Open-source, free screen and audio recording application for Windows 11

Sideo is a lightweight, offline screen recording application designed to provide silent recording capabilities that remain undetected during video calls. It serves as an optimized wrapper around FFmpeg, designed for reliable operation on low-end hardware while maintaining professional recording quality.

• Offline Operation: No internet connectivity required
• Silent Recording: Undetectable during video calls
• Local Storage: All recordings saved to configurable local paths
• Performance Optimized: Designed for low-resource systems
• Reliability First: MKV default format with optional MP4 post-processing

• 🎥 Screen Recording: Full desktop, region, or specific window capture
• 🎵 Audio Capture: System audio, microphone, or mixed sources
• 🎛️ Quality Profiles: Low/Medium/High presets optimized for different hardware
• ⚙️ Hardware Acceleration: Automatic detection of NVIDIA/Intel/AMD encoders
• 📁 Flexible Output: Configurable output paths and file naming
• 🔥 System Tray: Minimal, non-intrusive interface
• ⌨️ Global Hotkeys: Quick start/stop recording
• 🛡️ Safety Controls: Disk space monitoring, duration limits
• 📂 Segmentation: Split long recordings into manageable files

• 🤖 AI Transcription: Local speech-to-text using Whisper.cpp
• 📝 Content Summarization: Generate summaries using local LLMs
• 🔒 Full Privacy: All AI processing happens offline

• Framework: Electron with TypeScript
• Frontend: React 18.2.0 with TypeScript 5.2.2
• UI Components: shadcn/ui (Radix UI primitives)
• Styling: Tailwind CSS 3.4+ with PostCSS
• Icons: Lucide React
• Video Processing: FFmpeg (external binary)
• Audio Processing: DirectShow (Windows)
• Configuration: electron-store (JSON-based)
• Build System: Vite 4.4.9 + electron-builder 24.6.4
• Testing: Jest 29.7.0 with ts-jest
• Linting: ESLint 8.49.0 with TypeScript ESLint

shadcn/ui Integration: The project uses shadcn/ui as the primary component library, providing:

• Accessible, unstyled UI primitives from Radix UI
• Consistent design system with Tailwind CSS
• Dark mode support (configurable)
• Professional, modern interface components
• Type-safe component props with TypeScript

Key UI Components:

• Button, Card, Badge - Core interface elements
• Tabs, Select, Switch - Settings interface
• Dialog, Tooltip, Progress - Interactive elements
• Label, Input, Checkbox - Form controls

Sideo/
├── src/
│   ├── main/              # Electron main process
│   │   ├── main.ts        # Application entry point
│   │   └── preload.ts     # Secure IPC bridge
│   └── renderer/          # React frontend
│       ├── src/
│       │   ├── components/    # React components
│       │   │   ├── ui/        # shadcn/ui components
│       │   │   └── tabs/      # Settings tabs
│       │   ├── lib/           # Utilities & helpers
│       │   └── App.tsx       # Main application
│       └── index.html
├── assets/                # Icons and resources
├── scripts/               # Build and utility scripts
├── dist/                  # Compiled output
├── release/               # Distribution packages
├── tailwind.config.js     # Tailwind CSS configuration
├── components.json        # shadcn/ui configuration
└── postcss.config.js      # PostCSS configuration

• Node.js 18+
• Windows 11 (primary target)
• FFmpeg binary (auto-detected or manually configured)

1. Clone the repository

   git clone https://github.com/yourusername/sideo.git
   cd sideo

2. Install dependencies

   npm install

3. Start development server

   npm start

4. Build for production

   npm run build
   npm run electron:dist

Sideo requires FFmpeg for video processing. You can:

1. Download from official site: Place ffmpeg.exe in C:\ffmpeg\bin\
2. Use package manager: winget install ffmpeg
3. Configure path: Set custom path in Advanced Settings

Settings are stored in JSON format at:

%APPDATA%\Sideo\config.json

1. NVIDIA: h264_nvenc (CUDA)
2. Intel: h264_qsv (Quick Sync)
3. AMD: h264_amf (AMF)
4. Fallback: libx264 (CPU)

1. Launch Sideo (starts in system tray)
2. Right-click tray icon → "Start Recording"
3. Or press Ctrl+Alt+R hotkey
4. Record your content
5. Press hotkey again or tray menu to stop

