ScreenFlow Review: Robust Screen Recorder & Video Editor for Mac

In a nutshell

ScreenFlow is a great screen recorder, video editor for Mac users. It will cater to all your video editing needs and allows you to export the final edited content in the format and resolution of your choice.

Here’s how we feel about this ScreenFlow review

Video editing is a hardware-intensive task. It demands a lot from your computer’s processor, graphics card, RAM, and even hard disk. This is one of the reasons why in early 2000, video editors and graphic designers would prefer Mac over other platforms.

The reason is simple; you do not want your laptop/ machine to sound like a hovercraft while you are editing your video clips. But a lot has changed since then. You can easily find Windows machines that are as powerful and capable as a Mac for editing high-resolution content.

However, ScreenFlow, a well-known screen recorder and video editor has still stuck to its roots and only supports recording and editing on Mac platforms.

In this ScreenFlow review, we would tell you more about its features, how you can make the most of it, other alternatives, and whether it is worth the hype.

ScreenFlow System Requirement

ScreenFlow is meant for Mac devices only. Once you have checked the system configuration of your machine, you can download the application from their website.

Just fill in the required details and download the ScreenFlow trial for free. 

ScreenFlow features

Recording multiple screens

If you using multiple screens, it becomes quite a challenge to record individual screens. As the screen recorder can record one screen at a time, you might have to switch between recordings to get the right screen content.

But with ScreenFlow, you can record multiple screens simultaneously. You need not worry about switching the recording monitor. You just add the additional screen details from the recording menu, and all your active screens would be recorded.

The multi-screen recording feature can be an absolute delight for marketers and online tutors. It can help you record a larger real-estate and thus allowing your content to be much more information-rich.

No more switching between tasks.

iOS recording

iOS and iPad recording is a much sought-after feature. Marketers and content creators use the iOS recording to showcase an application’s behavior on an iPhone or iPad.

Software reviewers like us use it while reviewing software too.

ScreenFlow for Mac can detect any iOS device connected to your Mac and prompt you whether you want to record it. You can simply select from the plugged-in iOS device that you want to record and start recording your actions on them.

Currently, ScreenFlow supports screen recording for iOS 5+ devices.

Robust Video Editor

ScreenFlow’s video editor harbors all video and recording settings. The editing properties tabs will provide you with all the configurable components that you would be needing for editing your video content and screen recordings.

The video editing tab lets you set your video editing preferences, while the audio tab lets you mix audio, denoise recordings, and then some more. From the screen recording tab, you can configure all the user actions that you want to record.

Like recording keystrokes, changing mouse pointer highlight, and click animation.

The call-outs tab can be used for blurrings, highlighting, or panning and zooming into a certain portion of the screen. The touch callout tab is for configuring your iOS recording options.

Using the annotations and text animation tabs you can add custom animations, transitions and add pointers, and other custom elements to highlight items in your video.

Add Subtitles To Your Videos

ScreenFlow’s video editor allows you to add edit and publish subtitle tracks to your movies and YouTube videos.

To add captions to your video track simply select the track and you can paste or transcribe the subtitle to each video segment.

Closed captioning videos is really simple and you can even preview your videos after you have added the subtitle to them. You can even choose to subtitle tracks in different languages. These subtitles can even be exported as SRT files.

Rich Animation & Graphics Options

ScreenFlow’s editor provides you a lot of freedom when it comes to editing graphics and animating your video content. It allows you to create your transition and animation while giving you complete freedom over how you want the animation to unfurl.

Using ScreenFlow’s configurator, you can make your video pulsate, rotate, and even move and pan across the screen. You can dictate the amplitude, the frequency and specify the start and the end portion of the screen where you want the animation to take effect.

Such in-depth customizable options help you create unique content and stand out from other content creators.

Smart Publishing Options

After editing your recorded video you have to save a copy of the final edited video on your machine. Then you can use the edited content and publish it on any social media platform of your choice.

But With ScreenFlow, you can bypass saving a copy on your machine and publish your final edited content directly to video sharing sites like Vimeo Youtube, or Facebook.

Before publishing to any platform you can set the video encoding standard, the frame rate, and provide other content-related information. While publishing for the first time you need to set up your social media accounts in ScreenFlow.

After that, you can directly publish on different platforms from the video editor itself.

Hands-on experience

After using ScreenFlow I feel its prominent features can be broadly classified into three sections.

• Recording
• Video Editing
• Exporting

Recording 

Whenever you launch ScreenFlow for Mac, you would land on the recording screen. From this recording screen, you can choose the monitor which you want to record.

If you have multiple screens on your machine, you can even record multiple monitors simultaneously. If you have a plugged-in iOS device on your Mac, you can select the iOS device and start recording its screen too. Once you have decided on the screen you can choose the audio input that you would be using for your recording. 

ScreenFlow even allows you to mix your audio recording input. This feature can come in handy when you have a stereo audio recording system.

By default, the screen recorder would record the activities of your whole screen but you can select any specific area which you want to record. Simple drag and set the area of focus and ScreenFlow would record all the user actions performed within the specified perimeter.

The advanced recording settings even let you record in a loop or create time-bound recordings.

Video Editing 

As you can see from the screenshot above, the video editor packs a lot of features. The scrubber workflow panel at the bottom helps you edit the video timeline. With the help of the properties panel, you can decide how you want to edit your video and what all features you want to add as part of post-processing.

The preview screen lets you see your changes in run time. You can playback your preview and make the required adjustments to your video clip.

To add items to the video editor simply copy or drag and drop the items in the media library tab. Then you can place the video, and audio clips in the editor timeline and start editing your video.

The ScreenFlow video editor provides you a lot of video editing capabilities. You can pan and zoom on any particular element on your video clip, change background color, add transitions and even rotate your video clips.

