Short answer: QuickTime and the macOS Screenshot toolbar can record your screen or your camera — not both in one video. To get a picture-in-picture webcam bubble over a screen recording, you need an app that composites them. Here’s how to do it for free on your Mac.
Why the built-in tools can’t do it
macOS gives you two native ways to record: QuickTime Player (New Screen Recording or New Movie Recording) and the Screenshot toolbar (⌘⇧5 → Record). Both are fine for a plain screen recording — but neither can put your webcam on top of the screen recording. You get one or the other, never a face bubble in the corner.
Getting a talking-head overlay natively means recording the screen and the camera separately and stitching them in a video editor afterwards — slow, and hard to line up. A dedicated tool that records both layers together saves all of that.
Record screen + webcam together with Lovely Screenshots
Lovely Screenshots records the screen and the webcam at the same time and keeps the camera as a separate, movable layer — so you place it exactly where you want after recording, not before.
- Turn on the webcam bubble. From the menu-bar icon, open the recording setup and enable the Webcam layer. A circular camera bubble appears so viewers can see your face while you record.
- Pick your area and start recording. Choose a window, a region, or the full screen, then hit record (default ⌘⇧6). A small control bar shows the timer and a Stop button on whichever display you started on.
- Record your screen and camera together. Lovely records the screen and the webcam at the same time. The camera is saved as its own layer — not burned into the video — so you can move or resize it later.
- Stop, then place the camera in the editor. Press Stop and the clip opens in the video editor. Drag the webcam bubble anywhere over the footage; its position is remembered per clip, so you can even move it to a different corner after a split. Export to MP4 (or GIF) when it looks right.
Frequently asked questions
Can QuickTime record the screen and webcam at once?
Not together. QuickTime Player can record a screen recording or a camera movie, but not both composited into one video with a picture-in-picture bubble. To get your face in the corner of a screen recording natively you’d have to record separately and edit them together in another app. Lovely records both at once and keeps the webcam as a movable layer.
Is screen recording free on Mac with Lovely?
Yes — basic screen recording (single clip, MP4) is free, with a small watermark. The webcam-in-post layer, multi-clip timeline, voice-over, and higher-quality/GIF export are part of Lovely Pro, a one-time $12 purchase. No subscription, and everything records and renders on your Mac.
Where does the webcam appear in the recording?
Wherever you put it. Because the camera is a separate layer rather than being baked into the screen capture, you drag the bubble to any corner in the editor after recording — and its position is stored per clip, so it can sit bottom-right in one section and top-left in another.
Does the recording upload anywhere?
No. Recording and export happen entirely on your Mac — nothing is uploaded to a cloud service. The finished MP4 or GIF is saved locally for you to share however you like.