How to make software tutorial videos for your help center

Updated 15 October 2026

This is for software companies without a video team: the founder, support lead or product manager who has been asked to “add some videos to the help center”. A help center video has a harder job than a demo. It has to make sense to a stranger who arrived with a problem, inside a narrow article, months after you recorded it.

What your customers see inside an article

A help article’s text column is narrow, often 700 to 800 pixels wide on a laptop. Shown 720 pixels wide, a recording of a 1920-pixel screen is shrunk to about 37% of its size, so a 14-pixel label becomes about 5 pixels tall. On a phone it is smaller still. Here is the same recording twice. Before is a plain screen capture. After is what ScreenCursor made from it, with a zoom on each click, untouched by hand.

The customer sees which button you pressed and what changed, at a size they can read.

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1. Choose the first videos to make

Start with your support inbox, not your feature list. The questions customers already ask are the ones a video will answer most often.

• Pull the ten most common questions from your help desk’s tags, or read through one week of tickets. Those are your first ten videos.
• Then the first day: the things a new user has to do before the product is any use to them, such as connecting an account or inviting a teammate.
• One task per video, titled the way customers ask it: “Export invoices to a spreadsheet”, not “Reporting overview”. The same words become the article’s title and the file name, so a customer searching your help center finds it in their own words.

Different questions need different videos:

These are the lengths we work to, not figures from a study. A video that needs longer is usually two videos.

2. Set up a demo account

Help center videos are public and get shared, so record in an account made for them, never in a real customer’s.

• Fill it with realistic, made-up data. A list of three believable customers with sensible amounts teaches more than an empty screen or “test test 123”.
• Use the same account for every video, so the same names and numbers appear throughout and the videos feel like one set.
• Record as the role your reader has. An admin sees buttons a regular user does not. If a task needs admin rights, say so at the start of the video.
• Put it back afterwards. If a task creates or deletes something, undo it, so the next video starts from the same place.

Recording in a client’s system instead? Our guide to recording a software walkthrough for clients covers keeping their data off camera.

3. Give every video the same look

Twenty videos that look alike read as one product. Twenty that look different read as twenty afternoons. Decide the look once, write it down, and use it every time.

• The same window size and text size. Keep the browser window the same size for every recording, and press Ctrl and + on Windows, or Cmd and + on a Mac, once or twice, so the text is bigger than you would use yourself.
• A clean browser. Close the other tabs and hide the bookmarks bar with Ctrl+Shift+B on Windows or Cmd+Shift+B on a Mac.
• The same frame around it. In ScreenCursor’s editor, choose a Background, a Browser frame, the Padding and Corners, and an Aspect ratio of 16:9, which suits a help article. Set them the same way for each video.
• No interruptions. Turn on Do Not Disturb and quit Slack and your email app, so no message preview lands in a video that will stay online for months.

4. Record one task per video

Before you record, write the clicks down, one per line, with the sentence you will say during each. It takes a few minutes and keeps the video to one task. Then, with ScreenCursor:

1. Click the ScreenCursor icon in Chrome’s toolbar. If you cannot see it, click the puzzle-piece icon and pin ScreenCursor.
2. Turn on Microphone. For a quick answer without a voice, leave it off.
3. Click Choose screen…, pick the tab with your product, and click Share.
4. The first time, Chrome asks about your microphone. Choose Allow while visiting the site and it will not ask again.
5. Do the task from your list, talking as you go.
6. To stop, click the ScreenCursor icon again. The editor opens with a zoom already placed on every click, drag and keystroke.

How to talk through it

• Start where the customer starts, usually the screen they see after logging in, and say in one sentence what the video will show.
• Read each button’s label as you click it, so the customer can find it again with the video closed.
• Say why, not only what. “Turn on reminders so unpaid invoices chase themselves” teaches more than “click the toggle”.
• Click, then keep still for a second. The zoom settles, and the viewer sees what changed.
• Recording a batch? Export each video before you record the next one. ScreenCursor keeps only your latest recording, so a new take replaces the last.

5. Edit and export

A help center video needs a few quick edits, then an export.

Check the zooms

Play it through once. Select a zoom you do not want and press Delete, or press Z to add one where the playhead is. To aim a zoom at the field that matters, like a total or a status, right-click it and choose Zoom focus point, then drag the box over it. How deep and how long a zoom should be is in our guide on how to zoom in on a screen recording.

Cut the fumbles and the waiting

Press S to split the clip at the playhead and delete the bad attempts. For a page that loads or a file that uploads, right-click the clip and choose a faster Playback speed, up to 4×, instead of cutting it: the customer should see that something happens there.

Leave out the intro and the music

The customer arrived from a search with a problem. The first second should already show the product, and a voice explaining it is easier to follow with no music under it.

