Product Changelog

Bug Fixes

• Clicking the time ruler above the timeline now moves the playhead there. Hovering along the ruler already showed the time under the pointer in grey, but a click did nothing, so the only ways to reach a particular frame were to play up to it or step there with the arrow keys
• Stepping with the arrow keys now moves the red playhead line along with the frame. The preview and the time readout used to advance while the line stayed where it was, so the timeline and the picture disagreed about where you were. The same held for the Go to End button and for clicking a sentence in the transcript, which also moved the picture but not the line
• Arrow-key steps now start from the playhead rather than from the frame a hover happens to be previewing, so pointing at the timeline while stepping no longer sends the step somewhere unexpected

New Features

• A device can now stand inside another device, in the same project. The Nest button over the preview wraps your whole composition — recording, device frame, background and all — onto the screen of a second device, and you can keep going: a screen recording on a MacBook, that MacBook on the screen of a Studio Display, that whole display on an Apple Watch face. Each device you wrap around the shot sits perfectly still framing the picture until you give it a camera move of its own, so a nest only reveals itself when you want it to, and the Nest menu picks which device your next camera shot belongs to. Every layer has its own environment, ground shadow, reflection and padding in the new Nested tab. This used to mean exporting, re-importing and zooming; now it is one project, and a nested shot sitting at rest is exactly as sharp as an unnested one
• A camera move you shaped by hand can be saved and reused. Right-click a camera block, press + in the Motion panel header, or run Save Camera Moves as Motion Template from the command palette, and the move joins a Saved shelf at the top of the Motion panel — ready to drop onto any later project like the curated ones, with each shot’s easing, timing and focus point intact. You have to pick a whole move: a continuous run of shots, or the entire track with ⌘A. Pauses you left between shots are part of what gets saved, so the move replays with its original rhythm
• A saved camera move can now be shared with other people. Right-click a card in the Motion panel to publish it to the SmoothCapture templates gallery, where anyone can open it straight into their own editor with one click, or export it as a file to hand over directly — and drop a file onto the panel, or double-click it in Finder, to add someone else’s move to your shelf. A shared move brings the whole shot, not just the camera path: the 3D device it plays on, every device nested around it with its own camera moves and framing, and the background, environment, shadow and reflection settings each level sits in — so an imported template arrives looking the way its author left it, and you can still choose to take the camera moves alone and keep your own set. Nothing from your recording travels with it: no video, no audio, no screen content
• A new project no longer opens on an empty editor. It starts on a placeholder shot, ten seconds long, already wearing a 3D device frame with a camera sweep and zooms on it, on a landscape stage with room around the device — so every control is live from the first second and you can feel what a setting does before you have footage. Drop in a recording or an image and it takes the placeholder’s place instead of landing after it
• Recording a connected iPhone or iPad now lets you choose which microphone and which camera go into the take. The mic and camera buttons in the device panel have a menu beside them listing everything attached, so a second interface or an external webcam is a click away instead of whatever macOS picked for you

Improvements

• A new Light Bars lighting environment for 3D device frames. It is a blacked-out room ringed with studio tubes, so the hardware picks up long bright streaks down its edges the way it does in a product film, against a backdrop that stays almost black. The lights are placed clear of the camera, which means a device sitting square to you keeps a clean, readable screen with nothing reflected across it — the streaks arrive as you tilt or orbit the device, and sweep across the chassis as it turns
• The editor now steps out of the way when you open the recorder. It used to stay behind the recording bar filling the whole screen, so anything you meant to capture — a browser window, a document, the desktop — was buried under it, and drawing a capture region meant drawing it over your own project. Opening the recorder hides the editor, choosing an area or a window now happens over the real thing, and closing the recorder brings your project straight back exactly as you left it
• The editor’s toolbar now looks and behaves like the rest of macOS. Undo, redo, the command palette and the preview switch are standard toolbar buttons that highlight, dim when unavailable and stay in step with your appearance and accent colour instead of being drawn by hand, the preview switch stays lit while preview is on, and the presets menu ticks the preset you are using. Record is the one button that stands out; Open Project, Import and Export sit alongside it without competing for attention, and the project name at the top left highlights as a proper button when you point at it
• A 3D device frame is now shot through one camera from beginning to end. There used to be two: the camera your camera moves ran on, and a separate resting look with its own tilt, perspective and scale — so the perspective visibly compressed every time a move ended and the shot handed back to the resting one, most obvious on a laptop. There is now a single camera, resting at the same framing every shot starts from, and moves begin and end without the picture changing character. Projects made with the old resting controls are converted when you open them: their look carries over, but a 3D frame may be framed a little differently than you left it
• The Camera Shot panel is one plain list of everything the shot stores. Every number the camera has — where it aims, how far it stands back, its lens, its framing, a laptop’s lid, and the whole of its timing — is a labelled row you drag straight across, with a dot marking anything you’ve moved off its default and a double-click on the label putting it back. The preview is where you judge the shot, so the panel no longer repeats it with a viewfinder and preset tiles
• Camera shot easing is down to five curves that actually look different: Smooth, Quick, Constant, Glide and Cut. The menu used to offer nine, most of them within a hair of each other, and a shot would quietly ignore your pick when it was running into another shot — the panel now tells you which curve is running and, when the chain overrides it, why. The block on the timeline draws the curve the camera really follows instead of a generic wedge. Older projects keep the curve they were made with, marked “(Legacy)”
• Turn, Tilt and Roll now go a full circle in both directions. Tilt used to stop just short of overhead, so the camera could never pass over the top of a device or come up underneath it, and a full spin had to be faked; every axis now runs to 360° each way, in the panel and when you drag the preview
• Scroll, pinch and middle-drag over a 3D device frame now move the camera you already have. They used to create a zoom block that fought the camera move underneath it — the shot under the playhead now takes the gesture whether or not its block is selected, and selects it so the timeline shows what you are reshaping. On flat device frames the same gestures still make and adjust zooms
• The screen now lights the shot. A device’s display is a real light source: it throws its own colour onto the body around it, onto the desk it stands on, and into the reflections on its chassis, with the device’s own body blocking the light where it should. Displays are also brighter by default and the Emission slider reaches much further, so a phone in a dark room can read as the only thing lighting the scene
• A closed laptop now shades itself. With the lid down, the keyboard and trackpad fall into the lid’s shadow instead of keeping their open-sky sheen, and the display stops reflecting a room it is folded face-down against — so a lid-closing camera move ends on hardware that looks shut rather than merely folded
• Recording is now reachable from wherever you left it. Pressing Esc, ⌘W or the close button while recording stops the take and opens it, instead of hiding the only stop button and leaving the recording running out of sight; quitting mid-recording finishes writing the file first; and a capture that fails on its own ends the take rather than leaving the timer running. A finished take goes into the project you are looking at, whichever control started it — menu bar, phone panel, shortcut or palette — and opens as a new project when there is nothing but a placeholder to add to. Recording straight after launch now works from the menu bar, the global shortcuts and the Dock, which all used to do nothing until you had opened the recorder once by hand. An iPhone or iPad casting over AirPlay is named after the device instead of your Mac and gets the same device-shaped preview a cabled one does, an interrupted AirPlay or simulator recording can be recovered on the next launch, a capture picker left open is dismissed before recording starts, the camera preview no longer lingers as an empty window afterwards, and the low disk space warning no longer covers the stop button
• The empty editor now says what to do next: Record and Import buttons sit in the middle of the drop area, with the drag-and-drop and paste hints below them
• The editor keeps up with you. Playback holds 60fps and costs about half the CPU it did, dragging any slider in the inspector no longer stutters the preview or lets the value lag behind your pointer, Recent Projects opens immediately even against a folder holding hundreds of projects, 3D frames render faster on wide shots that show the desk, and starting and stopping a recording both happen noticeably sooner after the click
• Anonymous usage statistics and crash reports are now shared by default, so problems get fixed without waiting for someone to report them. Settings → General turns it off at any time

