Guide

How to clip non-Steam games on a Mac

By Dylan Buck ·

A silver laptop on a dark desk at night showing a blocky voxel cave lit by torches under a full moon, a small clip-saved notification with an orange checkmark at the top of the screen, a purple-lit controller and a warm desk lamp beside it.

Steam Game Recording is the free clipper most Mac players already have, and it's good at what it does. But it records games Steam launched, and plenty of what people play on a Mac never goes near Steam: World of Warcraft and Hearthstone through Battle.net, Minecraft Java, Epic Games Store titles, games bought on the Mac App Store, emulators, and cloud streams like GeForce NOW. Here's how to clip those, from the free routes up.

Disclosure: I make Hindsight, one of the tools below. Free options come first.

Why Steam can't see the rest of your library

Steam's recorder follows the game Steam started. It keeps its rolling buffer on disk and manages clips in the Steam overlay, which is why it needs no setup for a Steam game and does nothing for one that Steam didn't launch. That's a design choice rather than a bug, and it isn't something a setting will fix.

There is one workaround worth trying first. Steam lets you add a non-Steam game to your library (Games › Add a Non-Steam Game to My Library) and launch it from there. On Windows, reviewers such as How-To Geek report that Game Recording then records it. Valve doesn't document how well that holds on macOS, and it depends on Steam being able to attach to the game, so treat it as an experiment: add the game, launch it from Steam, and check whether the Steam overlay opens over it. If the overlay won't appear, Steam isn't attached and won't record it. Launchers make it messier, because Steam starts the launcher and the launcher starts the game.

Every one of these games is just a Mac window

The way round Steam's limit is to stop asking which store a game came from. On macOS, everything you play ends up drawing into a window, and anything that can capture a window can clip it:

Capturing that one window, rather than the whole display, also keeps the launcher, Discord and notifications out of the clip. The trade-off is in window vs display capture.

The free routes

  1. Shift-Command-5 or QuickTime. Built in and fine for any of these games, but they only record from the moment you press Record. They can't save the play you didn't know was coming. (Why: how to record the last 30 seconds on a Mac.)
  2. OBS with Replay Buffer. The free route that works after the fact. Add a macOS Screen Capture source, set Method to Window Capture and pick the game's window once it's running, not the launcher's. If the game rebuilds its window when you switch to fullscreen or restart it, use Application Capture instead, which follows the app rather than one window. Turn on Replay Buffer, give it a hotkey, and use the Apple VideoToolbox encoder so recording stays on the media engine rather than the CPU. Step by step: OBS Replay Buffer on a Mac.
  3. Steam's non-Steam shortcut. Free and worth a test for a game you launch directly. Less likely to help with games that go through their own launcher.

Hindsight, if you want it always on

Hindsight is the tool I build for this, and it doesn't care where a game came from. Pick the game in its menu-bar Sources list and it keeps a rolling buffer of that window in memory, 15 seconds to 5 minutes. Press ⌥⇧C, even in fullscreen, and an MP4 of what just happened is saved. When a game tears down its window (on launch, on a fullscreen toggle, after a crash), Hindsight waits for it to come back and resumes by itself, and for RPCS3 it moves from the game list to the game window once that opens.

“Captured app's audio only” keeps your voice chat out of the clip. More on that in recording game audio without Discord.

Hindsight is on the Mac App Store, needs macOS 14 or later and costs $19.99/year after a 14-day free trial. It holds one window at a time and doesn't stream. If you'd rather not pay, OBS covers everything above with more setup. The wider field is in the 2026 Mac clipper roundup.

A setup that holds up

  1. Start the game from its own launcher (Battle.net, Epic, the Minecraft launcher) and get all the way into the game.
  2. Pick one display mode and stick with it. Switching between fullscreen and windowed often creates a brand-new window.
  3. Choose the game's window as your source: OBS Window or Application Capture, or the game in Hindsight's Sources list.
  4. Check macOS has given your recorder Screen & System Audio Recording, and relaunch the recorder after granting it. See Mac screen recording permission.
  5. Save a test clip with sound and play it back before the session you care about.

New to clipping on a Mac? Start with how to clip gameplay on a Mac.

FAQ

Does Steam Game Recording record non-Steam games on a Mac?

Not on its own. It records games Steam launched. You can add a non-Steam game to your Steam library and launch it from there, but Valve doesn't document how reliably that records on macOS, so test it. If the Steam overlay won't open over the game, Steam won't record it.

How do I clip Battle.net games like World of Warcraft on a Mac?

Capture the game's own window, not the Battle.net app. In OBS, use a macOS Screen Capture source set to Window Capture with Replay Buffer turned on, or pick the game in a rolling-buffer app such as Hindsight.

Can I clip Minecraft on a Mac?

Yes. Minecraft Java opens in its own window after the launcher, so pick that window once the game is running. OBS Replay Buffer is the free way to save clips after the fact.

Can I clip GeForce NOW or Xbox Cloud Gaming on a Mac?

The stream is a window, so window capture can see it. If the capture is black, the browser may be protecting the video. Try the service's own app or another browser, and save a test clip first.

Do I need to pay to clip non-Steam games on a Mac?

No. OBS with Replay Buffer is free and works with any game window. A paid app such as Hindsight saves the setup and keeps a buffer running from the menu bar.