A free, open-source desktop screen recorder that automatically adds cinematic zoom and pan animations to your recordings — like Screen Studio, but free, local, and cross-platform.
Download • Features • Why Flowtake? • Screenshots • Development • Contributing
Get the latest stable release for your platform:
| Platform | Installer | Download |
|---|---|---|
| Windows 10/11 (x64) | .exe / .msi / portable .zip |
Latest release |
| macOS (Universal) | .dmg / portable .zip |
Latest release |
| Linux (x64) | .AppImage / .deb / .rpm / portable .tar.gz |
Latest release |
Platform status — Windows is stable and the primary daily-driver platform. macOS and Linux builds exist but are a developer preview — expect bugs. Stable support for all three is targeted for v2.0.
FFmpeg is bundled on Windows and macOS. On Linux, the .deb and .rpm packages declare ffmpeg, xdotool, and wmctrl as dependencies and your package manager will install them automatically.
| Flowtake | Screen Studio | Loom | OBS Studio | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Auto-zoom animations | ✓ | ✓ | ✗ | ✗ |
| Free | ✓ | ✗ ($229) | Partial (freemium) | ✓ |
| Open source | ✓ (MIT) | ✗ | ✗ | ✓ |
| Runs locally (no cloud) | ✓ | ✓ | ✗ | ✓ |
| Cross-platform | ✓ (Win/Mac/Linux) | macOS only | ✓ | ✓ |
| Built-in editor | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✗ |
| Cursor smoothing + blur | ✓ | ✓ | ✗ | ✗ |
| Teleprompter | ✓ | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ |
| Masks / redaction | ✓ | Limited | ✗ | ✗ |
| Native binary footprint | ~80 MB (Tauri) | ~100 MB | Web / Electron | ~300 MB |
Flowtake gives you the polish of Screen Studio, the flexibility of OBS, and the zero-friction of Loom — all free, all local, all open source.
- Screen capture — Record full screen, specific windows, or custom regions
- Camera overlay — Picture-in-picture with configurable layouts (side-by-side, overlay, camera-only)
- System audio — Capture system audio alongside microphone input
- Multi-monitor — Support for multi-display setups
- Auto-zoom — Intelligent zoom effects that follow your cursor and focus areas
- Pan animations — Smooth camera panning with velocity-based camera leading for natural follow
- Cursor inertia & motion blur — Adaptive velocity-based cursor smoothing with motion blur scaled by speed
- Click indicators — Animated visual feedback for mouse clicks
- Custom cursors — Replace or style cursor appearance in recordings
- Timeline editor — Ctrl+mousewheel zoom with granular grid spacing
- Clips & cuts — Trim, split, and arrange video segments
- Smooth playhead — Refined playhead with larger drag handles and improved clip feedback
- Undo/redo — Full history support for all editing operations
- Overlay tracks — Add images, shapes, and custom elements with animation
- Audio tracks — Import and mix multiple audio tracks
- Subtitles & captions — Built-in subtitle editor with on-device speech recognition
- Masks & blur — Redact sensitive areas with blur or solid masks
- Backgrounds — Custom backgrounds with wallpaper and blur effects
- Intro/outro — Configurable zoom transitions for start and end
- Teleprompter — Built-in teleprompter with speech recognition sync (unique to Flowtake)
- Presets — Save and load recording/editing presets
- Asset library — Predefined assets for quick overlay creation
- Project system — Save, load, and manage editing projects
- Hotkeys — Fully customizable keyboard shortcuts
- FFmpeg encoding — Professional-grade video encoding via bundled FFmpeg sidecar
- Multiple formats — Export to MP4, WebM, and more
- Configurable quality — Choose encoder, resolution, and bitrate settings
Screenshots coming soon — see docs/launch for marketing materials.
Flowtake is built with a modern hybrid architecture combining a Rust backend with a React frontend.
