What is screen recording?

Starting with VNC Viewer 6.21.920 (Windows, Mac and Linux) / VNC Viewer 6.22.826 (Raspberry Pi) and VNC Server 6.8.0 you can record your VNC sessions as a webm video file.

This feature can only be used on desktops (Windows, Linux, and Mac) which are listed as Supported Platforms for VNC Connect. Screen recording is not supported on VNC Viewer and VNC Server for Android and iOS.

How do I record my screen?

When connected to a VNC Server that supports screen recording (6.8.0 and later), click the toolbar button to begin and end a recording.

Watch the video:

Where are recordings saved?

Recordings will be saved locally to a folder on the Viewer device, and will not be accessible from RealVNC systems or its employees. The location of the recording will by default be the standard media folder for the OS – on Windows desktops this is %USERPROFILE%\Videos\RealVNC\. This location can be altered using the Choose folder button, and then navigating to a new location before selecting OK.

You can open the recording location from the Viewer by selecting “Show in folder”, from here you can play back the recorded sessions with any standard webm file viewer, such as modern web browsers, or Microsoft Windows Films & TV viewer. 

How do I configure screen recording?

VNC Viewer

Configuration options allow the recording of all sessions by default, or enabling and disabling a recording within a session – open the Viewer Application Preferences (from the Viewer’s File menu, select Preferences...), and navigate to the Recording pane to find these options. 

VNC Server

Screen recording can also be enabled or disabled in VNC Server, by opening the VNC Server Options and navigating to the Users & Permissions section. Here you can set Global Permissions, or per-user/per-group permissions to allow or disallow connected users to record sessions.

Other VNC Server options for Screen Recording can be found in the Expert tab, for example to configure the duration of notification prompts when recording starts and stops, or whether to show a persistent notification when a recording is taking place.

How do I Screen Record during an On-Demand Assist session?

Starting with VNC Viewer 7.1.0  and On-Demand Assist 2.1.0, technicians can record an On-Demand Assist session as a webm video file.

When connected to a user's device, click the toolbar button to begin and end a recording.

The end user will see the following pop up, if they are happy for the session to be recorded they should click 'Allow'. 

This popup will timeout after 30 seconds, and the technician will be unable to control the session while the prompt is displayed.

Once the end user has accepted the prompt, screen recording will then be allowed for the duration of the session. 

Troubleshooting

If you see the error 'This session cannot be recorded because the remote computer does not allow it.' this means either:

• The version of VNC Viewer you are running does not support Screen Recording in On-Demand Assist; or
• VNC Server has the RecordQuery parameter set to True and your version of VNC Viewer does not support it. 

You can download the latest version of VNC Viewer here.