Saving clips

Clink keeps the last stretch of your screen and audio in memory. Press the clip hotkey and it writes that stretch to an MP4 file. Nothing is written to disk until you save.

How it works

Clink captures one whole monitor, not a single window. Pick the monitor on the Capture tab by clicking it on the small monitor map. On an HDR display, Clink tone-maps the picture for normal playback.

Press Alt C to save a clip. This is the main hotkey, and it always saves the full replay. You can also press Clip now on the Capture tab, or use Clip now in the tray menu.

If nothing is recording, Clink plays an error sound instead of the click and shows Clip not saved with the reason, for example "Recording is paused" or "Not recording: waiting for a game". The sound and the notice appear only when the Clink window isn't in front. The Click sound checkbox turns the click off, and the error sound follows it.

Hotkeys

Under Hotkeys on the Capture tab, Add hotkey adds a row. Each row has an action:

• Clip (a new row starts with a shorter length of 30, 15, 10 or 5 seconds)
• Pause / resume
• Share last clip
• Start / stop recording
• Take screenshot
• Edit last screenshot

Quality options

These are on the Capture tab, in the CAPTURING card.

Under the Replay length slider, Clink shows the estimated size per minute and per clip, and the memory the buffer uses. A long replay at a high bitrate takes a lot of RAM, and Clink may limit the slider to what your PC can hold.

Codecs

• H.264 plays everywhere, including inline on Discord and in every browser. Files are the biggest.
• HEVC makes files about 40% smaller at the same quality. Discord and Chrome may not play it inline. It suits local storage.
• AV1 makes the smallest files, but needs a GPU that can encode it (RTX 40, RX 7000 or Arc) and a recent player. It is experimental.

Codecs your GPU can't encode are listed but turned off, with a reason. H.264 hardware encoders stop at 4096 pixels per side. A wider capture, such as 5120x1440 at Native, needs HEVC or AV1; Clink switches to HEVC automatically.

Size target

Pick a target and Clink lowers the bitrate only as much as needed so a clip of your full replay length fits. It never raises the bitrate.

Files and names

Clips are MP4 files with one video track and your audio tracks. They are saved to Videos\Clink unless you change Local clips folder (clips are always written here first) on the Clips tab.

The name is the game, then the date and time: Game name 2025-01-31 21-04-05.mp4. If Clink doesn't know the game, the name starts with "Clip". A repeated name gets (2), (3) and so on.

Game detection

The default mode is Only while a game or custom app is running. Clink checks once a second. Something counts as a game when:

• a fullscreen or borderless window covers the captured monitor,
• a window belongs to a program installed in a known game-library folder (Steam, Epic, Riot, Battle.net, Ubisoft, EA, GOG, Xbox and Rockstar folders), or
• the program is on your Custom apps list.

Game launchers and helpers are ignored. When the game closes, Clink waits 5 seconds and then stops. If your game isn't detected, add it under Capture, Recording, Custom apps: press Add or choose it from the list of running apps. Choose Always (whenever Clink runs) to record all the time.

Pause and resume

Choose Pause recording in the tray menu, or use a Pause / resume hotkey. Pausing stops the replay buffer, so you can't save clips until you resume. The tray item then reads Resume recording.

Status

The header on the Capture tab shows what Clink is doing: "Waiting for a game…", "Recording · " and the game, "Paused", "Error", and similar.

To see it on screen, turn on Status dot on the captured monitor on the Alerts tab. It is a small click-through dot: green when recording, amber when waiting for a game, red for an error or a manual recording, and grey when paused. It is off by default.

Trim a clip

A trim is saved next to the original as name (trim).mp4, then (trim 2), (trim 3) and so on. A trim of an archived clip, or of a clip outside the clips folder, is saved in the local clips folder instead. Tick Replace original to replace the original instead. If the original can't be replaced, for example because it is in use, Clink saves the trim as a new file.

Trimmed clips sit under their source clip in the library, and the Trimmed filter shows only them.

The library

The library is a pane on the right when the Clink window is at least 900 pixels wide. In a narrower window it is the last tab, Library.

• The top row switches between Clips and Screenshots. It is hidden if only one of them is turned on.
• The second row switches between Local (files on this PC) and Shared (things you shared to Copium).
• Each clip row has Trim, a share button, Show in folder and Delete. Click a clip to play it.

Deleted clips go to the Recycle Bin. See Deleting clips.