profiles?

Yes. They stay in the list and can be changed to suit you. Add your own with + in Settings > Profiles; it starts from your current settings.

Can a profile switch by itself?

Yes. Give it “Switch when these apps are in front” rules, and bringing one of those apps forward switches to that profile.

Does a profile remember where the overlay sits?

Yes. Sizes and places are part of a profile, for each mode, along with the look, the pill, the mouse effects and the sounds.

Can I switch profiles from a script?

Yes. Run open -g "typebar://profile?name=Presenting", or use the Set Profile action in the Shortcuts app.