Flowtake is a screen recording and editing tool designed for developers to create polished product demos and technical walkthroughs. It combines local screen capture with timeline-based video editing, enabling users to produce high-quality recordings directly on their desktop.
Key Features:
Local Screen Recording: Capture full displays, individual windows, or custom regions with optional camera and microphone input.
Timeline Controls: Edit clips, adjust zoom levels, and style cursor effects for a polished presentation.
Automatic Zoom: Generate motion from cursor activity to create dynamic video without manual adjustments.
Cursor Effects: Add click animations and customize cursor appearance for clear visual feedback.
MP4 Export: Render edited videos as AVC/H.264 MP4 files for distribution.
Target Audience and Benefits:
Ideal for developers, technical teams, and content creators who need to demonstrate software features or workflows. Flowtake streamlines the process of creating professional-grade demos by combining recording and editing in one tool. It is available via Winget on Windows, allowing users to deploy it using the winget command line, making integration into existing development environments seamless.
README
Record locally. Turn the capture into a polished product demo.
Flowtake is a free, MIT-licensed desktop screen recorder and editor with automatic zoom and pan, cursor effects, a timeline, and local MP4 export.
Start recording and use the compact recorder controls to pause or stop.
Open the saved project from Library, adjust the timeline and effects, then choose Export to render an MP4.
Your OS may ask for screen-recording, camera, or microphone permission on first use. Current platform-signing limitations can also produce a Windows SmartScreen or macOS Gatekeeper warning; see the status note below before proceeding.
The WinGet package installs the same unsigned MSI published on the official release page, so the signing boundary below still applies.
> Platform signing: the current Windows artifacts are not Authenticode-signed. The macOS artifacts are ad-hoc signed, not signed with an Apple Developer ID, and not notarized. SmartScreen or Gatekeeper may warn. Download Flowtake only from this repository's release page, and do not bypass a warning for a copy obtained elsewhere.
Product highlights
Capture
Full display, selected window, and custom-area recording
Optional camera and microphone capture
System-audio selection where the operating system exposes a compatible source
Multi-monitor selection and recording quality controls
Experimental separate app-layer capture for technical workflows
Edit
Automatic cursor-driven zoom and pan
Timeline controls for clips, zooms, cursor styling, click effects, and drawn cursor paths
Masks and blur for redaction
Backgrounds, image/shape overlays, audio tracks, and subtitles
Camera layout and background-blur controls
Local project library with save and reopen support
Export
Local AVC/H.264 MP4 rendering through Mediabunny
Resolution, 30/60 fps, and output-quality controls
Video-only edited export in v1.6.0; microphone, system, and timeline audio are not muxed into the final MP4
Privacy and open-source boundary
Recordings, project files, and ordinary exports are stored locally. Flowtake does not include cloud project sync.
The current Tauri build has Sentry disabled and no active product-analytics integration.
Flowtake can make network requests for GitHub release checks. Explicit network features include YouTube upload and RTMP live streaming; some camera effects fetch model assets when used.
Choosing a network feature sends data to the service you configure. Review that service's terms before connecting an account or stream destination.
The desktop recorder/editor in this repository remains MIT licensed. Optional services do not revoke or paywall the existing open-source functionality.
For vulnerability reporting, follow the private process in SECURITY.md.
Optional: Release Studio
Teams that want human-assisted production for a technical launch can visit Flowtake Release Studio. It is a separate, optional service; Flowtake's desktop recorder and editor remain the primary open-source product.
Maintainers planning their own release can use the free six-beat developer-tool demo storyboard template before recording. The guide includes a copyable brief, safe-capture exclusions, and a clearly labelled Flowtake v1.6.0 pre-production example.
Through July 23, 2026, Flowtake will publicly reply with a no-obligation six-beat storyboard to up to the first three maintainers who share a complete, publicly documented developer-tool workflow. No separate Flowtake signup, footage, or payment is required.
A target-named FFmpeg sidecar in src-tauri/binaries/
Run locally
git clone https://github.com/JNX03/Flowtake.git
cd Flowtake
npm ci
Release artifacts bundle FFmpeg. For local native development, prepare the sidecar when it is absent:
# Windows
powershell -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File scripts/download-ffmpeg.ps1
# macOS or Linux
bash scripts/download-ffmpeg.sh
On macOS, build the native ScreenCaptureKit helper as well:
npm run test:macos-capture
npm run build:macos-capture
Then start the native app and frontend:
npm run dev
Useful checks:
npm test
npm run lint
npm run build:frontend
cargo check --manifest-path src-tauri/Cargo.toml --locked
Architecture
Flowtake combines a Tauri v2 Rust backend with a React 19 interface. Redux Toolkit manages editor state, PixiJS composites preview and export frames, Mediabunny encodes and muxes the edited AVC MP4, and Rust copies the completed output.mp4 into the local export folder. On macOS 12.3+, a Swift ScreenCaptureKit helper writes fixed-cadence H.264 through the native media stack and cleanly falls back to FFmpeg/AVFoundation when unavailable. The editor bounds Retina preview textures while exports retain source resolution. FFmpeg remains bundled for compatibility capture and native media utilities.
The native app uses separate windows for the launcher/editor, recorder controls, exporter, source pickers, and annotations. Start with the architecture docs or the development guide for a deeper tour.
The most useful reports include the operating system, Flowtake version, capture source, exact reproduction steps, and relevant logs. Linux reports should also say whether the session is X11, XWayland, or pure Wayland.
