How to Record Your iPhone Screen on a Mac

If you want a clean, high-resolution capture of your app, recording the iPhone screen on a Mac with QuickTime beats recording on the phone itself — no on-screen recording indicator, and a crisp file ready to edit. This guide covers the QuickTime capture, then the step most people miss: framing it so it looks like a real product. For the on-device route, see How to Screen Record on iPhone.

What you need

• An iPhone and a Mac
• A Lightning or USB-C cable
• QuickTime Player (built into macOS)
• A browser for the framing step

Step 1: Connect and open QuickTime

1. Plug your iPhone into the Mac with a cable
2. Open QuickTime Player
3. In the menu, choose File → New Movie Recording

Step 2: Select the iPhone as the source

1. Click the small arrow next to the record button
2. Under Camera, choose your iPhone
3. Under Microphone, choose your iPhone too if you want device audio

Your phone screen now mirrors into the QuickTime window at full resolution.

Step 3: Record your flow

Hit the red record button, run the flow on your phone, then stop. Because this is a wired capture, there's no red recording pill on the screen — the result is cleaner than an on-device recording. Save the file (it exports as MOV).

Step 4: Trim the clip

Trim the dead space at the start and end right in QuickTime (Edit → Trim) or any basic editor. Keep the core action.

Step 5: Frame it in an iPhone

A bare capture looks like a screenshot in motion. Open the Framy editor, drop in the MOV, and it lands inside a real iPhone frame. Pick from 35 models, set the ratio, and export — the iPhone video mockup maker turns the raw MOV into a finished clip.

• 9:16 for Reels, TikTok, Shorts, and App Store previews
• 16:9 for a website hero or YouTube

Export High quality MP4, no watermark.

Tips for a clean Mac capture

• Turn on Do Not Disturb on the phone so notifications don't appear.
• Tidy the status bar — full battery and signal look more polished.
• Record a little extra at each end for trimming room.
• MOV is fine as a source — the framing tool exports MP4 for you.

Why record on the Mac at all

The wired route gives you a cleaner file at exact device resolution with no on-screen indicator, which matters for anything public. Pair that clean capture with a device frame and you have a demo that looks professionally made — for free.

Next steps

Frame your capture in the free iPhone mockup tool, or read MOV vs MP4 for App Demos to understand the formats. More on the Framy blog.