VideoScreenRecorder

VideoScreenRecorder can record a video of your screen and save the output file locally on any iOS version.

Features

• Record video of your screen on any iOS version
• Save video locally and consult previous videos for further reuse (upload video to server, see video on the phone, etc.)
• Easily create your "stop recording" button that although seen on screen, will not be recorded in the video

Requirements

• iOS 8.0+
• Xcode 9.0+
• Swift 4.0+

Installation

VideoScreenRecorder is available through CocoaPods. To install it, simply add the following line to your Podfile:

pod 'VideoScreenRecorder'

Usage

Check out the demo app for an example. It contains the following demos: record video, display persisted list of previous videos recorded, display video preview when selected.

Start Recording

The VideoScreenRecorder singleton manager is the Framework's central object. It will handle recording, making sure there are not two videos being recorded simultaneously (returns an error otherwise). Recording a video can be started as follows:

VideoScreenRecorder.shared.startRecording(with: "my_file_name", windowsToSkip: nil) { url, error in
	DispatchQueue.main.async {
		if let error = error {
			// handle error
		}
		// use url
	}
}

The startHandler callback is called as soon as the Framework has successfully started to record video; for instance right after the user has granted the permission. It may never be called if recording doesn't start successfully.

The completionHandler callbak is called if there is an error (possibly immediately upon trying to start recording, e.g. if user denies the permission). It is called when the record completes successfully otherwise.

Note: it is possible to pass an array of UIWindow objects to the windowsToSkip parameter. Every object included in this array will not be recorded in the video. This notably allows to create a "Stop Recording" button that only the user will see on screen at the moment of recording.

Stop Recording

Similarly to startRecording, recording the video can be stopped by calling the following function:

VideoScreenRecorder.shared.stopRecording { url, error in
	DispatchQueue.main.async {
		if let error = error {
			// handle error
		}
		// use url
	}
}

The URL of the generated video will look as follow: file:///var/mobile/Containers/Data/Application/{ApplicationUUID}/Documents/Replays/my_file_name.mp4

How does it work?

The VideoScreenRecorder object is a Facade that will pick the most appropriate / advanced approach to handle screen video recording based on your iOS version.

iOS 11+

Apple provides with the ReplayKit Framework. Available since iOS 9, it is only with the iOS 11 update that the Framework was given the ability to save the recorded videos, get their local URL and reuse them later on (for instance to upload them to a server). Before iOS 11, the video could only be previwed right after it was recorded—it was lost as soon as the user leaves the preview native screen.

If running on iOS 11+, the VideoScreenRecorder facade will use ReplayKit to record the video.

This implementation is based on Giridhar's blog post, and its GitHub repository; see there for more details.

Before iOS 11

Since there was no way to capture the a video of the screen before iOS 11, one common and accepted solution is to record a batch of screenshots, store them in an array to finally encode them to generate a video.

If running on a version of iOS prior to iOS 11, the VideoScreenRecorder facade will choose this method to record the video.

This implementation is based on alskipp's GitHub repository; see there for more details.

Add Unrecorded Views

It is likely that you will want a "Stop" button that will be seen on screen by the user while recording, but that will not be seen on the video file generated. This is achieved by creating a new UIWindow and making it key window.

This window will be passed as parameter of startRecording(with:windowsToSkip:completion:) and be skipped while recording the screen. See how to implement it in the VideoScreenRecorder Example application, file StopVideoRecordingWindow 👌

License

VideoScreenRecorder is available under the MIT license. See the LICENSE file for more info.