Bug Fixes

• A zoom that follows the cursor now moves toward its target from the start. It used to hold dead centre for the first part of the zoom and only then slide across, which read as a centred zoom that changed its mind halfway
• Opening a project with a 3D environment background right after another project no longer saves it with the environment switched off and a flat background in its place
• Recording an iPhone over USB no longer stops a few seconds in, leaving a truncated clip and an error when you press stop. If the recording ever does fail, the part that was captured is kept and added to your project instead of being thrown away
• Connecting an AirPlay device while the recorder is open no longer quits the app
• The recorder now opens at the bottom centre of the screen instead of appearing mid-screen and sliding off the bottom-right corner, and it stays where you put it after you move it
• A laptop closing its lid stays in focus. The blur used to keep focusing on where the open screen had been, so the desk behind the laptop came out sharp and the laptop itself came out soft

Improvements

• Every device frame is now available for every recording. The picker used to hide any frame whose shape didn’t match your footage — a screen recording could only ever wear a laptop — so the phones, the iPad, the Studio Display and the Apple Watch simply weren’t there. They all are now, and a recording that doesn’t match the device it’s wearing is fit inside that device’s screen and centred, with the rest of the display sitting dark like an unlit panel. Nothing is ever squashed to fill a shape it doesn’t have, and a device that doesn’t match your footage is now a look you can reach for on purpose — a desktop demo on a watch face, a phone recording standing in the middle of a MacBook
• Flat device frames now sit on their own screen exactly. Each bezel’s display is measured from the artwork itself, so the recording lands on the glass instead of on a rough guess at where it is: video no longer spills past the rounded corners of a phone or reaches out over the edge of a laptop lid, and the device is framed by how much of the shot its screen fills rather than how much of it your footage happens to cover
• The timeline now shows only the tracks you are actually using. A fresh recording opens as your clip, your audio, and zoom — effects, annotations and webcam layouts stay out of the way until you reach for them, and a track that your project cannot use yet no longer takes up a row. Tracks you do use are never hidden: anything holding a block is always on screen, so nothing you made can be tucked away by accident. Because there are fewer rows, the ones that remain are taller and easier to grab
• A new + button at the top left of the timeline adds a track. Pick one and it appears with its first block already placed at the playhead and its settings open, so adding a camera move or an annotation is a single click instead of hunting for an empty row to hover. Tracks you cannot use yet are still listed with the reason — Camera Layout tells you it needs a webcam recording — so the timeline shows you what it can do rather than hiding it. An empty track carries the same + beside its name, and Add Zoom, Add Camera Move, Add Effect, Add Annotation and Add Camera Layout are all in the command palette
• 3D device frames now pick their own lens. Every device used to be shot through the same wide-angle camera, which suited a flat panel like a Studio Display but bent a laptop out of shape — the keyboard ballooned toward you and the front edge of the deck was pushed so far forward it got cut off entirely. Each model is now framed with the lens its shape calls for: a display or a phone renders clean and flat, while a laptop keeps just enough depth to read as a solid object rather than a sticker. Projects that already use a 3D frame will look different — and more like the real hardware — next time you open or export them
• Putting a 3D device frame on your recording brings the Camera Move track with it. Camera moves are the one thing only a 3D frame can do, so the track now arrives with the device instead of waiting behind a menu you’d have to know to open — right-click a track’s name and choose Hide to close it again, which works on any empty track, not just this one
• Imported music and voice-over tracks can no longer be hidden while they still hold clips
• A camera motion preset now plays out the way its preview showed it. Picking one used to hand you a noticeably different move: the camera crawled through the opening beat instead of sweeping in, hesitated at the very waypoint the move was meant to glide through, and drifted part of the way back toward its resting framing in the middle of the landing. Presets now arc in from the resting camera and carry one continuous speed all the way to their final frame — and the little preview animations play the real move, so what you hover is what you get. Runs of camera shots you build by hand pick up the same smoother entry
• Camera moves on 3D device frames now move like a camera. A shot eases away from where it was, gathers speed, and settles into its new angle — instead of covering most of the distance in the first instant and drifting the rest of the way in. The difference is clearest on anything you watch as a solid object: a laptop lid swinging shut now coasts to a stop rather than stopping dead a frame early, and a spinning device no longer lurches as it starts. Existing camera moves pick up the new timing; the old snap is still there as the Spring arrival if you want it back
• A camera move is now one shot you pose in its panel, instead of a block carrying a row of keyframes. You build a longer move by placing shots side by side and letting them run together, which is how the presets and the motion templates already worked — so there is one way to choreograph a move rather than two. The lane of keyframe diamonds that used to open under a block is gone with it. A move from an older project that still holds several poses plays back exactly as it always did; right-click it and choose Split into Shots to spread it across blocks you can pose one at a time
• Camera shots placed back to back now flow through one another as a single move. A shot only comes to a stop when you leave it a real pause — long enough to read as a beat against the move that got there. Short leftovers used to park the camera for a few frames and read as a stutter; they now glide straight into the next shot
• Pushing in and pulling out is evenly paced. Entering or leaving a shot used to cover its distance unevenly — hanging back and then rushing the last stretch — and changing the lens made the framing lurch on top of it. Range and lens now move together at a steady rate, so the device grows and shrinks smoothly all the way through, and the camera swings around the device on an arc instead of cutting a line through it
• Swinging the camera from one side of a device to the other takes the short way round. A shot facing one edge handing over to a shot facing the other used to travel almost all the way around the device to get there
• A camera shot taking over from a zoom now keeps the picture centred. The magnification and the recentring used to come apart during the handover and let the device slide off to one side before settling

