catchpoint / webpagetest.xrecord

Console app for capturing video on OS X (particularly from iOS devices)

xrecord - Capture video on OS X from the command line (including iOS devices)

System Requirements

To record from iOS it requires an iOS 8.x+ device connected with a lightning connector and OS X Yosemite (10.10) or later.

Getting started

brew install coming soon.  In the meantime, use the xrecord binary from the /bin directory

Command line

Help

$ xrecord --help

Options

• -l, --list: List available capture devices.
• -n, --name: Device Name.
• -i, --id: Device ID.
• -o, --out: Output File.
• -f, --force: Overwrite existing files.
• -q, --quicktime: Start QuickTime in the background (necessary for iOS recording).
• -t, --time: Recording time in seconds (records until stopped if not specified).
• -u, --quality: Recoding quality (low, medium, high, photo - defaults to high).
• -d, --debug: Display debugging info to stderr.
• -h, --help: Prints a help message.

Examples

List available capture devices

$ xrecord --quicktime --list
Available capture devices:
AppleHDAEngineInput:1B,0,1,0:1: Built-in Microphone
5f355a5b183b2d2d7ba91dcfadd4c14b98504642: iPhone
CC2437519T1F6VVDH: FaceTime HD Camera

Record video from iPhone

$ xrecord --quicktime --name="iPhone" --out="/Users/blah/video/iphone.mp4" --force
Recording started.  Hit ctrl-C to stop.
Done

Known Issues

• Start of actual recording can lag by up to 3 seconds and may truncate at the end. Leave some time on either end of the activity being recorded for capture lag.
• Screen orientation changes stops video capture

webpagetest.xrecord's Issues

Support latest xcode 8 + iOS 9, iOS10

Hi,

This tool seems can't find iOS9 or iOS10 related simulator or device?
Can you help on this?

Thanks
Luis

Can't start recording and still notice "Device not found"

aaa@C12FDP9YKD7Q ~ % ideviceinfo -k ProductVersion
13.6
aaa@C12FDP9YKD7Q ~ %
aaa@C12FDP9YKD7Q ~ % ideviceinfo -k ProductType
iPhone12,1
aaa@C12FDP9YKD7Q ~ %
aaa@C12FDP9YKD7Q ~ % xrecord --quicktime --list
Available capture devices:
zoom.us.zoomaudiodevice.001: ZoomAudioDevice
BuiltInMicrophoneDevice: MacBook Pro Microphone
0x8020000005ac8514: FaceTime HD Camera (Built-In)
aaa@C12FDP9YKD7Q ~ %
aaa@C12FDP9YKD7Q ~ % xrecord --quicktime --name="iPhone" --out="/Users/aaa/output.mp4" --force
Device not found
aaa@C12FDP9YKD7Q ~ %
aaa@C12FDP9YKD7Q ~ % xrecord --quicktime --id="00008030-001670E81EAB802A" --out="/Users/aaa/output.mp4" --force
Device not found
aaa@C12FDP9YKD7Q ~ %

The Mac system is 11.6.4 . My device is iPhone11 with 13.6, and I have try it with iPhone 7. It still so. I don't know how to deal with it. Thanks a lot.

Add a stop option

Add a stop option to stop the recording. Will be useful for those who wants to stop recording in command line

how to set config tor run xrecord file in any path

@pmeenan @almog-sears
I want to run script in any path so I set config in .bash_profile and active config:
export XRECORD_PATH=/Users/zhaoxu/xrecord/xrecord/bin
export PATH=$PATH:$XRECORD_PATH

however, the script throw excetpion when I run xrecord -l:

How to limit the output mp4 file zsize?

Hi @pmeenan ,

Thanks for your useful tool that can help record iOS device.

But I found that the output mp4 file is tool large(40s=50MB), if there is a way to limit the output file size within the commandline parameter?

Thanks
Luis

device discover

@pmeenan
when I typed command as you said "./xrecord --quicktime --list" , I can find my iphone device (already connected to my mac), only when I opened quicktime app.

multiple device/recordings support

I suspected QT would limit to one recording at a time, but hadn't tested it yet. I saw the changes in commit 823d365d3a to actively limit concurrent recordings.

Are you aware of any workarounds or alternatives?

Using IntelliJ IDEA command line tool, xrecord process is killed

xrecord --quicktime --name="FaceTime HD Camera" --out="test.mp4" --debug

In the intelliJ IDEA command line tool, there are no exceptions when entering other commands of xrecord.

When using the iTerm tool, xrecord normally records videos.

Cannot find Device error

Is there a way to AUTOMATICALLY find the device when the device is not found? Without having to manually open QuickTime?

Terminating app due to uncaught exception 'NSInvalidArgumentException', reason: 'launch path not accessible'

Thanks for creating this -- just tried running it and it fails though, any ideas?

Using MacOS Sierra 10.12.6 (16G1114)

using binary from bin folder and received the error below. "-h" does show help output, but -l or --list fail. Xcode is installed and update to date.

xrecord -l
2018-02-08 14:48:58.010 xrecord[23911:21927265] *** Terminating app due to uncaught exception 'NSInvalidArgumentException', reason: 'launch path not accessible'
*** First throw call stack:
(
0 CoreFoundation 0x00007fffbc0972cb __exceptionPreprocess + 171
1 libobjc.A.dylib 0x00007fffd0eae48d objc_exception_throw + 48
2 CoreFoundation 0x00007fffbc115c3d +[NSException raise:format:] + 205
3 Foundation 0x00007fffbdabfa0e -[NSConcreteTask launchWithDictionary:] + 414
4 xrecord 0x000000010d204164 xrecord + 2601316
5 libdyld.dylib 0x00007fffd1794235 start + 1
6 ??? 0x0000000000000002 0x0 + 2
)
libc++abi.dylib: terminating with uncaught exception of type NSException

Can I only record the video stream on the phone without audio?

As I notice QuickTime provides separate movie recording and audio recording functions. Instead for movie, shall I get any API that support video stream recording only? I mean without pulling out the audio stream into Mac.

ssh run fail

nohup ./xrecord --quicktime -i d508515dc9d039cecaed27d176de4f37b2fe048f -o test.mp4 --force --debug >out & works fine local while run this command form remote , it fails.
The out file shows
2019-12-20 16:48:59.999 xrecord[92230:927001] Starting capture....
[1]+ Killed: 9 nohup ./xrecord --quicktime -i d508515dc9d039cecaed27d176de4f37b2fe048f -o test.mp4 --force --debug > out