Recorder preferences

Open Preferences from the Recorder top bar. Settings are grouped into Recording, General, Shortcuts, and About, with advanced appearance and update controls where applicable.

Preferences window

Screenshot pendingAdd the image at:website/docs/public/screenshots/recorder/preferences.webp

Recorder preferences cover capture behavior and settings shared with the editor.

Recording settings

Setting	Values	Default	Notes
Countdown	Off, 3 seconds, 5 seconds, 10 seconds	3 seconds	Applied before capture starts.
Recorder Bar	Always visible, Auto-fade, Hidden until hovered	Always on Windows/macOS; Hidden until hovered on Linux	Controls the floating bar during capture.
Interaction access	Checking, Available, Permission required, Installation required, Denied, Unavailable	Off	Linux labels this Record keyboard & mouse events on Linux.
Record interactions	On or Off when available	Platform dependent	Stores supported clicks and safe shortcut tokens, never typed text.
Shortcuts	Open Shortcuts subview	Not applicable	Opens the Recording and Teleprompter shortcut groups.

General settings

Setting	Values	Default
Language	Bulgarian, German, English, Spanish, French, Hindi, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Portuguese (Brazil), Russian, Vietnamese, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese	A supported system or browser language; English fallback
Theme mode	Light, Dark, System	Light
Spell check	On or Off under Advanced	On
Primary color	Preset palette or custom color picker	#ff5a1f
Secondary color	Preset palette or custom color picker	#6366f1
Corner radius	0, 6, 10, 16, 24 px, or Custom	10 px
Pill radius	On or Off	Off
Surface tone	Default, Neutral, Slate, Deep	Default
Global UI scale	50%, 75%, 100%, 125%	100%

Theme presets

Applying a preset sets both colors, corner radius, pill behavior, and surface tone together. Individual controls can then be changed.

Preset	Primary	Secondary	Radius	Surface
Beam Sunset	#ff5a1f	#6366f1	10 px	Default
Cyber Violet	#8b5cf6	#06b6d4	12 px	Slate
Emerald Forest	#10b981	#f59e0b	8 px	Neutral
Crimson Velvet	#f43f5e	#a855f7	14 px	Deep
Oceanic Breeze	#0284c7	#14b8a6	10 px	Slate
Amber Studio	#f59e0b	#ec4899	4 px	Neutral
Sakura Bloom	#ec4899	#8b5cf6	18 px	Default
Slate Precision	#0ea5e9	#64748b	2 px	Slate

Interface scale overrides

Top bar, Sidebar, Properties, Canvas controls, and Timeline can each use the global scale or override it with 50%, 75%, 100%, or 125%. Use global is represented by an empty override, so changing the global scale continues to affect that region.

Region	Choices
Top bar	Use global, 50%, 75%, 100%, 125%
Sidebar	Use global, 50%, 75%, 100%, 125%
Properties	Use global, 50%, 75%, 100%, 125%
Canvas controls	Use global, 50%, 75%, 100%, 125%
Timeline	Use global, 50%, 75%, 100%, 125%

Shortcut defaults

Global shortcut conflicts are compared without case sensitivity. A duplicate global shortcut is rejected.

Category	Action	Default shortcut
Recording	Start / Stop recording	Alt+Shift+R
Recording	Pause / Resume	Alt+Shift+P
Recording	Toggle microphone	Alt+Shift+M
Recording	Toggle camera	Alt+Shift+C
Recording	Toggle system audio	Alt+Shift+A
Teleprompter	Show / Hide	Alt+Shift+T
Teleprompter	Pause / Resume	Alt+Shift+O
Teleprompter	Next line	Ctrl+Shift+Right
Teleprompter	Previous line	Ctrl+Shift+Left

Editor shortcut

The preferences schema also contains the editor Play/Pause shortcut, Space, but the Recorder shortcut subview does not display it.

About and updates

Area	Available actions or states
About	View the application version, copy system information, open the changelog, and restart the Welcome Tour.
Update states	Idle, Checking, Available, Downloading, Downloaded, Not available, Error, Unsupported.
Update actions	Check, download when available, copy an error message, and restart only after an update reaches Downloaded.

Stored preference data

The normalized preference schema is version 3. In addition to visible controls, it stores onboarding completion, selected devices, saved background color and gradient presets, and whether the interaction notice was dismissed.

Platform	Preferences file
Windows	%USERPROFILE%\Videos\Beam\user\preferences.json
macOS	~/Movies/Beam/user/preferences.json
Linux	${XDG_VIDEOS_DIR:-~/Videos}/Beam/user/preferences.json

Extra key	Purpose
locale	Selected application language.
screenRegion	Normalized custom recording region.
screenRegionPreset	Last selected region preset.
teleprompterSettings	Shared Teleprompter mode and reader settings.
cameraOverlay	Camera overlay settings shared with the editor.
teleprompterWindow	Teleprompter window state.