Record a product demo video on a Mac that shows every shortcut

27 October 2026 · 6 min read

To record a product demo that shows every shortcut, clean up the Mac first, record the whole display rather than one window, and run a key display that names each shortcut as you press it. macOS records the screen well on its own, through the Screenshot toolbar or QuickTime Player, but it never shows the keys. Typebar adds them, and its pill names each shortcut with the name it has in the app in front, read from that app’s menus, so your own app’s shortcuts appear under the names you gave them.

A demo is a different job from a tutorial. Viewers are deciding whether your product is worth their time, so the screen has to look calm, and every shortcut you show off has to be readable without a pause button.

Clean the Mac before you record

Most of what makes a demo look amateur is on the desktop, not in the app. A few settings take care of it:

Desktop icons. In System Settings, under Desktop & Dock, find Show Items and turn off On Desktop. Your files stay where they are; they just stop showing on the wallpaper.
Click wallpaper to reveal desktop. In the same pane, set it to Only in Stage Manager. Otherwise one stray click on the wallpaper mid-take slides every window off screen.
Notifications. Turn on Do Not Disturb from Control Center before every take.
The Dock. Option-Command-D hides or shows it. A hidden Dock gives your app the full height of the screen.
Everything else. Quit any app that is not in the demo, especially ones with badges or menu bar icons that change.

If you record demos often, a separate macOS user account made in System Settings, under Users & Groups, pays for itself. It has a plain wallpaper, no personal bookmarks, a demo account signed in, and sample data that looks real without being anyone’s. Nothing private can show up because nothing private is there.

Finally, think about text size. A demo watched in a browser tab or on a phone shrinks your interface a lot. Choosing a scaled resolution with larger text in System Settings, under Displays, makes every label easier to read later. How big should on-screen keys be in a 1080p or 4K recording covers sizes for the overlay itself.

Record the display, not a window

The quickest recorder is already on your Mac. Press Command-Shift-5 (⇧⌘5) for the Screenshot toolbar, choose Record Entire Screen or Record Selected Portion, and click Record. Options in the same toolbar set the microphone and a countdown timer. To stop, click the Stop button in the menu bar or press Command-Control-Escape. QuickTime Player’s File > New Screen Recording opens the same toolbar. OBS is the usual step up when you want a webcam corner or scenes.

Whatever you use, capture the full display or an area. A key overlay shows in recordings like any other window, so a recorder set to capture only your app’s window leaves it out. Selecting an area that includes both your app and the overlay works well for a tight frame.

Let the overlay name your shortcuts

This is the part that makes a demo of a keyboard-driven product work. Typebar’s pill shows each shortcut as keycaps plus its name, for example “⇧⌘4 Screenshot Selection” or “⌘K Insert Link”. The names come from the menus of the app in front, so in your own Mac app they are the menu titles you wrote, which are exactly what viewers will find when they try it.

A few pill settings suit demos:

Show only shortcuts. In a demo the typing is visible in your app anyway. Showing only shortcuts, with or without keys like Return and Tab, keeps the pill for the moves you want people to notice.
Repeats count up. Press a shortcut again and it shows as ×2, ×3, instead of filling the pill.
Where it sits. Drag the pill by its handle into a corner your interface does not use. Where to put a keystroke overlay so it never covers the action has the details.

Two notes for app makers. If one of your shortcuts shows only as keys with no name, check whether it has a menu item; a menu item also helps every viewer who later tries to find it. And if your product is a web app, its shortcuts live in the page rather than in the browser’s menus, so the pill may show them as bare keys, or under the browser’s own name when the browser uses the same keys. For a web app, Typebar’s cheatsheets help instead: you can add shortcuts for any app, so add yours to the browser’s sheet, then hold their modifier for a moment on camera and the keys relabel with what they do.

Make clicks as visible as keys

A demo is half clicks, and a cursor moving around a big screen is easy to lose. macOS has one built-in option: in the Screenshot toolbar’s Options, Show Mouse Clicks draws a circle around the pointer when you click.

Typebar goes further while the overlay shows, and all of it appears in recordings:

Click ripples, with a different shape for left, right and middle clicks.
A drag trail, so a drag reads as a drag.
A cursor halo, a circle that follows the pointer.
Clicks in the pill, as Click, Right Click or ⌘ Click, in the same line as the shortcuts.

Spotlight is separate. It dims every display except a circle around the pointer, for the moment you want every eye on one button. Press its shortcut to turn it on or off, or hold the shortcut to show it only while you hold it.

Use one click marker, not two. If Typebar’s ripples are on, turn off Show Mouse Clicks in the toolbar. Show clicks and keystrokes together so viewers see the whole action goes into combining them.

Put the keys in your colors

Typebar has 40 themes, from Apple keyboards to glass and neon, and the pill can be light, dark or glass. For a brand look, Theme Studio lets you color any key or group of keys and pick the caps, legends, press effect, light, case and pill, with every step undoable. Your brand color on the modifier keys is often enough.

Keep one rule in mind: the overlay should look like an overlay. If it copies your interface too closely, viewers may read the keys as part of the product. A theme that matches your palette but contrasts with your app’s background avoids that.

Share the theme as a file, and everyone on the team records demos with the same keys.

Keep the setup for the next demo

Profiles keep a whole setup together: look, mode, sizes and places, pill, mouse and sounds. Save your demo setup as a profile, and switch to it from the menu, a shortcut, a link such as open -g "typebar://profile?name=Demo" for a profile named Demo, or automatically when your app comes to the front.

Two more settings save takes:

“Show when a screen recording starts” brings the overlay up when you start recording and hides it when you stop. Make a keystroke overlay appear only while you record explains it.
Hide letters shows shortcuts and special keys while letters show as dots, for live demos where you type real customer names or search terms.

Typing sounds stay off until you turn them on, which is right for a demo with a voiceover.

Typebar is $9 once for up to 5 Macs, with a free 24-hour trial.

Questions

Will the overlay show up in my recording?

Yes, if you record the whole display or an area that includes it. A recording of a single app’s window leaves it out.

Does the pill use my app’s own names for shortcuts?

For a native Mac app, yes. Names come from the menus of the app in front, so the pill shows your menu titles.

Can I record the demo with a keyboard that matches my brand?

Yes. Pick one of the 40 themes or build your own in Theme Studio, and share it as a file with your team.