Bug Fixes

• Switching device frames no longer flashes your recording on its own. Picking a different phone or laptop used to drop the device out of the picture for up to half a second — the bare recording sitting there at full size — before the new frame snapped in around it. The device you already have now stays put until the new one is completely ready, then they change over in a single beat, with the recording landing on the new screen at the same moment as the frame it belongs to. Hovering a device in the picker gets it ready ahead of your click, so the change is usually instant

New Features

• Freeze frame: right-click a clip and choose Freeze Frame at Current Time to hold the exact picture under the playhead. The clip splits at the playhead and a three-second still slides in — stretch it to any length with the trim grip — while everything after it moves later, keeping zooms, camera moves, and audio lined up with the footage they belong to. The frozen clip inherits the look of the clip it came from, so the picture doesn’t jump at the cut, and a single undo removes the whole thing

Improvements

• Motion blur on 3D device frames is now true motion blur. During a fast camera move every part of the device — body, screen, reflection — streaks along the path it actually travels, so a spin reads as a spin: the edges sweep, the point the camera pivots around stays readable, and the blur melts cleanly into the background instead of leaving a crisp outline showing through it. Fast moves no longer lose their blur exactly when they are fastest, and the smeared look that dragged the whole device sideways in one direction is gone
• Clips no longer fade into each other by default — every cut is a clean hard cut until you say otherwise. Pick Fade or Auto in the clip panel to bring the dissolve back for any clip
• Transparent exports now pick the right codec for your Mac automatically: ProRes 4444 where its encoder exists, HEVC with Alpha otherwise — so turning on Transparent background always produces a working alpha MOV instead of depending on ProRes support. The export sheet shows which codec you’ll get before you export, and the command line’s --transparent flag does the same detection on its own

Bug Fixes

• Still clips — imported images, screenshots, and the new freeze frames — no longer play back slightly brighter than the picture they came from. A freeze frame is now indistinguishable from the paused video around it
• On Intel Macs, exported videos no longer come out covered in streaks of garbage pixels that trail the mouse — MP4, MOV, and GIF exports all showed them (GIFs with a green tint) while the preview looked fine. Exports on these machines are now pixel-clean in every format

New Features

• Posing a 3D camera move is now a joystick, not a row of sliders. Drag the pad at the top of the Camera Move panel and the device pitches and turns under your pointer, snapping onto the classic angles — front, left, right, up, down and the low hero shots — with everything in between reachable too. The ring around the pad rolls the shot: swing it for a dutch angle, double-click it to level back out, and double-click the pad to face front. On a trackpad you feel a light tick every few degrees and a firmer click on the poses that hold

• Camera moves can roll. On top of tilting up, down, and sideways, a 3D camera move can now turn the whole shot around — drag the new Roll slider for a precise angle, swing the ring around the pose pad, or hold Option while dragging the preview to set it by eye. The timeline block names a roll move for what it is instead of calling it “Flat”

• Zooms have a new Cinematic mode: instead of zooming in and holding, the shot pushes in slowly for the entire length of the block. Give the zoom a second focus point and it glides from one to the other while it pushes, landing exactly as the block ends — stretch or shrink the block and the whole move retimes itself

• 3D iPhone frames can stand on a mirror: a new Mirror Reflection toggle in the Background tab reflects the phone in the floor beneath it, with a strength slider that runs from a faint sheen to a full mirror. The reflection follows every tilt, turn, and roll of a camera move, and the reflected screen shows a true mirror image of your recording

• The timeline now snaps into place. Drag or trim anything and it clicks onto the playhead, the cut between clips, and the edges of blocks on every other track, with a guide line showing what it lined up with — so a zoom starts exactly where a clip starts instead of a few pixels off. The scissors tool snaps too, so a split lands exactly on a cut rather than a frame beside it, while the playhead itself still follows your pointer freely. It is on by default; the magnet button next to the scissors (or the N key) turns it off, and holding Command while you drag bypasses it for one move

• Three new studio lighting environments — Softbox Duo, Three Point, and LED Panel — in the Background tab’s 3D environment grid, for cleaner product-shot lighting on a device frame than the room HDRIs give you

