How to record your screen and webcam at the same time on Windows

What Windows can and can’t do

Windows has two screen recorders built in, and neither has a camera button. Here’s where each tool stands:

	Records	Webcam at the same time
Snipping Tool (Windows 11)	An area or the whole screen	No
Xbox Game Bar	One app window	No
PowerPoint Screen Recording	An area or the whole screen	No
Clipchamp (Windows 11)	A browser tab, a window or the screen	Yes, up to 30 minutes per recording
screenrecordwindows.com	A screen, a window or an area	Yes, layout chosen after recording
OBS Studio	Whatever you add to the scene	Yes, placed by hand

The Snipping Tool’s toolbar has buttons for the microphone and system sound, and that’s all. The Game Bar records a single app, so it can’t even pick up a camera preview sitting next to that app. In PowerPoint, the Insert › Screen Recording dock offers Select Area, Audio and Record Pointer. PowerPoint’s separate Record feature can show your camera over your slides, but it records the slide show, not your screen.

Clipchamp, Microsoft’s video editor that comes with Windows 11, can record both. On the record & create tab, choose screen & camera. Your screen and your camera arrive on the timeline as two clips, so you can move the camera around. It’s fine for short videos, with some limits: you need to sign in, each recording stops at 30 minutes, and sound from your PC is only recorded when you record a browser tab (in the Windows app, an Edge tab).

The workaround: record the Camera app on your screen

If you need one quick video and don’t want to install anything, you can record the Camera app along with everything else on the screen.

1. Open the Camera app from the Start menu. Make its window small and drag it into a corner.
2. On Windows 11, press Win Shift R, drag over the whole screen, turn on the microphone and click Start. On Windows 10, use PowerPoint’s Insert › Screen Recording with the full screen, because the Game Bar only records one window.
3. Do what you want to show, then stop the recording.

It works, but it’s clunky:

• The camera window hides. It drops behind any app you click. Microsoft’s free PowerToys can pin it with Always On Top (Win Ctrl T), but that draws a coloured border round the window unless you turn off Show a border around the pinned window.
• The buttons come too. The Camera app’s controls sit around the picture, so they end up in your video.
• It’s permanent. The camera is burned into the recording. You can’t move it, resize it or remove it afterwards, and it covers whatever is underneath while you work.

If you record yourself and your screen more than once in a while, a screen recorder with webcam support is worth the install.

How to screen record with your webcam in screenrecordwindows.com

screenrecordwindows.com is a free screen recorder for Windows 10 and 11 that saves your camera separately from your screen. You record first and decide where your face goes afterwards.

1. Download it free and install it.
2. Press Alt R from any app. A recording bar appears at the bottom of the screen.
3. Choose Screen, Window or Area.
4. Click the camera button to turn your webcam on, and choose which camera if you have more than one. Turn on your microphone, plus computer sound if you want the sound from your PC.
5. Click Record. A three-second countdown runs, and the bar itself never shows in the video.
6. Stop when you’re done. The editor opens with your camera as a round bubble in the bottom-right corner, and with zooms already added where you clicked and typed.

It’s free, with a small watermark that Pro removes. There’s no time limit, and nothing is uploaded unless you share a link: recording, editing and export all happen on your PC.

Choose your layout after recording

Open the Camera tab in the editor and pick a layout.

Layout	What it looks like	Good for
Bubble	Your camera floats in a corner over the screen	Tutorials and demos, where the screen matters most
Side by side	Screen and camera on two cards in a row, the same height	16:9 videos where you explain as much as you show
Stacked	Screen above camera, the same width	9:16 videos for TikTok, Reels and Shorts
Camera	Just your camera, cropped to fill the frame	A talking-head version without the screen

Then style the camera on the same tab:

• Size. Make the bubble small enough that it doesn’t cover anything important, or give the camera a bigger share in Side by side and Stacked.
• Corner and roundness. Put the bubble in any of the four corners, and set the roundness anywhere from a circle to a square.
• Mirror. A mirrored camera looks natural to you, because it’s how you see yourself. Turn it off if you hold anything with writing up to the camera, or the text will read backwards.

One recording, every shape

Change the shape under Size on the Canvas tab: 16:9 for YouTube and websites, 9:16 for TikTok, Reels and Shorts, or 1:1 and 4:5 for LinkedIn and Instagram feeds. The layout re-arranges itself for the new frame.

A good routine is to make the YouTube version first, in 16:9 with a bubble, and export it. Then switch the shape to 9:16, pick Stacked and export again. On a tall frame you can show the Whole screen on a background, or Fill & follow, which fills the frame and follows the pointer. For the export settings that work best on YouTube, see how to screen record for YouTube.

Tips for looking and sounding good on camera

You don’t need a studio. A few small changes make a bigger difference than a new webcam:

• Face the light. Sit with a window or a lamp in front of you or to one side, never behind you, or you’ll turn into a silhouette. On Windows 11, Settings › Bluetooth & devices › Cameras lets you adjust your webcam’s brightness and contrast.
• Raise the camera to eye level. A laptop on a desk films you from below. Put it on a stand or a few books so the lens is level with your eyes.
• Look at the lens when you talk to viewers. Look at the screen while you work, but glance back at the camera when you introduce a step or sum up. Keep your notes close to the lens.
• Check the background. Tidy what’s behind you and make sure nothing private is in shot, like letters, a whiteboard or family photos. On Windows 11 PCs with a supported AI chip (NPU) and a built-in camera, Windows Studio Effects can blur the background.
• Don’t worry much about clothes. In a small bubble they hardly show. Plain colours are safest, because fine stripes can shimmer on camera.
• Use a decent microphone. Viewers forgive a soft picture, but not bad sound. A headset or USB microphone close to your mouth beats a laptop’s built-in microphone, which also picks up your typing. Here’s more on how to record your voice and PC sound together.

Do one 10-second test recording before the real take. Check that the camera is the right one, the light is on your face and your voice is clear.

The free manual way: OBS Studio

OBS Studio is free, open-source software for recording and live streaming. It can combine anything on one canvas, including your screen and webcam, but you build the layout yourself.

1. Install OBS Studio from obsproject.com and open it.
2. In the Sources box, click + and choose Display Capture. Pick your monitor.
3. Click + again and choose Video Capture Device. Pick your webcam in the Device list.
4. Drag the camera’s red handles to make it smaller, then move it into a corner. Sources higher in the list are drawn on top, so keep the camera above Display Capture.
5. Check the Audio Mixer. OBS captures desktop sound and your microphone by default.
6. Click Start Recording in Controls, and Stop Recording when you’re done. File › Show Recordings opens the folder.

OBS is the better choice if you also want to live stream, or need several cameras and scenes. The trade-off is that everything is manual. A round camera needs an Image Mask/Blend filter and a mask image you make yourself, there are no automatic zooms, and the camera is part of the video once you stop recording, so changing the layout means recording again.