PGari Glowee: Mac brightness with window spotlight

How to screen record on a Mac and keep the attention on one window

Short answer: Nothing extra is needed in order to screen record on a Mac. Press Shift, Command and 5 together, pick Record Entire Screen or Record Selected Portion, and click Record; macOS handles the rest through its own Screenshot app, and drops a .mov on your desktop. The problem is not the recording, it is the picture. A full-screen capture shows every open window at once — your notes, your chat, the half-finished spreadsheet — beside the one you are actually talking about. That is where PGari Glowee comes in. Its Spotlight dims everything except the window you are in, on any Mac display, and because the dimming is painted onto the screen, it is captured in the recording and in a shared screen. Glowee records nothing itself.

What viewers see in a screen record on a Mac with Glowee's Spotlight running: one window at normal brightness, the rest of the screen turned down

Recording rather than scheduling is often the sensible call when your audience is half a working day ahead of you in Asia or Australia, six hours or more behind in North America, or when the power schedule makes a live slot a gamble. A recorded walkthrough only works, though, if the viewer can tell which window to watch.

A note on the word: Apple uses "Spotlight" for the Mac's search, opened with Command-Space bar. This page is about a lighting effect for presenters, which happens to share the name.

Screen record on a Mac using the Screenshot app

Apple's own steps.

Shift, Command and 5. An onscreen toolbar appears.
Pick your scope. Record Entire Screen or Record Selected Portion — drag the borders of the portion to adjust it. macOS Tahoe 26 and later adds Record Selected Window to that list.
Open Options before you start. Choose a microphone to capture your voice. Show Mouse Clicks draws a black circle round the pointer on every click. You can set a countdown, change the "Save to" folder, and on supported Macs running macOS Tahoe 26 or later choose between SDR (Most Compatible) and HDR as the capture format. Recordings land on the desktop unless you say otherwise.
Click Record.
Stop it from the menu bar, or by pressing Command-Control-Esc.

Saved automatically, the file carries the name "Screen Recording [date] at [time].mov". A thumbnail appears in the corner when you stop — click it to trim before anything else.

QuickTime Player is the alternative entry point: File > New Screen Recording, or Control-Command-N.

Two limits to be aware of. Apple notes that some apps, such as the Apple TV app, may not let you record their windows. And capturing the Mac's own system audio is listed as an option from macOS 27 Golden Gate onwards.

Lighting the one window your viewers need

A walkthrough is nearly always about a single window — the spreadsheet, the editor, the browser tab, the admin console. Everything else on the desktop is still in the frame, competing.

Spotlight dims everything except the window you are in.

Throw it from the sun in the menu bar, or with ⌃ ⌥ ⌘ S from any app. The same chord takes it away again, so you can change it mid-recording without visiting a menu.
Pick the strength: Off, Soft or Strong, depending on how busy the screen is. It returns at the level you last used.
Click another window and the light follows. Moving from the slides to the browser and back needs no re-aiming.
Pin it with Pinned so a stray click does not carry the light off mid-take.
Any Mac display, XDR or not, built in or external. A MacBook Air records this perfectly well.

Because Spotlight is a layer on the screen, screenshots and screen recordings capture it like any window. Nothing has to be masked afterwards.

Record the screen, or a portion of it — not a window

Spotlight works on what surrounds your window, so it can only appear in a capture that includes those surroundings. Record the entire screen, or select a portion wide enough to take in the dimmed area around the window. Record the single window on its own and there is nothing left for Spotlight to show.

Extra Brightness is invisible to the camera

Glowee's other feature lifts an XDR panel past the macOS slider. That one is left out of captures altogether, so a recording made on a boosted screen looks completely normal to whoever watches it. It is for your eyes only, which is useful at a sunlit desk and useless to an audience. It also needs an XDR or other EDR display, such as a MacBook Pro 14″ or 16″ from 2021 onwards — the MacBook Pro brightness guide covers that side. Spotlight is the half your viewers get.

Live: meetings, lectures and a projector

The same logic applies when the screen is shared in real time. Keep the slides in an ordinary window rather than full screen, share the screen, and throw Spotlight. The notes, the chat and the desktop behind the deck all step back, so the room follows the slide rather than an incoming message. In a lecture or a training session over a call, it saves the recurring question of which window you are pointing at.

Two extras from macOS itself. Notifications can be paused while you share: System Settings → Notifications → when mirroring or sharing the display, which Apple suggests for exactly this. And on a Mac with Apple silicon running macOS Sonoma 14 or later, Presenter Overlay can put you on top of the screen you are sharing during a video call. Both are Apple features and independent of Glowee.

As with a recording, the dimming lives around the window, so share the whole screen rather than a single window if you want anyone to see it.

Two things called spotlight, and what each one lights

Several Mac apps for presenters use the word and mean different things by it. Each line below is that maker's own description of its own app.

The tool	What it says it does
macOS Screenshot	Show Mouse Clicks draws a black circle round the pointer on each click
Mouseposé (Boinx)	"Dims the screen and shines a spotlight on the area around the mouse pointer"; highlights mouse clicks; makes keystrokes visible
Presentify	Annotates the screen, highlights the cursor, and can "spotlight or zoom in on key areas"
Scribbble	"Draw over anything on your Mac screen"; its toolbar carries Pen, Highlighter, Spotlight, Magnify and Whiteboard
Screen Studio	"macOS screen recorder with automatic zoom and smooth animations for product demos, tutorials, and social media videos"
PGari Glowee	Dims everything except the window you are in, and the light follows your next click

Glowee lifts out a window. It does not mark the pointer, draw, zoom or record. If the viewer has to follow one button or a single line of code, a pointer or annotation tool is the right buy. If the viewer has to stay with one window while you work inside it, a window spotlight is. Plenty of people making tutorials want one of each. The window side is worked through in marking out the active window and dimming inactive windows.

Questions about recording and Spotlight

Which key combination starts a screen recording on a Mac?

Shift, Command and 5 opens the Screenshot tools; pick a scope and click Record. Command-Control-Esc stops it. From QuickTime Player, Control-Command-N starts a new screen recording.

Can I record my voice with it?

Yes. Open Options in the Screenshot toolbar and choose a microphone before you click Record. System audio is a separate option, available from macOS 27 Golden Gate.

Will Spotlight appear in my screen recording or shared screen?

Yes. It is a layer on the screen, so screenshots and screen recordings take it in like any window. The plain brightness boost, by contrast, is left out of captures.

What does Spotlight do on a Mac?

Two answers, because two things share the name. Apple's is the search field that opens with Command-Space bar. Glowee's Spotlight is a dimming effect that leaves one window lit.

How do I get rid of the spotlight effect?

Press ⌃ ⌥ ⌘ S, or choose Off under Spotlight in the menu. ⌃ ⌥ ⌘ G switches Glowee off entirely and takes Spotlight with it. Quit the app and the display returns to normal.

Does this need a MacBook Pro?

No. Spotlight is ordinary dimming and runs on any display. Extra Brightness is the only part that needs an XDR or other EDR panel.

Where do my recordings go?

To the desktop by default, as a .mov file named "Screen Recording" with the date and time. Change it under "Save to" in the Options menu before you record.

What does it cost to record a few walkthroughs first?

Nothing for seven days — every feature open, no account and no card. After the seven days it is a one-off purchase — one Mac, or three Macs on one key, with 30 days of refund cover.

Try it on your next walkthrough

PGari Glowee is a menu bar app of under 2 MB, for macOS 13 and later, universal across Apple silicon and Intel. It brings no kernel extensions and no background helpers with it.

Download the 7-day trial See how Glowee works