Guide · Windows 11 · Updated October 2026
Screen recording with zoom on clicks
A full-screen recording at 4K looks sharp on your monitor. On a phone, the button you clicked is a few pixels wide. Zooms fix that – if they are placed well. Here is how to do it by hand in any editor, and what an automatic zoom saves you.
Why zoom at all
Viewers watch on laptops and phones. A 3440 × 1440 or 4K screen shrunk to 1080p loses most of its detail, and text in menus becomes unreadable. A zoom shows only the part that matters, in full resolution. Record at your monitor’s native resolution, so there is detail left when you zoom in.
Setting zooms by hand
Mark the clicks
Play the recording and put a marker at every click and every stretch of typing. These are your zoom targets.
Limits: tedious for long recordings – this step is what automatic zoom removes.
Group them
Clicks close together in time and space belong to one zoom. Three clicks in the same dialog: one zoom, not three. Zooming in and out every second makes people seasick.
Limits: a judgement call; there is no fixed rule.
Pick the level
1.5× to 2.5× is enough for most screens. Go higher only for small details like a checkbox. The target area should still have some context around it.
Limits: too high and viewers lose track of where on the screen they are.
Time it
Start zooming in about half a second before the click, so the viewer is there when it happens. Hold while the action takes place. Zoom out before the cursor leaves for another area.
Limits: needs keyframes at the right frames; easy to be a few frames late.
Ease it
Use ease-in and ease-out on every move, about 0.4–0.8 s. A linear move feels mechanical. A hard cut is fine for a jump to a distant area.
Limits: not every editor offers easing curves for zoom.
Follow the cursor where it moves
If the action moves while zoomed – dragging, selecting text – pan along with the cursor instead of zooming out and in again.
Limits: by hand this means many keyframes.
Which tools zoom automatically
Camtasia has SmartFocus: it reads cursor and clicks from its own .trec recordings and adds zoom and pan; TechSmith says it is optimised for recordings longer than 30 seconds (TechSmith). Screen Studio zooms on clicks automatically, on macOS only (screen.studio). OBS Studio records without zooms; you set them later in an editor.
Where Glidewright comes in
Zooms from clicks and typing, ready to adjust
Glidewright turns every click and every stretch of typing into a zoom suggestion, merges quick click sequences into one zoom, and glides in and out smoothly. On the zoom track you change the level, the transition (smooth, quick, cut) and “Follow the cursor”, add zooms or delete them. “Recalculate” starts over.
It never records single keys – only that typing happened, and shortcuts with Ctrl, Alt or Win if you want them shown as an overlay.
15-day free trial, then €79 once. No subscription, all 1.x updates included.