Improvements

• Zooms and camera moves are now paced by a single Motion control: pick Smooth or Cinematic, tap a speed preset — including a new Instant — or set the ease-in and ease-out durations independently, so a move can snap in and still glide out gently. Hard cut is no longer a separate mode: set either end to zero and just that edge cuts. Older projects carry over and play exactly as before
• Resizing blocks on the timeline works the way you’d expect from a real editor: select a block and it grows a pair of white grips just outside its edges, so even a short block stays readable while you trim it. Unselected blocks have no invisible resize zones to grab by accident, the grips are exactly as easy to hit as they look, and a selected block lifts above its neighbors so its grips stay reachable when blocks touch
• Music and other audio clips you add to the timeline now draw their waveform inside the block, at the level the clip actually plays, instead of showing a plain labelled bar
• A zoom’s glide to its second focus point now always arrives exactly at the end of the block — resize the block and the glide retimes itself, with no separate duration slider to keep in sync
• Exporting now uses far less memory — about a third less on a 4K export — so a big export leaves room for whatever else you have open, and the video that comes out is pixel for pixel the same

Bug Fixes

• A camera move with a lot of roll keeps the device in the frame: a quarter turn used to swing it off the edge of the shot and a half turn used to take it out of view entirely
• A full 360° turn now reads as a spin on its timeline block instead of “Flat 360”
• The mute buttons and level sliders on the left of the timeline line up with their tracks again, instead of sitting a row above the lane they control
• A long camera-move ease no longer ends with a tiny visible hop: a big spin used to jump the last fraction of a degree on its final frame, and every ramp now lands exactly on its target

New Features

• Choose how each clip starts: a new Transition control in the clip panel lets you pick Fade or Cut for any clip, or leave it on Auto, which fades in from a different recording and hard cuts within the same one
• Five new text slide animations — Word Drop, Pop, Blur In, Wipe, and Cascade — on top of the existing set, and the animation picker now lays them out in a grid instead of a cramped row
• Highlighter for text slides: wrap a word in double equals (==90%==) and a marker stroke sweeps across it once the text finishes revealing, in whatever colour you pick
• Hide the Dock icon, the menu bar icon, or both from Settings → General, so SmoothCapture stays out of the way while you record

Improvements

• Projects open much faster, especially bigger ones with several clips and audio tracks — the wait between picking a project and being able to edit it is a fraction of what it was
• The editor now opens at full size straight away instead of appearing small and then snapping wide, so there is no flash of a half-drawn timeline while your project loads
• The editor stays responsive while a project is opening: audio waveforms and the project preview image are prepared in the background instead of freezing the window
• 3D device frames have noticeably cleaner edges: the outline of a laptop lid or phone body is smooth instead of stepped, chamfers stop sparkling as the camera moves, and small printed details like keycap legends and speaker grilles no longer look ragged. Your recorded screen stays exactly as sharp as before
• Depth of field no longer leaves a dark fringe around the device. With a blurred studio background the outline used to pick up a gritty dark outline that made the whole device look rough — the background blur is now rendered at full detail, so the device sits cleanly against it
• 3D device models pick up realistic contact shading: light thins out naturally in seams, port cavities, speaker grilles, and under the camera bump, so a device reads as a solid object instead of a flat shell — without dulling the brightness of polished aluminium
• 2D device frames now cast a soft shadow onto the background, grounding them the way 3D frames already were
• Opening a video now gives you the ready-made showcase — 3D device frame, camera sweep, and zoom intro — for phone and tablet footage too, not just laptop-shaped recordings

Bug Fixes

• The Dynamic Island on a 3D iPhone frame now lines up with the one in your recording, whichever iPhone you recorded on, instead of leaving a doubled or offset cutout
• Music and other audio you place on the timeline stays exactly where you put it when you trim, delete, split, or change the speed of a video clip. Audio that runs past the end of the video keeps its full length and comes back if the video grows again, instead of being silently shortened
• A clip added to the timeline now lands at the position you dropped it, instead of jumping to the front

New Features

• Text slides: add polished, animated text directly to your videos with multiline support, zoomable layouts, letter-shaped glow, and GPU-accelerated rendering
• Animated shader backgrounds with live customization, including the new God Rays style
• Optional wooden tables for 3D device scenes, making product screenshots feel more grounded and cinematic

Improvements

• A redesigned onboarding flow guides you through permissions with clearer steps and a more polished presentation
• Font picking for text slides now supports search and live hover previews
• Effect blocks flow smoothly into adjacent blocks, and effects stay attached when clips are trimmed, merged, reordered, or reset
• Undo now works reliably across every timeline track

Bug Fixes

• Fixed cursor-follow zooms cropping screen content or sending 3D device frames off-screen
• Fixed click ripples rendering as ellipses on 3D device frames
• Fixed blurry 3D device screens in projects built from multiple takes
• Recording permissions no longer appear just from opening the recorder

SmoothCapture now edits audio right on the timeline. Your microphone and system sound each get their own lane, and you can raise, lower, fade, or silence any part of the recording without leaving the editor.

New Features

• Audio lanes on the timeline: microphone and system audio now appear as their own tracks with live waveforms, so you can see every sound and edit it in place
• Volume regions: draw a block anywhere on an audio track to duck, boost, or silence that stretch. Set its level, add a smooth fade in and fade out, and pick the fade shape. Drag on a lane to create one, click to jump to it, or fine-tune it in the right-side panel. The same keyboard shortcuts you use on other blocks work here too
• Track rail with mute and faders: a fixed rail on the left of the timeline lets you mute the mic or system audio with one tap, set a level for each track, and set an overall master level
• Everything you change plays back exactly the same in preview and in the final export
• Audio tracks with no sound on any clip stay hidden, so the timeline only shows what you can actually edit

Improvements

• Volume-region fades now default to a gentle ramp (0.25s to 1.0s), so audio eases in and out instead of cutting abruptly
• Tilting a 3D MacBook now pivots at the lid hinge, the way a real laptop opens, instead of spinning around its middle
• Paste a video straight from the clipboard, and drop video files anywhere you could already drop an image
• Smoother, lighter timeline when scrubbing and editing longer projects

