Free Chrome Extension · v1.0.0
ClearRec is a free Chrome screen recorder that captures your screen, browser tab, or webcam, then trims, crops, and exports to MP4, WebM, or GIF — entirely inside your browser. No login, no cloud upload, no analytics. Recordings save to your Downloads folder via Chrome's own download manager. Yours from the moment they exist.
§ What it does
Capture, edit, and export — without ever signing in, opening a desktop app, or sending a frame to a server you can't audit.
01 · Capture
Record the whole screen, a single application window, a Chrome tab with tab audio, your webcam alone, or screen + webcam picture-in-picture. The launcher remembers the source you used last so the second recording is always one click away.
02 · Privacy
ClearRec uses Chrome's built-in MediaRecorder API and writes the finished file straight to your Downloads folder via Chrome's own download manager. The extension has no network code at all — no analytics, no crash reporter, no third-party SDKs.
03 · Edit
When a recording stops, the editor opens in a new tab with your clip ready to scrub. Drag the in/out handles, lock to an aspect ratio with the crop tool, then export to MP4, WebM, or GIF. When no re-encode is needed, MP4 and WebM cuts stream through in seconds.
04 · Recents
ClearRec keeps a local-only history of the last twenty recordings — filename, size, timestamp — so you can re-open the trimmer on yesterday's clip without hunting through your Downloads folder. The list lives in chrome.storage.local and never leaves the device.
05 · Save location
By default ClearRec saves to Chrome's Downloads folder inside a ClearRec/ subfolder, but the destination is yours: tuck recordings into a per-project folder, point them at a USB drive, or let Chrome ask every time. The file lives where you put it.
§ Quality
Pick the trade-off you want between file size and visual fidelity. ClearRec defaults to Ultra (1440p · 60fps · 20 Mbps), which is the sweet spot for tutorials, async updates, and bug reports.
| Tier | Resolution | Frames / sec | Bitrate | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Insane | 4K | 60 | 50 Mbps | Cinematic captures |
Extreme | 4K | 30 | 30 Mbps | High-detail with smaller files |
UltraDefault | 1440p | 60 | 20 Mbps | Default — best balance |
High | 1080p | 60 | 10 Mbps | Standard HD |
Medium | 1080p | 30 | 5 Mbps | Light-weight HD |
Low | 720p | 30 | 2.5 Mbps | Smallest files for email |
For reference: one minute of 1440p · 60fps · Ultra weighs about 150 MB. One minute of 720p · 30fps · Low weighs about 19 MB — small enough for an email attachment.
§ Who uses ClearRec
Developers
Capture a 20-second repro, drop the MP4 into the GitHub issue, never wait for a cloud upload to finish. The MP4 is universal — your reviewer plays it natively on Mac, Windows, Linux, or right inside the browser.
Designers
Record a 90-second walkthrough of a Figma flow and send it to one person. No share link to revoke, no analytics on who watched it, no expiring URL to keep alive.
Educators
Record the whole class, save it straight to a USB drive or institutional NAS. Nothing transits a third-party server, so the school's data-residency rules apply without exception.
Founders & support
Two-minute Loom-style replies, but you decide who can play the file. Email it, drop it into Slack, attach it to a Stripe support ticket — the recording is just a file.
Privacy-minded
ClearRec ships with no analytics, no crash reporter, and no third-party SDKs. The extension has no network code, so there is no endpoint a future owner could quietly switch on.
Creators
Record at 4K · 60fps · 50 Mbps for cinematic source, then export a perfectly-paletted GIF directly from the trimmer. The palettegen + paletteuse pass keeps colours accurate, not muddy.
§ How it stacks up
Loom and Screencastify are great when share-links and viewer analytics are what you need. ClearRec is for the recordings you don't want a server to see. Pick the trade-off that fits the job, not the brand.
| Feature | ClearRec | Loom (free) | Screencastify (free) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Price (free tier) | Free, no caps | Free, capped | Free, capped |
| Account required | No | Yes | Yes |
| Cloud upload | Never | Always | Always |
| Watermark on free tier | No | No | Optional |
| Recording length (free) | Unlimited | ≤ 5 min | ≤ 5 min |
| Max resolution | 4K @ 60 fps | 1080p @ 30 fps | 1080p |
| Native GIF export | Yes (palettegen) | No | No |
| Built-in trim + crop | Yes | Yes (web app) | Yes (web app) |
| Works offline | Yes | Limited | Limited |
| Analytics / telemetry | None | Yes | Yes |
Free-tier specifications taken from Loom and Screencastify public pricing pages, May 2026. ClearRec column reflects the documented extension behaviour shipped in v1.0.
§ FAQ
Yes, completely free. No watermark, no upgrade prompt, no Pro tier. ClearRec has no business model that requires a paywall.
To Chrome's Downloads folder, optionally inside a ClearRec subfolder (configurable). The file is yours — ClearRec keeps no copy, and the extension has no servers.
No. The extension has no network code at all. Recording, encoding, trimming, and exporting all run inside your browser using Chrome's MediaRecorder API and ffmpeg.wasm.
Yes. Both toggles in the launcher control whether tab/system audio and microphone audio are mixed into the recording.
There is no hard cap. Recording length is limited only by your free disk space. One minute of 1440p · 60fps · Ultra weighs about 150 MB.
Yes. After install, ClearRec needs no internet connection to record, edit, or export.
Yes. Choose Screen mode, then pick the tab in Chrome's screen-share dialog. Tab audio is captured along with the video.
Yes. ClearRec records anything Chrome can display, so it captures any web app and any other application's window.
MP4 for sharing with people on any operating system or social platform. WebM for the smallest file at the same visual quality if you know the recipient can play it (every modern browser can).
Yes. Open the recording in the trimmer, switch the Format selector to GIF, set the trim range, optionally crop, then Export GIF. The editor generates an optimised colour palette before encoding, so colour reproduction is much better than naive GIF tools.
The trimmer streams the saved recording off disk via a file:// URL so it doesn't have to buffer the entire (sometimes multi-hundred-megabyte) file in memory. If you decline, the trimmer falls back to a manual file-picker on each open.
Yes — on any platform where Chrome 116+ is supported, including Edge, Brave, Arc, Opera, and Vivaldi.