how to make screen recording time lapse while you work

how to make screen recording time lapse: capture a frame every few seconds while you work, then play it back fast. underway's watch me work does it for you, catching your screen every three seconds, keeping the moments you flag at full speed, and letting you talk over it on camera.

the short version

there is a new kind of episode in underway: watch me work.

you pick the windows you are working in, box what people may see in each, and get on with your day. underway catches your screen once every three seconds for as long as you work. when you finish it becomes a time-lapse, you choose how long it runs, and you record yourself in front of it with your camera in a bubble, talking about it and pointing at it as it plays. the way creators talk in front of a video on instagram.

why this exists

most build-in-public posts show the result. the shipped feature, the new page, the number that went up. the part that took the hours, the bit people would actually learn from, never makes it in, because nobody can film four hours and nobody would watch four hours.

and some work only makes sense as a process. three ai agents building three parts of the same thing at once. a design that went through nine versions. a bug hunt that went round in circles before it landed. the outcome is a screenshot. the process is the story.

how to make a screen recording time lapse in underway

• when you set up an episode, pick on camera, then watch me work, and set up watch me work
• add a window: a claude window, an editor, a terminal, a dashboard. up to four, side by side or in a grid. to show several agents, open each in its own window first
• box what people may see in each one. everything outside the boxes is frosted before it is recorded
• start watching me work, and work. nothing records your voice or your face
• when something happens, press mark this (or m): the next thirty seconds of your screen are kept at full speed
• stop and finish, then make the time-lapse

then you talk in front of it

• set how long the sped-up screen runs: three hours as forty-five seconds, a minute, two minutes
• set how many seconds each flag plays at real time
• preview it, then record my take: the time-lapse plays behind you, slowing at each flag, your camera in a bubble in the corner
• use this take, or record it again. change the length later and you record the take again, so your pointing always matches

the episode is made from your take like any other: your title look, your intro, your captions lit word by word, your bubble, your outro, with the time-lapse behind you exactly as it played and a clock counting the real hours. it is numbered and it keeps your streak.

why it costs so little

a frame every three seconds is a few thousand pictures, mostly of a screen that barely changed, which compresses to almost nothing. it goes up to your account in small pieces as you work, so if the tab closes at hour three you lose a minute, not the morning. the flags are kept at full speed, because they are the bits that matter.

where it works

chrome or edge on a computer. the phone cannot share its screen, so watch me work is not on the phone. the finished episode shows on the phone like any other.

start a series with 14 days free. start free.