How to record gameplay on Steam Deck

Valve has finally begun rolling out official gameplay recording to the Steam Deck, offering multiple ways to share game footage in just a few steps. Here’s how to enable the feature, how it works, and what you can expect from the shots.

Why record your gameplay?

There are many reasons to record your gameplay footage, whether it’s for the community, to help with troubleshooting, or to create your own content.

Posting gameplay clips online is probably the main reason, as sharing entertaining or impressive gameplay moments is a great way to reach other fans. If you’re a creator, you can create video compilations of your clips and show others your gameplay, which can help grow your audience.

The other aspect is the troubleshooting aspect, where gameplay footage can also be used to point out bugs, bugs, crashes, or other technical issues in some games. Using video guides, you can submit evidence of these issues to developers or the game community which may lead to patches or tips to address the issues.

Gameplay snapshots can be useful for routing in games too, as you can refer to them to remember where to go or what to do in certain parts of your games.

Record gameplay locally with SteamOS

SteamOS has finally added a way to record gameplay locally, even in Game Mode, and all you have to do is toggle a specific setting.

Right now, you have to sign up for the beta features to be able to use them, which is easy to do. Go to your settings by pressing the “Steam” button on your Steam Deck and going to Settings > System > Beta Sharing > Beta and selecting Prompt to Restart Deck.

Once you reboot, go back to Settings and select the newly created Game Recording section to select your preferred recording method. The default setting will automatically save the last two hours of gameplay for you to review later, which Steam later deletes on its own if you don’t save it.

Alternatively, you can set your Steam Deck to record gameplay when a specific keystroke is pressed, which automatically correlates with Ctrl+F11. You can enter this command by opening the virtual keyboard with the Steam +

Press the “Steam” button again and go to Settings > Controller and select “Edit” in the “Desktop Layout” option at the bottom. Select Edit Layout > Buttons, then scroll to the bottom where the menu button options appear and select Change Action Set in Command 2.

You will find the option to toggle manual logging under the System tab. You can remap this to any button you wish, but I recommend the right menu button as it is the easiest to access and only has one other function.

Where do your recordings go?

Gameplay recordings are automatically stored in the Media section of the Steam Deck, the same place screenshots are saved. You can find it by pressing the “Steam” button and selecting the “Media” option, which will automatically show the most recent screenshots and recordings first.

From here, you can view, edit, and save your clips permanently. You can also create timestamps of relevant moments by tagging them to ensure you only share relevant parts of your footage. You can create these items in-game as well by pressing Steam + Y at the same time while enabling game recording.

Currently, Steam’s beta recording feature will not automatically sync your recordings to your Steam cloud, so they will only be accessible from the Deck itself unless you move them.

Fortunately, Steam has a built-in way to send videos to the Steam client on your computer remotely. All you have to do is select the scissors icon located at the bottom right of the recording, select the clip you want to save with tags and press the download button where it will automatically detect the Steam client on your computer and send it there for two days.

From there, you can save it permanently to your media folder. You can also transfer your files from Steam Deck using a USB-C flash drive or other easy ways.

How to record screen in desktop mode

If you want to record footage in desktop mode, you’ll have to use a third-party app, since the game recording feature only works when you’re running a game. Fortunately, there are a few different apps that will let you do this, which you can install from Steam Deck’s Discovery app with a simple search.

I recommend using the GPU Screen Recorder app, which records your entire screen, regardless of what’s currently displayed on it.

To find it, switch to desktop mode by holding down the power button and selecting “Desktop mode.” After restarting, click on the “Discover” icon at the bottom of the screen and find “GPU Screen Recorder”, click on it, and choose “Install”.

After the installer sets up the app for you, you can click the drop-down menu to select the app and screen you want to record. It will then capture anything that is displayed on your screen, no matter what it is.

Alternatively, you can always set up your Steam Deck on a docking station to display on your screen via an HDMI connection and record with a capture card. This will also require a third-party application like OBS, but will eliminate the need to transfer files after the fact or sign up for trial features.

Since the feature is still in beta, the Media tab doesn’t appear to display metadata for each video or information about the recording resolution or frame rate. However, transferring it to an external device ensures that most, if not all, recordings will output at the Steam Deck’s native 1280 x 800 resolution.

In its current state, the recording feature will also capture pop-ups and items that may be part of SteamOS or the Steam UI rather than the game itself. This means that Snaps will capture notifications that friends are online or achievement pop-ups. If you don’t want to share this with others, you may want to turn them off or edit them.

It should be noted that these features are still in beta and subject to change before Valve officially rolls them out as part of SteamOS. As such, the screen recorder has some minor issues, such as difficulty recording non-Steam games and the inability to display certain information.

If you don’t want to deal with the potential issues that come with experimental features, a SteamOS screen recorder will likely be implemented in the near future as an official feature. Soon, you’ll be able to share your Steam Deck gameplay with anyone almost instantly just like you do on Nintendo Switch.