A Mac screen recorder with no watermark and no time limit
Free screen recorders pay for themselves somewhere, and it is usually your video: a logo in the corner, a five minute ceiling, or a link that expires. Here is how to tell which one you are about to hit, and what the alternatives cost.
Last updated: October 2026
Full disclosure: this page is published by the makers of Take. Prices for everything else were read off each vendor's own pricing page in July 2026, and Loom's and CleanShot X's again on 6 October 2026.
Where the catch usually is
A watermark. The obvious one: a logo burned into a video you are about to send a customer. Usually removable by subscribing.
A time cap. Loom's free plan stops screen recordings at five minutes, which is under the length of most real demos.
A video count. 25 videos sounds like a lot until you re-record the same walkthrough four times.
The viewer needs an account. A link behind a signup is not the same as a file. It can also expire, move, or start showing ads that were not there when you sent it.
Updates that lapse. Some one-time purchases include a year of updates and then ask again. Worth reading before you count it as a one-time purchase.
What macOS gives you for free
Shift-Command-5 is built in, records as long as you like, and never watermarks anything. If you need a plain capture of your screen, it is genuinely enough and you should not pay for a tool to replace it.
What it will not do is make the recording watchable: no zooms, no smoothed cursor, no backdrop, no trimming of the ten seconds where you were finding the right window. That is the actual reason people go looking for something else, and it is worth being clear that the reason is not the watermark.
| Price | Watermark | Length limit | Over time | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Take | $24.99 once | ✗No | None | Once with updates through Crest 7, or $2.99 a month |
| macOS built-in | Free | ✗No | None | Included |
| Loom free | Free | ✗No | 5 minutes | Then $18/user/mo |
| CleanShot X | $35 once | ✗No | None | One year of updates, then $19/yr |
or all three apps, $24.99 once · macOS 14 or later
Take Our pick$24.99 one-time, with Crest
Take records the screen and then finishes the recording for you. Zooms land where you actually clicked, the cursor is redrawn so it glides instead of jittering, dead air is sped up rather than cut, and the frame sits on a real backdrop. All of that happens the moment you stop, not as an export step you wait for.
There is no watermark on any plan, including the trial. There is no length limit, no video count, and no account needed by whoever watches it: you get a plain .mov file in a folder you own. Everything runs on your Mac, so a recording of your screen is never uploaded to anyone.
Editing is live. Move a zoom and the canvas updates immediately, because the preview and the exported file run through the same compositor. A one-time licence includes updates through Crest 7 and covers two Macs.
FAQ
Can I record longer than 5 minutes?
Yes. Take, macOS's built-in recorder (Shift-Command-5) and CleanShot X have no time limit. The five minute ceiling is Loom's free Starter plan, still there when we checked loom.com/pricing on 6 October 2026. The real limit is free disk space: on a 16-inch MacBook Pro running macOS 27.0.1, a 20 second recording of a mostly still screen with the built-in recorder came to 9.8 MB, about 1.8 GB an hour. A screen with a lot of motion uses more.
Is there a free Mac screen recorder with no watermark?
Yes: the one built into macOS. Shift-Command-5 records with no watermark and no time limit. It does not stage or edit the recording, which is usually why people look for something else.
Does Loom watermark videos?
Loom's free Starter plan does not watermark, but it limits you to 25 videos and caps screen recordings at 5 minutes. Business is $18 per user per month.
What is the best one-time purchase screen recorder for Mac?
Take, which comes with Crest for $24.99 once, with updates through Crest 7 and two Macs per licence. CleanShot X at $35 is excellent for screenshots and includes one year of updates, then $19 a year after that.
Do I need an account to watch a Take recording?
No. Take produces an ordinary .mov file. Anyone can open it, and it will still open in ten years.
Recordings that arrive finished
Stop the capture and it is already staged: zooms where you clicked, dead air sped up, a real backdrop, and a plain .mov you own. Comes with Crest: $24.99 once for Crest Pro, Take and Minutes.
Get all three apps, $24.99 Try free for 7 daysmacOS 14 or later · Universal · no watermark, ever · 7-day trial, no card up front
Keep reading: Best Mac screen recorders in 2026 · Screen Studio alternatives · vs Screen Studio · vs Loom · vs CleanShot X · vs Descript · vs Camtasia · vs ScreenFlow · Record a demo that looks edited · Take overview