For professionals and editors who want to edit their videos at a granular level, they can use the scrubber to pinpoint a particular frame and edit it on a frame-by-frame basis.

That’s not all if you want to add a custom backing track to your video clip simply place the backing track over the video clip and use the preview to judge whether you are satisfied with the result.

If you want to remove noise from your audio clip to edit your imported audio files, you can do so from the audio properties section. The audio editor lets you mix audio samples, trim audio content, and even remove noise from audio clips.

ScreenFlow also provides you several different audio filters that you can use to customize your video content to a whole new level.

Exporting 

When you have completed editing your video clips it’s time to export them. ScreenFlow provides you a plethora of different exporting options. You can select from different encoding options, export your edited content in different resolutions, and even specify audio compression standards.

If you have a short video clip you can even export it as an animated gif.

ScreenFlow event provides you the ability to save your exporting options as presets. This feature is a boon when you want all your exported content to have a similar configuration.

You can even configure ScreenFlow to directly publish content to social media platforms or video-sharing sites. 

Is ScreenFlow free for Mac?

In this ScreenFlow review, we learned about its salient features and its core capabilities. Now let’s find out how much ScreenFlow is going to cost you.

You can download a trial version of the screen flow from their website. Just fill in all the details and you are good to go. Once you have downloaded the trial copy you can use ScreenFlow and all its features for as long as you want.

The only catch is all the exported content from the trial copy of ScreenFlow would be watermarked. 

To remove the watermark you have to buy a license.

ScreenFlow price would vary between $129 to $209. The base pack would provide you all screen flows features and video editing capabilities. But with the Super Pak, you would have access to ScreenFlow’s stock media library.

Stock media library would grant you access to stock images, stock videos, and royalty-free audio clips which you can use for editing and publishing content over social media platforms.

If you opt for premium support at $39 per year you would get priority support and assistance over the phone whenever required. 

ScreenFlow Alternatives

To make this ScreenFlow review impartial let’s look at other ScreenFlow alternatives.

1. Camtasia

Features at a glance – Camtasia is a screen recorder and video editor. Both ScreenFlow and Camtasia hail from the same parent company TechSmith. Unlike ScreenFlow, Camtasia can be used on Windows and Mac platforms.

It is a great tool for creating tutorials, recording gameplay and it can be used by social media marketers to create engaging content too. Camtasia also has the provision to record iOS devices directly from Mac.

You won’t be able to record iOS devices while using a Windows machine.

Pricing – You can download the trial version of Camtasia for free from their website. The trial period is valid for 30 days during which all the exported content from Camtasia would have a watermark. You can get a one-time license of Camtasia for $249.99.

2. Adobe Premiere Pro

Features at a glance – Adobe Premiere Pro needs no introduction. It is a market leader in video editing and provides you a lot of advanced editing capabilities which are used by professional video editors daily.

Its AI-powered editor can detect edit points automatically and help you edit content at a much faster pace. It flaunts a strong user community and has detailed documentation which can help you to get used to all its capabilities. It is also compatible with Windows, Mac, Android, and iOS platforms.

Pricing – The Adobe Premiere Pro can be availed as part of a subscription plan. You can opt for an annual subscription for $20.99 per month or a prepaid annual plan for $239.88.

3. Wondershare DemoCreator

Features at a glance – The Wondershare DemoCreator is a handy screen recorder and video editor. You can use the Wondershare DemoCreator to record your screen, add background scores to video clips and even edit videos on a frame-by-frame basis.

It supports different exporting options and even lets you directly publish your final edited content to different social media platforms.

Pricing – The trial version of DemoCreator has all the features as the licensed version but all the exported content comes with the watermark. To get rid of the watermark you can either opt for a subscription plan or buy a perpetual license.

Its subscription plan starts from  $7.99, while a perpetual license would cost you $59.99.

Which is better Camtasia or ScreenFlow?

Both Camtasia and ScreenFlow are phenomenal screen recorders and possess great video editing capabilities. But they are somewhat different in terms of platform compatibility and affordability.

While ScreenFlow only caters to the Mac platform, you can use Camtasia to record and edit video on Windows as well as Mac devices. That’s not all, Camtasia provides you advanced video editing capabilities and a degree of freedom that you cannot expect from ScreenFlow.

Being said that if you bring affordability into the picture you would find that ScreenFlow is almost half the price that of Camtasia.

So after considering all the parameters this is how I would rank this two software. For social media content creators and marketers working on Mac, ScreenFlow can be a better option.

But for professional video creators and editors Camtasia would be the right choice. If you don’t have a Mac, you can go for Wondershare DemoCreator or Adobe Premiere Pro.

Is ScreenFlow good?

After checking ScreenFlow’s features and using its video editor here’s how it ranks.

Pros

• ScreenFlow’s video editor works like a charm. If you are a content creator, marketer, or online tutor you would not have any regret using ScreenFlow’s video recorder and editor.
• I loved ScreenFlow’s iOS device recording capabilities. It captures all iOS interactions flawlessly.
• During screen recording, you can choose to record multiple screens at once. It allows you to mix audio from different channels to give a better audio experience.
• Active social media content creators can directly publish their content without the need of saving it on the device. That’s a plus.

Cons

• ScreenFlow is only compatible with Mac devices. That is a big no-no for me.
• While recording my screen I could not find drawing tools for highlighting items. Pointers lines and highlighters can only be added when you are editing your screen recordings. 
• You have to pay for using the stock media library. Stock media library comes under a subscription plan and cannot be used as part of a one-time license.

So it boils down to this. If you are a Mac user you should opt for ScreenFlow. But if you are using a windows platform I would suggest looking out for other alternatives.