+------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Flowtake Application |
+------------------------------------------------------------------+
| |
| +---------------------------+ +----------------------------+ |
| | Tauri v2 (Rust) | | React 19 Frontend | |
| |---------------------------| |----------------------------| |
| | - Recording control | | - Editor workspace | |
| | - FFmpeg sidecar mgmt | | - Timeline (zoom, pan, | |
| | - Window/area picking | | clicks, clips, masks, | |
| | - File I/O & projects | | subtitles, overlays, | |
| | - Mouse tracking | | audio tracks) | |
| | - System integration | | - Properties panel | |
| | - Video streaming | | - Preview player (Pixi.js) | |
| | (video:// protocol) | | - Settings & presets | |
| | - Export pipeline | | - Asset library | |
| +---------------------------+ +----------------------------+ |
| | | |
| +---------- IPC Bridge ---------+ |
| (Tauri Commands) |
| |
+------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Redux Toolkit (State) | Pixi.js (Render) | FFmpeg (Encode) |
+------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Window | Purpose |
|---|---|
| Main | Launcher + full video editor with timeline |
| Recorder | Recording overlay and controls |
| Exporter | Render progress and export settings |
| Window Picker | Interactive window selection for capture |
| Area Picker | Custom region selection tool |
| Note | Annotation window (excluded from capture) |
| Layer | Technology |
|---|---|
| Desktop framework | Tauri v2 (Rust) |
| Frontend | React 19 + Redux Toolkit |
| Styling | TailwindCSS 4 + DaisyUI 5 |
| Graphics | Pixi.js 8 (WebGL-accelerated 2D rendering) |
| Video encoding | FFmpeg (bundled sidecar) |
| Build tool | Vite 7 |
| AI / ML | MediaPipe + HuggingFace Transformers (on-device) |
Grab the latest installer from the Releases page.
- RAM: 4 GB minimum, 8 GB recommended
- Storage: ~200 MB for installation
- GPU: Hardware acceleration recommended for smooth preview
- Node.js 20+
- Rust (stable toolchain)
- Tauri v2 CLI
- FFmpeg binary in
resources/
# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/JNX03/Flowtake.git
cd Flowtake
# Install frontend dependencies
npm install
# Run in development mode (starts Tauri + Vite dev server)
npm run dev| Command | Description |
|---|---|
npm run dev |
Start Tauri dev server with hot reload |
npm run dev:frontend |
Start Vite frontend only (port 5173) |
npm run build |
Build production installer (NSIS/MSI) |
npm run build:frontend |
Build frontend assets only |
npm run lint |
Run ESLint on the codebase |
Flowtake/
├── app/ # React frontend
│ ├── shared/ # Code shared across all windows
│ │ ├── redux/ # Redux Toolkit store and slices
│ │ ├── scene/ # Pixi.js animation/rendering engine
│ │ ├── workers/ # Web Workers for preview and render
│ │ ├── tauriBridge.js # IPC compatibility layer
│ │ ├── helpers.js # Shared utility functions
│ │ └── constants.js # App-wide constants
│ ├── components/ # Shared React UI components
│ └── windows/ # Per-window entry points
│ ├── main/ # Main editor window (100+ components)
│ ├── exporter/ # Export/render queue
│ ├── recorder/ # Recording overlay
│ ├── windowPicker/ # Window selection
│ ├── areaPicker/ # Area selection
│ └── note/ # Annotation window
│
├── src-tauri/ # Rust backend (Tauri v2)
│ ├── src/
│ │ ├── commands/ # IPC command handlers
│ │ ├── lib.rs # App setup & video:// protocol
│ │ ├── state.rs # Global application state
│ │ └── mouse_tracker.rs # System-wide mouse tracking
│ ├── Cargo.toml # Rust dependencies
│ └── tauri.conf.json # Tauri window & plugin config
│
├── resources/ # Bundled binaries (FFmpeg, AHK scripts)
├── docs/ # Architecture and development docs
├── vite.config.mjs # Vite build configuration
└── package.json # NPM dependencies & scripts
For detailed documentation, see the docs directory or browse by topic:
Flowtake is actively developed and welcomes contributions — especially:
- Wayland cursor tracking fixes (the biggest open bug)
- macOS polish and bug reports
- Translation / localization
- New auto-zoom tuning profiles
Please read the Contributing Guide to get started.
Quick overview:
- Fork the repository
- Create a feature branch (
git checkout -b feature/your-feature) - Commit your changes (
git commit -m 'feat: add your feature') - Push to your branch (
git push origin feature/your-feature) - Open a Pull Request
Please also review the Code of Conduct before participating.
If you discover a security vulnerability, please follow the Security Policy. Do not open a public issue for security vulnerabilities.
- Linux stable support (targeting v2.0.0)
- macOS stable support (targeting v2.0.0)
- Plugin/extension system
- Cloud project storage (optional, opt-in)
- Collaborative editing
- AI-powered auto-editing suggestions
- Tutorial
- Direct upload to YouTube/social platforms
This project is licensed under the MIT License.
For press inquiries, logos, screenshots, and product descriptions, see PRESS.md.
- Tauri — Desktop framework
- React — UI library
- Pixi.js — 2D rendering engine
- FFmpeg — Video encoding
- TailwindCSS & DaisyUI — Styling
- Redux Toolkit — State management
Made with Rust, React, and a lot of screen recordings.
If Flowtake saves you time, a star on the repo means a lot.