Guide, updated October 25, 2026

A screen recorder for tutorials on Windows, and the editing you can skip

Recording a tutorial takes ten minutes. Editing it takes the evening: finding where you clicked to zoom in, cutting the pauses and the "ehm", writing captions, typing chapter timestamps. A screen recorder made for tutorials does most of that while you record. This page lists what to look for and shows how one tutorial is made on Windows.

In one glance

Viewers must see the click: zoom on the control you used, a cursor that is easy to follow.
The voice must flow: pauses shortened, filler words and wrong sentences cut.
Long videos need structure: chapters for YouTube, captions with an .srt file.
On Windows, bought once: Ciakko, with a 14 day trial of the full product.

What a tutorial recorder must do

A tutorial is watched by someone trying to do the same thing on their own screen. They need to see which button you pressed, read the text you typed, and skip to the step they are stuck on. That gives the list:

Zoom on the action. A 1080p or 4K screen shrunk to a phone or a laptop window makes menus unreadable. The video has to move in on what you click and back out after.
A cursor you can follow. Bigger than the real one, smooth, with a ring on each click, hidden when it is not doing anything.
A clean voice track. Pauses shortened, "ehm" and "uhm" removed, the sentence you said twice kept once.
Captions. Many viewers watch without sound, and the .srt file lets YouTube use your words.
Chapters. On a 20 minute tutorial, chapters are how people find the one step they need.
Your face, optionally. A webcam bubble that does not cover the part of the screen you are explaining.

How one tutorial is recorded in Ciakko

Choose what to record: one window, an area you draw, or a whole screen without the taskbar. Turn on the microphone and, if you want, the camera.
Press Record and do the steps while you talk. Got a sentence wrong? Press Ctrl+Shift+X and say it again. Starting a new part? Ctrl+Shift+M marks a chapter.
Press Stop. The editor opens with the zooms already placed on your clicks and typing, the cursor redrawn, and the retakes waiting as proposed cuts.
Run Clean up: long pauses and filler words come back as proposed cuts. Listen to them, accept with Enter, keep what you like. In the Script tab you can also cut by selecting words and pressing Del.
Write the captions on your PC with Whisper, pick a style, and check the chapters in Export.
Export wide for YouTube, and vertical for a Short from the best part of the same take.

A tutorial series fits in one project: record each part as its own take, then export the project as one video with one caption file and one chapter list.

Where the other tools are better

OBS Studio is free, open source and the standard for live streaming and complex scenes; if you need a live show, or you are happy to edit by hand, it is the right choice. Loom gives a share link the moment you stop, with viewers' comments, which suits a quick message to a teammate better than a published tutorial. Camtasia is a full editor with layers and a library of assets, on Windows and Mac; for heavy editing it does more. Ciakko is for people on Windows who want the tutorial to look edited without doing the editing, and to pay for it once.

What Ciakko does not do

It does not stream, it does not run on Mac or Linux, and it does not upload to YouTube for you. It edits its own recordings, not videos recorded with another program. Captions and editing work on your PC; the voice over you type is the one feature that goes online.

Questions about recording tutorials

What is the best screen recorder for tutorials?

The one that saves you the editing. A tutorial needs the viewer to see where you click, a voice without long pauses, captions, and chapters for a long video. A recorder that does those on its own is faster than a free recorder plus a day in a video editor.

How do I record a tutorial video on my computer?

Plan the steps, close what you will not show, record the window or an area rather than a whole 4K screen, and talk while you do it. In Ciakko you press Record, work through the steps, and press Ctrl+Shift+X when you get a sentence wrong, then say it again.

Do I need a video editor for a tutorial?

Usually not. The edits a tutorial needs are zooms on small controls, cutting pauses and mistakes, captions, and chapters. Ciakko proposes all of them when the recording stops; you accept, adjust or undo.

Is OBS good for recording tutorials?

OBS Studio is free and records anything, and it is the right tool for live streaming. For a tutorial it gives you a raw file: the zooms, the cuts and the captions are still to do in another program.

Can I record my webcam with the screen?

Yes. Turn on the camera and it appears as a bubble you can move or resize after recording, with the room behind you blurred if you want. The bubble is not baked in, so you can change it later.

Does it work offline?

Recording and editing run on your PC, and captions are written by a speech model on your PC. You sign in once; after that the one online feature is the voice over you type, which sends the text, not the recording.