Bug Fixes

• Zooming into a 3D MacBook now stays smooth and centered instead of snapping
• 3D device-frame zooms now match the no-frame screen size and stay sharp when you zoom in
• Scrubbing zooms on a 3D device frame no longer keeps using more and more memory

New Features

• Opening a screenshot or image now starts you with a ready-made showcase instead of a bare frame: phone screenshots appear inside a 3D iPhone (wide images get a 3D MacBook) with a gentle left-then-right camera sweep, zooms gliding over the top, bottom, and center of the screen, and a subtle 7% screen reflection. Every block is a normal timeline effect you can retime, tweak, or delete
• Adding a phone screenshot to an existing project automatically places it in a 3D iPhone frame
• New device frame picker: browse frames as thumbnails, pick a color from swatches, and switch with one tap
• True depth of field for 3D device frames: the scene now blurs like a real camera lens. The screen stays tack-sharp while the keyboard softens slightly in front of it and the room behind falls out of focus, and the blur re-focuses naturally as the camera zooms in or swings around the device. Pick the focus yourself with the new Focus tool in a camera move: press “Pick focus point” and click anywhere on the preview — click the keyboard and focus pulls forward, softening the screen like a cinematic rack focus
• Motion blur: fast zooms, camera moves, cursor flicks, webcam layout changes, and 3D device rotations now leave a cinematic blur trail instead of stepping frame to frame. One switch in the Motion panel turns it on (it costs extra rendering work), with separate strength sliders for cursor, screen, webcam, and 3D device. A resting scene stays pixel-sharp, and preview and export always match
• Webcam background removal: cut yourself out of your webcam clip entirely, blur the room behind you, or swap it for a solid color — all processed on your Mac with a small built-in AI model (nothing to download), so preview and export always match

Improvements

• Cleaner right-side panels: every config tab now leads with live sliders and one-tap presets, with the finer controls tucked into an Advanced section you can expand when you need them
• Exporting is faster
• 3D device frames now fill the same screen area as no-frame clips and stay sharp when you zoom in, with a better default zoom level and no snap at the end of a device zoom

Bug Fixes

• The webcam overlay no longer disappears from preview and export after reopening a saved project
• A 3D camera move no longer silently does nothing when the clip uses a flat 2D device frame

SmoothCapture can now be driven entirely from the terminal — by your scripts, or by AI coding agents like Claude Code. The demo below was produced end to end by an agent: it drove Apple Maps in the iOS Simulator, recorded the screen, wrapped it in a 3D iPhone with cinematic camera moves and zoom-ins, added background music, and exported the finished video — without a single click in the app.

New Features

• Command-line control: scripts and AI agents can record the screen, generate smart zooms, apply editor presets, and export a finished video without opening the app. Off by default; enable it in Settings → General → “Command-line control”
• Terminal screenshots with the full editor treatment — backgrounds, padding, rounded corners, shadows, borders, and 2D bezels or full 3D device frames with HDR environments, rendered through the same pipeline as video exports so they match pixel-for-pixel
• Edit any video file: open MP4, MOV, or M4V footage from Finder, the Dock, or the Open Project panel — or project import from the CLI — and style it with backgrounds, device frames, zooms, and export presets, even if SmoothCapture didn’t record it
• New backgrounds, device-frames, and environments commands list every bundled look for screenshots and project edits
• A ready-made Claude Code skill teaches AI agents the full record → smart zoom → style → export workflow out of the box
• Multi-clip projects: start from an empty project, then add more clips or new recordings to it at any time
• Drag clips to reorder them on the timeline, with a single undo step to put everything back
• Per-clip audio mix: mute, volume, and delay for each clip — and microphone, system audio, and cursor settings can now be set per clip too
• Hard cut toggle on every effect block (zoom, camera move, camera layout, lens, annotation): switch it on to make the block snap instantly at its edges instead of easing in and out
• Stretch a screenshot clip to any length by dragging its right handle, and reset a clip’s edits in one click from its right-click menu

One command took this screenshot of the same Simulator session — cropped to the phone screen, wrapped in a 3D iPhone 17 Pro with an HDR environment:

smoothcapture cli screenshot --window 6866 \
  --crop 0.0517,0.0701,0.8967,0.9129 \
  --device-frame "3D/iPhone_17_Pro_Blue.usdc" \
  --environment glasshouse_interior_2k.hdr \
  --aspect 16:9 --output hero.png

Prefer a flat look? The same shot with a 2D bezel on a bundled gradient:

Improvements

• Smooth scene cross-fade between clips that use different device frames, and scrubbing across a transition now shows the true cross-fade
• iPhone 3D device frames load about 5x faster, with better lighting on 3D device models
• Chained camera moves now flow into each other smoothly instead of re-spinning
• Annotations fade in and out smoothly by default instead of popping on screen (redactions still appear instantly so hidden content is never revealed)
• The touch cursor is now a clean white translucent circle
• Headless exports now wait for 3D device models to finish loading, so command-line exports with 3D frames render correctly from the first frame
• Recording an iOS Simulator window automatically crops to the phone screen, switches to a touch-style cursor, and applies an iPhone device frame

Bug Fixes

• Device frame, crop, cursor, and audio edits can no longer get lost between clips, saves, and reloads
• Device frames now stay inside the screen area on every clip
• Full-length effects no longer shrink to the first clip when you change a segment’s speed
• The camera now glides smoothly when a manually framed zoom is followed by an auto cursor-follow zoom, instead of jumping at the boundary

New Features

• Added 0.5x and 0.75x video speed presets for slower playback effects
• Added fade-to-next-frame clip transitions for smoother cuts between video segments
• Added 3D environment orb controls for more flexible scene lighting and reflections

Improvements

• Timeline scrubbing and context menus are more responsive during editing
• Preview zoom gestures now keep composition adjustments more predictable
• Background settings are shared across the whole project for more consistent multi-take editing
• Area recording overlays and recording target selection now respond more reliably on the first click

