A lot of people say to me, “I wish iChat can record video conversations.” I reply, “iChat does offer it since the introduction of Leopard.” Granted, the recording feature is one of the most overlooked feature.
Although Apple amazes us at their interface design stuff, the recording feature seems to fail in that area (but not miserably :D) for two reasons:
1) It’s hidden and people look all over for it and often overlook it.
2) After the recording is done, people can’t find where the clip is.
Fret not, I’ll get to the bottom of this and hopefully you’ll find this feature useful when needed. It would be awesome for class projects, ASL practice and whatnots — or even to record a verbal agreement.
Now, let’s get started…
First, you need to establish a video conference session with someone and select Record Chat under the Video menu for iChat as shown below:
(yes, you can also hide your self-view “Hide Local Video” as you can see in the screenshot — another common asked question)
It will not record immediately because the far party must accept to be recorded. Here is what the other end will see:
After a recording acceptance, you will see a red flashing icon on the top-left corner of the video.
To end recording, go back to the Video menu and select Stop Recording as shown below:
Now comes the next part where it confuses people. After the recording has stopped, people are quick to look for the clip.
They can’t find it anywhere. Not even on the desktop. No where to be found.
You will need to close your video conferencing session before you are able to see the recorded clip. I know, that doesn’t make sense but that’s the way the iChat team designed it.
Ok, but where would it be?
It is saved in iTunes under the Playlist in iChat Chats.
Your turn now, give it a spin.
Jul 31, 2009I refuse to believe the video isn’t found anywhere but in iTunes. The file has to be somewhere, since iTunes recognizes it. I’m sure you’ve tried spotlighting the file name as it appears in iTunes? Maybe try finding it via Terminal?
Anyway, I look forward to Snow Leopard. iChat will use two-thirds less bandwidth for video conferencing. http://www.apple.com/macosx/refinements/enhancements-refinements.html#ichat
Jul 31, 2009@Adam – that’s correct. 10.5 or better for both party is the minimum requirement.
Jul 31, 2009Ohhhhh!!!!! Another Mac user!!!! Even though I’ve read your blog on and off until I just got my spanking new MacBook Pro almost three weeks ago. Now I just subscribed to your blog so I can keep the tabs on anything new about Mac.
Yeah, I notice there is video record in iChat when I was exploring all new features. That is a cool feature.
There are so many surprising features to discover all the time, hahaha.
I do own both PC and Mac after years of being PC/PC based laptops since ’93 until three weeks ago. Once all of PCs die, we’ll go in fully Mac computers/laptops one day.
Insane Misha :D
Aug 1, 2009Tayler,
I got to agree with you. You got to have a file somewhere on your hard drive after the iChat recording is done. Can use the spotlight to find it or even go to the Mac HD and click “today” under ‘searching for’ list.
Aug 5, 2009JFLMad,
Yes. The path is:
YourHardrive/Users/yourhomeaccount/Music/iTunes/iTunes Music/Movies
Aug 15, 2009I cant find the recorded chat? I went through iTunes.. and its nowhere to be found.. why would they make it so difficult to find, if they offer such a great feature?
Aug 29, 2009The recorded audio and video chats show up in your iChats folder within your Documents folder after quitting iChat. Apple should have mentioned that.
Jan 12, 2010I dont have mine in iTunes or my iChat folder :(
Sorry, comments are closed.
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12:19 am
It should be noted that the iChat recording feature only works if both users are running OS X 10.5 (that’s my experience).