Export

Export an MP4 at 1080p and 30 fps. Software has little motion, so 60 fps makes a bigger file without looking better. The video saves to your computer, with no watermark. Name the file after the article, such as export-invoices-to-a-spreadsheet.mp4, so you can find it again when the screen changes.

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6. Put the video in its help article

Upload the MP4 to a video host and embed it, rather than attaching the file to the article. A host makes smaller copies for phones and slow connections, and help center editors are built for it: Zendesk’s and Intercom’s article editors both embed videos from YouTube, Vimeo and Wistia.

• YouTube is free, and a public video can also bring people in through YouTube and Google search. It makes automatic captions, which you should check in YouTube Studio. You cannot swap the file behind a YouTube video, so an updated version is a new upload and a new embed.
• Vimeo and Wistia can replace the file behind a video and keep its link and embed code, so a re-recorded video shows up in every article at once. Check which of their plans include it.

Then, in the article:

• Put the video at the top, under a one-line summary of the task.
• Keep the written steps under it. Search engines and AI assistants read the text, customers skim it for the one step they need, and not everyone can play sound.
• Add captions. ScreenCursor does not make them. Use YouTube’s automatic captions once you have checked them, or upload a caption file to your host.
• On YouTube, add chapters to anything over a few minutes. Put timestamps with titles in the description: the first at 00:00, at least three in order, and each chapter at least 10 seconds long.

7. Keep the videos current

A video of an old screen can confuse a customer more than no video at all. One task per video is what keeps this cheap: a change to one screen means one short video to record again, not a long one.

• Keep a list of every video: its article, the screens it shows and the date you recorded it. A spreadsheet is enough.
• After each release, check the list against what changed and record again only the videos that show a changed screen. With the same demo account and the look you wrote down, the new version matches the rest.
• Can’t record it again this week? Hide the video and leave the written steps until you can.

Making a video that sells rather than teaches? Our guide on how to make a product demo video covers that kind.

Common questions

How long should a software tutorial video be?

Long enough to show one task from start to finish. We aim for one to three minutes for most tasks, 10 to 30 seconds for a quick answer such as where a setting is, and three to five minutes for a getting-started tour. If a tutorial runs past five minutes, it usually covers two tasks, and two short videos are easier to find and cheaper to update than one long one.

Where should I host help center videos?

On a video host, embedded in the article, rather than as a file uploaded into it. A host makes smaller copies of the video for phones and slow connections. Zendesk’s and Intercom’s article editors both embed videos from YouTube, Vimeo and Wistia. YouTube is free and makes automatic captions, and a public video can also be found through YouTube and Google search. Vimeo and Wistia can replace the file behind a video and keep its link and embed, which helps when your product changes.

Do tutorial videos replace written help articles?

No. Put the video at the top of the article and keep the written steps under it. Search engines and AI assistants read the text, customers skim it for the one step they need, and not everyone can play sound. The video is for the people who would rather watch.

Should help center videos have narration?

For a task with more than a few clicks, yes. Say why each step matters and read each button’s label as you click it, so the viewer can find it again. A quick answer of 10 to 30 seconds works without a voice, because the zoom already shows where to click. Add captions to narrated videos for people watching with the sound off.

How do I keep tutorial videos up to date when the product changes?

Make one video per task, keep a list of the screens each video shows, and after each release re-record only the videos that show a changed screen. Vimeo and Wistia can replace the file behind a video and keep its link and embed, so the new version appears in every article at once. On YouTube, upload the new version and change the embed in the article.

How do I add chapters to a YouTube tutorial?

Add timestamps with titles to the video’s description in YouTube Studio. The first timestamp must be 00:00, there must be at least three of them in ascending order, and each chapter must be at least 10 seconds long. Name each chapter after a step of the task.

What is the best screen recorder for software tutorial videos?

One that keeps small interface text readable after the video is shrunk into a help article, which in practice means zooming in on each click. ScreenCursor, which we make, does that by itself in Chrome on Windows, Mac and Linux, placing a zoom on every click, drag and keystroke, and it never uploads your recording. Our comparison of auto-zoom screen recorders at https://screencursor.com/best-auto-zoom-screen-recorders covers the other options.

Does ScreenCursor add captions?

No. ScreenCursor records, zooms, edits and exports an MP4 without captions. If you host the video on YouTube, it makes automatic captions that you can check and correct in YouTube Studio, and most video hosts accept a caption file you make yourself.

Can I record tutorials of a desktop app?

Yes. ScreenCursor records a browser tab, a window or the whole screen. Zooms place themselves for clicks in web pages in Chrome, so a web app gets them automatically. In a desktop app ScreenCursor records the screen but cannot see the clicks, so you aim those zooms yourself with Zoom focus point in the editor.