┌─ Sideo ─────────────────┐
├─ ● Start Recording      │
├─ ■ Stop Recording       │
├─ ─────────────────────  │
├─ Profile: Medium ▸      │
├─ ─────────────────────  │
├─ ⚠ Transcribe Video    │ (disabled in v0.1)
├─ ⚠ Summarize Video     │ (disabled in v0.1)
├─ ─────────────────────  │
├─ Open Settings          │
├─ Open Recordings Folder │
├─ ─────────────────────  │
└─ Exit                   │

• General: Output folder, file naming, hotkeys
• Video: Quality, encoder selection, region capture
• Audio: Device selection, mixing, quality
• Profiles: Quality preset management
• AI Features: Transcription and summarization (coming soon)
• Advanced: FFmpeg path, logging, safety limits

# Unit tests
npm test

# Watch mode
npm run test:watch

# Type checking
npm run type-check

# Linting
npm run lint

• Configuration management
• FFmpeg command building
• Device detection and validation
• Recording session management
• UI component functionality

Self-contained executable with all dependencies included.

# Development build
npm run build

# Portable package (recommended)
npm run electron:pack

# Alternative electron-builder (if code signing issues resolved)
npm run electron:pack-builder

# Check build requirements
npm run check:build

# Production release scripts
npm run build:release
npm run build:release:portable
npm run build:release:installer

• The project includes workarounds for Windows symbolic link creation issues during packaging
• Code signing is disabled by default for development builds
• FFmpeg binary is automatically included in the portable package
• Build output is saved to the release/ directory

Build Issues on Windows:

• If you encounter "symbolic link creation" errors during packaging, use npm run electron:pack instead of electron-builder directly
• Ensure Windows Developer Mode is enabled for symbolic link support (optional)
• Clear electron-builder cache if builds fail: Remove-Item -Path "$env:LOCALAPPDATA\electron-builder\Cache" -Recurse -Force

FFmpeg Not Found:

• Download FFmpeg from official site
• Place ffmpeg.exe in C:\ffmpeg\bin\ or configure custom path in Advanced Settings
• Verify FFmpeg is accessible: ffmpeg -version

• Offline First: No internet connectivity required
• Local Processing: All recording and future AI features run locally
• No Telemetry: No usage data collection
• Open Source: Full transparency of functionality
• Silent Mode: Designed to be undetectable during video calls

We welcome contributions! Please see our Contributing Guidelines.

1. Fork the repository
2. Create a feature branch
3. Make your changes
4. Add tests for new functionality
5. Submit a pull request

• Components use shadcn/ui with Tailwind CSS for styling
• Follow the existing component patterns in src/renderer/src/components/
• Use Lucide React for icons: import { IconName } from 'lucide-react'
• Maintain accessibility with Radix UI primitives
• Test components in both light and dark modes

• Use GitHub Issues for bug reports
• Include system information and logs
• Provide steps to reproduce

• Basic screen recording
• Audio capture and mixing
• Quality profiles
• System tray interface
• Settings management
• shadcn/ui component integration
• Tailwind CSS styling system
• Build process optimization
• Hardware encoder detection
• Recording session management
• Performance monitoring

• Local speech transcription (Whisper.cpp)
• Content summarization (Local LLMs)
• Batch processing workflows
• Advanced export options

• Multi-monitor support
• Advanced region selection
• Live streaming capabilities
• Plugin system

This project is licensed under the MIT License - see the LICENSE file for details.

• FFmpeg Team - For the powerful video processing engine
• Electron Team - For the cross-platform framework
• shadcn - For the excellent UI component library
• Radix UI Team - For accessible, unstyled UI primitives
• Tailwind CSS Team - For the utility-first CSS framework
• Lucide - For the beautiful icon library
• OpenAI Whisper - For offline speech recognition
• Open Source Community - For inspiration and tools

• Documentation: GitHub Wiki
• Issues: GitHub Issues
• Discussions: GitHub Discussions

Made with ❤️ for the open source community

Sideo - Silent, Reliable, Offline Screen Recording