Bug Fixes

• Fixed microphone, webcam, and screen recording sync issues
• Fixed iPhone recording audio drift and improved recovery after iOS recording interruptions
• Fixed webcam startup flicker when recording with microphone audio
• Fixed stale webcam frames appearing during preview or extraction
• Fixed timeline seeking while the export sheet is open

New Features

• HEVC export support for smaller high-quality video output
• Preview zoom and reframe gestures for faster visual adjustments while editing
• Cursor set selection with additional cursor styles and scrollable cursor choices
• Drag-and-drop preview backgrounds for quicker custom scene setup
• New and improved 3D device models, including iPhone 17 Pro finishes and a MacBook Pro frame

Improvements

• Export progress now shows render speed in frames per second
• 3D device frame export and loading performance is faster
• Cursor motion, click ripples, cursor rotation, and idle hiding feel smoother and more stable
• Zoom panning and cursor-follow framing are more reliable across 2D, 3D, cropped, and aspect-ratio-adjusted projects
• Manual zoom center control now supports middle mouse input
• Autosave is more efficient during editing
• Recorder controls and recent project browsing are more polished

Bug Fixes

• Fixed area selection cancellation state sticking after canceling a recording target selection
• Fixed 2D and 3D device frame mapping issues, including MacBook and portrait cursor rendering cases
• Fixed keystroke timing after segment trims
• Fixed the video speed badge in timeline clips
• Fixed cursor panning cache issues when loading projects
• Fixed a CPU spike when opening the aspect ratio menu

New Features

• Open Project shortcut in the recorder and editor toolbar for faster project access
• Direct camera transform preview controls with live 3D tilt applied to camera moves

Improvements

• Refined timeline block handle hit testing for more reliable trimming and dragging

New Features

• Drag directly in the preview to create and adjust 3D camera moves without leaving the canvas

Improvements

• Timeline resize handles are easier to grab across clips and effect blocks for smoother trimming

New Features

• Fullscreen preview mode for a more immersive editing and review workflow
• ProRes MOV export, including transparent ProRes 4444 output for alpha-safe delivery
• 3D environment backgrounds for supported device frames, with selectable scenes and depth-of-field controls
• Option to hide desktop icons while recording for a cleaner capture setup

Improvements

• Refreshed recent projects browser for faster project browsing and reopening
• Timeline editing feels smoother with synced audio waveforms on video clips, clearer block labels, empty-track placeholders, resize haptics, and faster waveform loading
• Improved 3D device presentation with better cursor-follow framing, perspective, glass rendering, and environment handling

Bug Fixes

• Fixed device frame picker aspect filtering so compatible frames are shown more reliably
• Fixed stale preview and waveform state when switching projects or reopening crop editing
• Fixed webcam preview reframing drag behavior
• Fixed SDR recording export color metadata for more accurate playback
• Fixed custom 3D environment texture caching and several 3D depth-of-field and aliasing issues
• Prevented accidental deletion of the final video segment

Improvements

• Stereo audio export now preserves two-channel output more reliably
• Manual zoom center picker is more precise and easier to adjust
• Metal texture handling is more efficient for smoother preview and rendering performance

Bug Fixes

• Fixed recorder stopping state so the UI exits recording more reliably
• Fixed the editor reopening the same project after window close, which could leave editor hotkeys unresponsive
• Fixed a timeline ruler crash
• Cleaned up the device frame tab for a simpler editing experience

Bug Fixes

• Zoom-out transitions now return to the original framing more cleanly without the extra push past center

New Features

• App Store export preset for faster export setup with storefront-friendly defaults
• Solidness control for the redaction tool for more flexible concealment intensity

Improvements

• Redaction now uses a blur-based effect for a more polished and natural result
• Simpler annotation controls and a smoother flow for creating annotation blocks on the timeline
• Timeline annotation labels are centered for better readability

Bug Fixes

• Fixed annotation text clipping in exports
• Fixed text annotation rendering to better match the intended clean style
• Fixed annotation drag handles and resize behavior for more reliable editing
• Fixed preview annotation selection activation so direct editing behaves more consistently

New Features

• Redact annotation tool for obscuring sensitive information directly in the editor

Improvements

• Smoother cursor-follow panning for more natural cinematic motion
• Streamlined annotation controls for a clearer editing workflow

Bug Fixes

• Fixed annotation positioning so overlays stay aligned with the underlying content while editing and rendering
• Fixed iOS countdown recordings occasionally failing to start because of a session timing race
• Fixed partial iOS recordings reopening in the editor more reliably after an unexpected device disconnect
• Fixed camera transform track visibility when device frames are enabled

New Features

• Recording countdown timer with 3s, 5s, and 10s presets
• Start and stop cue sounds for recordings

Improvements

• Recording diagnostics log saved inside recording bundles
• iOS recording preview now sizes devices based on physical dimensions
• More reliable handling of iOS device disconnects, including finalizing partial recordings when possible
• Loaded projects better preserve source-specific media defaults such as device frames, webcam state, cursor visibility, and audio mute state

Bug Fixes

• Fixed webcam overlay rendering order in 2D device-frame mode
• Removed default editor preset behavior from the app and changelog

New Features

• Instant zoom speed preset for immediate zoom transitions

Improvements

• Faster and smoother timeline/playhead performance during editing
• Better manual zoom center picker with a clearer grid for positioning
• More stable zoom pan targeting and zoom timing behavior, especially for short zoom blocks

New Features

• Command palette, toggled with Cmd+Shift+P
• Upload videos with thumbnails to SmoothCapture Cloud

Improvements

• Preview clicks now activate the corresponding inspector tab
• Webcam size slider moved to the bottom for easier access
• Area recording buttons now adapt to current position context

New Features

• Editor presets with support for choosing a default preset
• Audio delay and per-track volume mixer controls

Improvements

• Redesigned audio tab for a simpler mixer workflow
• Camera selection now persists more reliably
• Wider sidebar for a roomier editing layout

