How to Record a Portfolio Walkthrough Video on Mac

A hiring manager has forty applications open in tabs. Yours has a portfolio link, and next to it, a three-minute video where you walk through one project: what the problem was, what you built, and what you'd change. That video gets watched while the PDFs get skimmed.

More hiring processes now ask for this. Design and product roles ask for a portfolio walkthrough. Engineering take-home assignments often end with "record a short video explaining your solution." Some application forms simply have an optional video field. Either way, a Mac user ends up recording their screen and their voice, and usually their face, for a stranger who will decide in a few minutes whether to call them.

This guide is for that job seeker: a designer, developer, analyst, writer or marketer who needs to show their work on video and come across as a clear, calm person to work with.

Quick Takeaway

A good portfolio walkthrough is short, planned and about one or two projects, not your whole site. On a Mac you can record it for free with the built-in screen recorder (Shift-Command-5). Show your face for the introduction and the closing, and keep it small or hidden while you show detailed work. If you want a camera bubble that floats over any app, can be moved or hidden with a shortcut, and comes with a screen-based ring light for a dim room, FaceScreen adds that to whatever recorder you use for a one-time $5.99. If you'd rather have an all-in-one recorder, Loom and Screen Studio both include a camera.

Why Walkthrough Videos Are Hard to Get Right

The recording itself is easy. The hard part is that you're doing four things at once: navigating your work, explaining decisions, watching the clock and trying to look like someone a team would enjoy working with.

Common ways these videos go wrong:

• Too long. Reviewers rarely want more than a few minutes. A ten-minute tour of every project tells them you can't prioritise.
• No story. Scrolling through screens while describing what's on them ("here's the home page, here's the settings page") shows output, not thinking.
• The face covers the work. A webcam bubble parked in the bottom-right corner sits right on top of the button, chart or code line you're talking about.
• Bad light and audio. A face lit only by a bright window behind you, or a laptop mic in an echoey room, makes a strong portfolio feel careless.
• Private details on screen. Notifications, other job applications in tabs, client names under NDA or an API key in a terminal.

None of these needs expensive gear. They need a plan and a setup you check before pressing record.

Plan the Video Before You Record

Pick one project, two at most, and write a short outline. For most roles, this shape works:

1. Who you are and what you'll show (15 seconds): "I'm Sam, a product designer. I'll walk you through how I redesigned the checkout for a grocery app."
2. The problem (30 seconds): who it was for, what was going wrong, and any constraints.
3. Your decisions (90 seconds): two or three key choices, what you tried and why you picked the final version. Show the screens that prove it.
4. The result (30 seconds): a metric, feedback or what shipped. Be honest if it's a concept or a class project.
5. What you'd do next and a close (15 seconds): one improvement, then thank them.

That's about three minutes. For a take-home assignment, swap the middle for: how you approached the task, the main trade-offs, what you tested and what you'd add with more time. Reviewers of take-homes often care more about trade-offs than about extra features.

Write bullet points, not a script. Reading word for word sounds stiff, and your eyes drift off the camera.

Set Up the Mac

Before recording, spend five minutes on the screen itself:

• Turn on Do Not Disturb from Control Center so notifications don't appear mid-take.
• Close everything you won't show. Use a separate browser window or profile with only the portfolio and project tabs open.
• Make text readable. Zoom the browser to 125% or more, use a larger font size in your code editor, and record at a resolution where small UI is still legible when the video is played in a small player.
• Hide private data. Use demo data or blur client details beforehand; remove tokens from terminal history and .env files you might open.
• Light your face from the front. Sit facing a window or lamp, not with one behind you.
• Check audio. Even wired earbuds with a mic usually sound better than a laptop mic across the room.

Record With What's Built Into macOS

You don't need to buy anything to record a solid walkthrough:

• Screen recording: press Shift-Command-5 to open the Screenshot toolbar, choose to record the entire screen or a selected portion, and under Options pick your microphone, a timer and where to save. Apple documents these controls in its screenshot and screen recording guide. The result is a .mov file you can trim in QuickTime Player.
• Your face: the built-in recorder doesn't add a camera overlay. A common free workaround is to open a QuickTime Player "New Movie Recording" window, shrink it and park it in a corner before you start the screen recording. It works, but the window can fall behind other apps when you switch, and resizing it mid-take is fiddly.
• Presenter Overlay: macOS can place you over a shared screen, but only during a call in an app that supports it, and it needs an Apple silicon Mac (or an iPhone 12 or later as a Continuity Camera). Apple describes the Small and Large modes in its video conferencing guide. It's great for live interviews where you share your screen, less practical for a recording you make alone.

