The free, open-source screen recorder that makes your recordings look intentional.
A cross-platform alternative to Screen Studio with auto-zoom, annotations, background customization, and export for free.
Download · Features · Getting Started · Contributing · Roadmap
Focra is a free and open-source screen recording application built with Electron and React. It automatically generates smooth zoom animations based on where your cursor dwells, adds professional polish to tutorial videos, product demos, and developer walkthroughs without any manual keyframing.
Think Screen Studio, but free, open-source, and cross-platform.
- 👩💻 Developers recording code walkthroughs or API demos
- 🎓 Educators creating tutorial or course videos
- 🚀 Makers showcasing products or features
- 📣 Teams making internal screencasts and documentation
- Multi-source capture — record any screen or window
- Dual-audio mixing — microphone + system audio in one stream (Web Audio API)
- Pause & resume — with accurate timing that excludes paused intervals
- Auto-zoom — detects natural cursor dwell points (≥500 ms stable) and generates smooth zoom keyframes automatically
- Configurable sensitivity (0.1 – 1.0)
- Easing options: ease-in-out, ease-in, ease-out, linear
- Adjustable scale factor (default 2×)
- Optional motion blur
- Zoom keyframe editor — add, modify, and delete zoom animations
- Text annotations — add styled text overlays at any point in the timeline
- Arrow annotations — draw directional arrows to highlight UI elements
- Trim — set in/out points to remove unwanted segments
- Background customization — solid color, gradient, or image backgrounds
- Crop — define the visible area with normalized coordinates
- Resolutions: 720p, 1080p, 1440p, 4K
- Aspect ratios: 16:9, 4:3, 1:1, 9:16
- Frame rates: 30 fps or 60 fps
- Format: WebM (VP9 + Opus)
- Native save dialog with secure, token-based file writes
| Platform | Installer |
|---|---|
| macOS | .dmg, .zip |
| Windows | NSIS installer, .zip |
| Linux | AppImage, .deb |
Note: Focra is currently in early development (v0.1.0). Pre-built binaries will be available on the Releases page.
To run Focra today, follow the Getting Started guide to build from source.
# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/iamtatenda/Focra.git
cd Focra
# Install dependencies
npm install# Start the development server with hot reload
npm run dev# Build for production
npm run build
# Package into a distributable installer
npm run distThe packaged app will appear in the release/ directory.
Focra's auto-zoom algorithm tracks your cursor during recording. When the cursor stays within an 8-pixel radius for at least 500 ms, that position is registered as a "dwell point" — a natural moment of interaction. After recording, Focra generates smooth zoom keyframes centered on each dwell point, giving your video a polished, intentional feel with zero manual effort.
The editor lets you review, adjust, or remove any auto-generated keyframe, add text/arrow annotations, customize the background, trim the clip, and export at your desired resolution.
| Layer | Technology |
|---|---|
| Runtime | Electron 41 |
| Build tool | electron-vite + Vite 6 |
| UI | React 18 + TypeScript |
| Styling | Tailwind CSS 3 |
| State | Zustand |
| Icons | Lucide React |
| Packaging | electron-builder |
- Pre-built release binaries for macOS, Windows, and Linux
- MP4 (H.264/AAC) export support
- Custom zoom easing curves
- Cursor highlight and click effects
- Project save/load (
.focraproject format) - Plugin / theme system
- GIF export
Contributions are welcome! Whether it's a bug report, feature request, or pull request — please check out the Contributing Guide to get started.
Focra is released under the MIT License. Free to use, modify, and distribute.