How to Record Your iPad Screen to Your Mac for Free

Capture game footage and add voice-overs in a few steps

By
Daniel Nations
Daniel Nations
Daniel Nations
Writer
  • University of Texas at Arlington
Daniel Nations has been a tech journalist since 1994. His work has appeared in Computer Currents, The Examiner, and other publications. He is a developer who has published apps in the Apple App Store, Google Play marketplace and Amazon Appstore; he also has worked as a data analyst and DB administrator.
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Updated on May 6, 2022

What to Know

  • Connect the iPad to the Mac. On the Mac, open the QuickTime Player app.
  • Select File > New Movie Recording. Open the drop-down menu next to the Record button
  • Choose your iPad's name and set your microphone preferences. Select Record.

This article explains how to record your iPad screen on your Mac using the free QuickTime Player app included on the Mac. This information applies to Macs with macOS Yosemite or later. It also includes information on low-cost methods for using Windows to record an iPad screen.

How to Capture iPad Footage on a Mac

Screencasting is a great way to create presentations, enhance classroom lessons, make how-to video guides, or review apps and games on YouTube. If you have a Mac, you don't need expensive software to get started.

The Mac already has all the tools you need to capture the iPad screen and record a video of it. You can use the sound coming from the iPad for the finished recording, which is useful if you plan to record a voice-over later. You can also skip that and record yourself live using your Mac's internal microphone.

  1. Connect the iPad to the Mac computer. Use the connector that came with the tablet.

  2. On the Mac, launch QuickTime Player. If it's not in the Dock, find it in the Applications folder or search for it in Launchpad.

    Record iPad to Mac

  3. Select File and choose New Movie Recording.

    How to record iPad to Mac

  4. Select the drop-down icon to the right of the red Record button.

    How to record iPad to Mac

  5. Select the name of your iPad.

    How to record iPad to Mac

  6. Choose a microphone. Select Internal Microphone to add a voice-over as you record. Select iPad to record all sounds and video.

    If an external microphone is connected to the Mac, you'll see a Line In option.

    How to record iPad to Mac

  7. Select Record.

    You can record your iPad in both Landscape and Portrait mode.

    How to record iPad to Mac

  8. Select Record to stop the recording.

Use Windows to Record an iPad's Screen

Windows doesn't offer a simple option to capture the iPad screen for free. However, a few choices exist that don't cost much money.

To record the video, you need to get your iPad's screen onto your Windows PC. You can accomplish this by using AirPlay. Two services that use AirPlay are Reflector and AirServer. They include a free trial period, so you can find out how well they work.

AirPlay Server and Reflector include the ability to record the video received from AirPlay, so you won't need any additional software to capture the video.

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