If you already use an all-in-one recorder, that's fine too. Loom records screen and camera together and gives you a share link; its free Starter plan caps screen recordings at 5 minutes and 25 videos, which fits a walkthrough. Screen Studio produces polished recordings with automatic zooms and a webcam that can hide itself when you stop talking, for $29 a month or $9 a month billed yearly. OBS Studio is free and very flexible, but it takes more setup than a one-off application video needs. Our best screen recording apps for Mac roundup compares more options.

A Practical Mac Workflow With FaceScreen

FaceScreen is a menu bar app that puts a live camera view in a window that floats above all other windows, so it shows up in any screen recording, whether you use Shift-Command-5, QuickTime, OBS or another recorder. According to its site, you can change the camera's shape, size, aspect ratio and corner radius, adjust brightness, contrast and saturation, add a text overlay such as your name or portfolio URL, and set keyboard shortcuts to toggle and resize the camera. Its Ring Light uses your screen as an adjustable soft light, with controls for brightness, warmth and glow.

A workflow for a portfolio or take-home video:

1. Set the camera once. Choose a circle or rounded rectangle, a small default size and a default position in a corner your portfolio doesn't use. Adjust brightness if your room is dim.
2. Add a text overlay with your name and role or your portfolio URL, for example "Sam Lee · Product Designer". If the video gets forwarded to someone else on the hiring team, they still know whose it is.
3. Turn on Ring Light if your face looks flat or shadowed in the preview. It's most useful at night or in a room without a good window.
4. Assign shortcuts to show, hide and resize the camera, so you don't have to stop recording to click a menu.
5. Start your recorder (Shift-Command-5 is enough) and record the introduction with the camera at a medium size.
6. Shrink or hide the camera with a shortcut when you open detailed screens: wireframes, dashboards, code or a test run. Drag it to whichever corner is empty on that screen.
7. Bring the camera back for the result and the closing line. The opening and closing are where a reviewer is judging how you communicate.
8. Watch the take at a small size before sending. If you can't read the key details, zoom in on your screen and record again.

FaceScreen requires macOS 15 or later and is a one-time purchase from the Mac App Store or its website. There's no free trial, but the site offers a refund if it isn't the right fit.

When You Don't Need FaceScreen

Be honest with yourself about what the video needs:

• Your recorder already has a camera you like. Loom, Screen Studio and OBS include a webcam layer; adding a second one makes no sense.
• The application asks for screen only. Some take-home instructions just want the code explained. Then your voice is enough.
• It's a live interview. On a call, Presenter Overlay (where supported) or the meeting app's own camera does the job.
• You record once a year. The QuickTime window workaround is clunky but free, and fine for a single video.

FaceScreen earns its place when you record from several apps, want the camera to stay on top while you switch windows, or need better light without buying a ring light.

Example: A Designer's Case Study Walkthrough

Maya is applying for a senior product designer role. The job post asks for "a short video walking us through one project."

She picks her checkout redesign, writes five bullets and opens only her Figma file and the case study page. With FaceScreen in a circle at the top-left, she introduces herself and the project in two sentences. When she opens the Figma flows, she shrinks the camera and moves it to the bottom-right, which is empty canvas. She explains two decisions: why she cut a step from the checkout and why an early idea failed in testing. For the results slide she brings the camera back to medium and ends with what she'd test next.

The video is 3 minutes 10 seconds. She sends it with the case study link and a two-line summary in the application form.

Example: A Developer's Take-Home Explanation

Dev has finished a take-home: build a small API and a front end that lists search results. The instructions say to record a video of up to five minutes.

He bumps his editor font size, closes Slack and checks that no keys are in the terminal history. He records with Shift-Command-5 and FaceScreen's camera in a small rounded square, with a text overlay of his name and GitHub username. He spends thirty seconds on the structure of the project, two minutes on the trade-offs (why he used pagination instead of infinite scroll, and what he'd cache in production), and a minute running the tests. He hides the camera while scrolling through code, then shows it again to say what he'd add with another day.

His face appears for about a minute in total. That's enough for the reviewer to put a person to the code without hiding any of it.

Final Verdict

A portfolio or take-home video is a short presentation, not a screen tour. Pick one project, follow a problem-decisions-result outline, keep it around three minutes, and check light, audio and private data before you record. macOS's Shift-Command-5 recorder is all most people need to capture the screen.

Your face matters most at the start and the end, and it should never cover the work. If you want a camera that floats over every app, hides with a shortcut, shows your name and brightens a dim room, FaceScreen adds that to any recorder for a one-time price. If you'd rather have one tool that does everything, Loom's free plan or Screen Studio will serve you well.

Catch these apps on sale: many paid Mac apps, including screen recording apps, run discounts at least once a year, most often around Black Friday. Subscribe to the Apps.Deals newsletter to hear when the deals arrive.

Note: Features and prices are current as of October 2026 and can change; verify them on each official site before buying.

Disclosure: FaceScreen is made by Softal, the same company behind Apps.Deals. This post also contains affiliate links; if you buy through them, we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you.