New Features

• New Lightbox effect for highlighting parts of the frame with adjustable blur and refined visuals
• Paste timeline blocks directly at the playhead
• Cut effect blocks with Option-click for faster timeline editing
• Portrait webcam framing with drag-to-reframe controls and quick landscape/portrait toggling
• Keyboard shortcut to open the last project with Cmd+Shift+L

Improvements

• Improved recorder device toggle UX
• Better webcam aspect ratio preset visuals
• Smoother cursor motion
• Improved side-by-side cursor follow framing and panning
• Preview now refreshes correctly when the aspect ratio changes
• Timeline performance is more responsive during editing

Bug Fixes

• Fixed timeline block drag selection behavior
• Fixed timeline block overlap checks
• Fixed webcam edge gap layout in side-by-side mode
• Fixed webcam roundness in side-by-side layouts
• Improved microphone recording reliability for external microphones and startup distortion
• Reduced background internal logging

New Features

• Global shortcut for starting an area recording
• Open Last Project command for faster project access
• Settings shortcut added to the status menu

Improvements

• Refreshed settings page
• Improved device frame selection UX
• Record button now includes an icon for clearer affordance
• Camera track availability updates more consistently
• Window capture now focuses the selected window before recording starts
• Improved microphone recording reliability

Bug Fixes

• Fixed a webcam recorder crash that could happen when certain cameras reported frame rates the hardware could not actually use

New Features

• Overlay-based capture target picker for choosing what to record with less friction
• Copy and paste for multiple selected timeline items

Bug Fixes

• Fixed webcam format locking and frame duration selection for more reliable webcam capture setup

New Features

• Transparent background support for save and copy frame

Improvements

• Smarter export bitrate based on video resolution for smaller file sizes

Bug Fixes

• Fixed export file size estimation showing about 3.5x the actual size
• Fixed blurry 3D device screen content in portrait aspect ratios
• Fixed 3D device model appearing at different sizes across iPhone, iPad, and MacBook
• Fixed 3D device glass effect dimming the screen on iPhone 17 Pro Max
• Fixed iPhone USB recording showing a running timer but producing empty videos
• Fixed webcam recording producing massive file sizes
• Fixed audio track volumes not applied during export
• Fixed black preview when opening a project by double-clicking the file

New Features

• Video speed slider with support up to 10x playback
• iPhone 17 Pro Max device frame
• Grid snapping for manual zoom center positioning

Improvements

• Error message when attempting to record a simulator in landscape mode

Bug Fixes

• Fixed zoom panning behavior with device frames

New Features

• Horizontal flip option for webcam overlay

Bug Fixes

• Fixed device frame not appearing in exported video when an external clip precedes a device-framed clip in the timeline

Improvements

• Switched to our own SmoothCapture license server

New Features

• Camera format picker in webcam preview for more control over webcam resolution and frame rate

Bug Fixes

• Fixed webcam not shutting down when opening a project from the recorder
• Fixed webcam overlay shape appearing stretched on non-square aspect ratios

Improvements

• Added support for an additional payment provider for license activation

Bug Fixes

• Fixed visual lines appearing on wide keystroke keys such as Shift and Space

New Features

• Add segment clips to the timeline
• Clip insert position menu for a multi-clip timeline
• “None” background option

Improvements

• New keystroke rendering
• Improved motion smoothing

Bug Fixes

• Fixed effect blocks not following segment reorder and trim
• Fixed trim not adjusting zoom blocks
• Fixed effect remap on segment insert

Improvements

• Keycaps shadow for better visual depth
• Hide shift modifier for standard typing keys
• Wider shift and space keystroke keys for natural proportions
• Consistent gap spacing between keystroke keys
• Hide caret during typing for cleaner visuals

Bug Fixes

• Fixed manual zoom center to use proportional viewport mapping

New Features

• Cloudflare R2 and S3 cloud upload with streaming chunked uploads
• Copy shareable URL before export finishes
• Original resolution with 30fps export option
• Edge padding slider in the background tab

Improvements

• Improved export UX
• Improved smart zoom generator
• Improved cinematic pan with composition re-centering

Bug Fixes

• Fixed 3D device frame pan clamp to match 2D behavior
• Fixed export issue with 30fps
• Fixed GIF export freezing the app due to synchronous processing on the main thread

New Features

• Continuous animation mode for camera transforms with slow cinematic motion
• X-axis panning support in device frame mode
• Additional background collections in Apple, Gradient, and Zen categories
• Add solid background colors

Improvements

• Improved ripple effect with multi-ring water ripple and inner glow
• Simplified zoom config presets with a continuous slider for precise control
• Cursor size slider moved to the top of cursor settings for easier access
• Cursor size rendering clamped to prevent oversizing
• Improved subtitle editor window layout
• Improved caret zoom panning behavior
• Suppressed transient cursor teleports from causing disorienting viewport panning
• Improved zoom-out panning to smoothly return to center

Bug Fixes

• Fixed panning logic to match zoom logic

New Features

• Custom backgrounds now persist across all projects

Bug Fixes

• Fixed cursor type not rendering correctly during export
• Fixed background corner radius calculation
• Fixed Apple Squircle rounding to respect aspect ratio
• Fixed colorspace handling for custom background images

New Features

• “Animate back to original” toggle for camera transform effects

Improvements

• Smoother camera transform transitions between adjacent effects
• Simulator recording now captures webcam and microphone

New Features

• iPad Pro device frame model
• Dual playhead system for non-destructive timeline preview
• Simulator recording mode for iOS app demos
• 5x zoom level option
• Precise zoom duration sliders with manual input

Improvements

• Improved 3D device rendering and centering
• Camera size and edge gap controls for all layout modes
• Improved cursor rendering with reduced flickering
• Smoother cursor motion interpolation
• Consistent playhead styling across the timeline

Bug Fixes

• Fixed mouse clicks not recording when the cursor is stationary
• Fixed audio mute toggles not working with the multi-take system
• Fixed pan transition timing issues
• Fixed playhead resetting to its original position on pause

New Features

• Cursor visual delay slider to offset cursor timing

Improvements

• Simctl path fallback for simulator recording compatibility

Bug Fixes

• Fixed cursor timing sync by deferring capture start to the first video frame

New Features

• 3D device frame rendering support for iPhone, iPad, and MacBook
• Camera transform presets for dynamic scene layouts
• Multi-clip timeline support
• Individual keystroke key backgrounds

Improvements

• Timeline tracks auto-show and hide based on content
• Smoother track add and remove animations
• Improved default webcam configuration
• Device frame settings saved with projects
• Area recording remembers the last selection

Bug Fixes

• Fixed webcam not rendering during export
• Fixed camera transform transitions snapping unexpectedly

New Features

• Device frames for iOS devices and MacBook Pro
• Touch cursor type for mobile recordings
• Keystroke display during playback

Improvements

• Antialiased rendering for smoother visuals
• Auto-refresh recent projects when files change
• Crop state now saved with projects
• Projects named after the recorded application
• Improved perspective and device frame slider ranges

Bug Fixes

• Fixed area record mode not working
• Fixed cursor zoom sync issues
• Fixed project size display in the recent projects window
• Fixed duration mismatch when loading projects

New Features

• Recent projects added to the File menu

Improvements

• Hide keystrokes config when no keypresses are recorded

Bug Fixes

• Fixed crop preset click area not responding
• Fixed auto-generate zoom not working after recording

New Features

• Caret tracking system for improved text input visibility

Bug Fixes

• Fixed letterboxing when child windows extend capture bounds

New Features

• Export to GIF format

Improvements

• Simplified subtitle editor UI
• Optimized project loading performance
• Batch processing when opening projects
• Disabled mic meter monitoring when the microphone is disabled

Bug Fixes

• Fixed undo/redo to properly restore zoom effects and other tracks
• Fixed app crash when deleting video segments

Improvements

• Split mode can now be toggled off with the Escape key
• Default click sound volume reduced to 5%
• Updated timeline block UI with refined visuals
• Right panel controls are now disabled when not applicable
• General performance improvements

Bug Fixes

• Fixed undo/redo to properly restore zoom effects and other tracks
• Fixed app crash when deleting video segments

New Features

• Recent projects gallery with thumbnails and rename support
• 3D rendering effects
• Mouse click sound effects
• Split mode toggle with a dedicated scissors cursor for timeline splitting
• Trim cursor for clip edge adjustments

Improvements

• Subtitles can now be synced from audio overlay
• Timeline block UI refresh with refined strokes and a 1px playhead
• Hover scrub preview for quicker timeline scanning
• Timeline placeholder sizing now respects zoom level
• Timeline rendering performance improvements across audio, effects, zoom, and camera blocks
• Crop editor no longer live-updates while adjusting for smoother edits

Bug Fixes

• Improved cursor synchronization during playback
• Fixed mouse synchronization issues
• Fixed timeline performance and track mapping when trimming segments
• Fixed project state reset when loading new projects

New Features

• Save the current frame to the clipboard or a file

Improvements

• Transcribe custom audio files directly from the transcript editor

Improvements

• Lower CPU usage by optimizing the mic meter

New Features

• Custom backgrounds with an auto-scrolling background picker header
• Side-by-side camera layout with corrected spacing and consistent webcam gaps

Improvements

• System audio capture simplified to a single toggle
• Export now pauses preview playback to avoid resource contention

Bug Fixes

• Subtitles stay in sync after trims and render above other tracks
• Lens effect centers on the cursor and avoids skew with cropped video

Changes

• Smarter timeline zoom keeps clips readable and anchored while zooming
• Lens and magnify effects now appear as dedicated track blocks
• Live microphone level meter in the recorder device menu
• Camera preview reliably opens when enabling or switching webcams
• More consistent mic, webcam, and audio capture

New Features

• Transcript editor

Improvements

• Timeline improvements including pinch-to-zoom, smoother navigation, and zoom fixes

New Features

• New onboarding experience

Bug Fixes

• Fixed Intel Mac compatibility

Bug Fixes

• Fixed recording failure on Intel Macs by changing the codec from HEVC to H.264
• Fixed export hanging indefinitely on Intel Macs with an H.264 profile compatibility update
• Added a 10-second timeout for encoder stalls with a clear error message

Improvements

• Added Sentry error tracking throughout the recorder and export pipeline
• Added detailed logging for export progress debugging

New Features

• Project rename support
• Undo/redo toolbar buttons

Bug Fixes

• Fixed auto-update failing for sandboxed app installations

Improvements

• Export now requires a valid license. Users without a license are prompted to activate before exporting.

Changes

• Removed App Sandbox for direct distribution to improve file access and simplify updates
• Sparkle auto-updates now use the standard non-XPC mechanism

New Features

• New recorder UI with improved design
• Motion blur effect for cursor
• Auto-generate smart zooms
• Undo/redo support for timeline edits
• Keyboard status display
• Fluid audio model support

Improvements

• Updated subtitle rendering style
• Back-to-back zoom merging for smoother transitions
• Block selection with delete key support

Bug Fixes

• Fixed escape key behavior during recording
• Fixed region selection recording functionality

Improvements

• Improved region selection trigger timing
• Enhanced cursor stability with velocity settling threshold

Bug Fixes

• Stopped the cinematic cursor from drifting during idle periods
• Restored classic cursor mode to use raw input without smoothing

New Features

• License activation and validation system
• Keyboard shortcuts for starting and stopping recordings
• Menu bar icon and menu items
• License settings in preferences

Improvements

• Smoother consecutive zoom transitions
• Cursor automatically hides when idle
• Dark mode enabled by default
• Updated menu icon

Bug Fixes

• Fixed playback time not updating correctly
• Fixed video player loading issues
• Fixed opening .smoothcapture files from Finder

Initial release.

SmoothCapture first release.