How do I make a step-by-step guide from a screen recording on iPhone or iPad?

Record the task once

Get the example ready first. Pick one task with a clear start and finish, use sample data where you can, and turn on Do Not Disturb so no notification lands mid-recording. You can switch it on from the Focus control in Control Center (Apple’s Focus instructions).

Then record it one of two ways:

• From Control Center. Tap the Record button, wait for the three-second countdown, and do the task. Stop from the button at the top of the screen. The recording lands in Photos, and in Walkthru you choose Import a recording. Apple’s screen recording guide covers iPhone and iPad, including how to add the button if Control Center doesn’t show it.
• From Walkthru. Choose Record this device, tap Start recording, then Start Broadcast. It records everything on the device, other apps included. Stop from the status bar and come back to Walkthru: the recording is waiting and goes straight into steps.

Walkthru’s How to record sheet on iPhone, with both ways to record the task.

Go at a steady pace and pause for about a second on each screen once it stops moving. Walkthru counts a screen as a step only after it has held still for about half a second, so a screen you rush past can be missed. Carry on to the screen that shows the task worked, such as a confirmation, so the reader knows what success looks like.

Only have screenshots?

Sometimes you can’t record the task yourself: the pictures came from a customer, or the app is still a set of design mockups. Then start from the pictures. Each one becomes a step, in the order you pick them, and everything below applies. The steps for that route, and the free way to combine screenshots into one PDF, are in turning screenshots into a guide. You can also add a screenshot to a guide that started as a recording.

Why a phone is different from a desktop

Desktop tools such as Scribe and Tango watch your clicks. A browser extension sees each click, takes a screenshot at that moment and reads the label of the button you clicked, so it can write a first draft of every step.

On an iPhone or iPad, no app can see another app’s touches. So Walkthru works from what the recording shows. The screen changing from one settled state to another is a step, and that can be measured from the pixels. Each step also gets a label for the kind of change: a new screen, a scroll, typing, a dialog, a toggle.

What it cannot measure is what you meant. So steps arrive without instructions, and markers are placed by you. That is deliberate: an instruction that is almost right is harder to catch than a blank one.

Turn each screen into a step

For each step in the editor:

• Write the instruction. See the tips below.
• Place a marker on the control the reader has to touch. There are tap, double-tap, press-and-hold and swipe markers, in seven colours. See showing taps in a screen recording.
• Cover private details. Walkthru reads each screenshot on the device and offers to cover email addresses, phone numbers, card numbers and other details it finds. See redacting a screenshot properly.
• Crop to the part of the screen that matters. The original stays in the guide.
• Add a heading to split a long guide into sections. Context that is not an action, such as something to have ready first, goes in the step’s description.

What to write in each instruction

• Use the imperative. “Tap Transfer.” Not “The user should tap Transfer”, and not “The Transfer screen appears”. The reader wants an instruction, not a narration.
• Name the control the way the screen does. If the button says Send now, write Send now, capitalised the same way.
• One action per step. If an instruction contains “and then”, it is two steps.
• Say what confirms success when the result is not obvious. “The balance updates” tells the reader they are on track.

Choose the output

Export	Best for	Read more
PDF guide	A file to keep, print or attach, in three layouts	Recording to a PDF guide
Step images	A chat reply or a help-centre article; full-resolution PNGs	Screenshots from a recording
Markdown bundle	A docs site or a repository	Mobile SOP template
Video reel	Showing movement, with optional voiceover	Adding a voiceover

Not sure whether you need a document or a video? See screenshot guide or video tutorial.

Everything above happens on the device. Walkthru has no account and no server, so the recording, which holds whatever was on your screen, is never uploaded.

On iPad

Walkthru is the same app on iPad, with room to work. The editor shows the steps, the picture and the tools side by side. You can mark steps with Apple Pencil, drag a recording onto the library to import it, and use keyboard shortcuts: Command-I to import a recording, Command-Shift-I for screenshots, Command-Shift-R to record and Command-E to export.

Record an iPad task the same way, from Control Center. iPad screenshots keep their shape in the PDF. In a video, every step takes the shape of the first one, so a guide that mixes upright and sideways screens shows the odd ones with black bars.

Doing it by hand

For a short task you document once, you can do the same work without an app. In iOS 27, pause the recording in Photos on each screen and save that frame as a photo; the steps, and how to avoid a blurry frame, are in getting screenshots out of a screen recording. Then put the pictures in order in a document, write an instruction under each, circle the control with Markup and cover anything private with a solid shape, not a blur.

It gets slow as the steps add up, and slower when the app changes and you redo it.

Where to go next

• Writing a procedure for a team: the mobile SOP template.
• Making a printed guide for a family member: the cheat sheet for an older parent.
• The app changed after you published: updating a guide.
• Comparing tools: Scribe and Tango alternatives on iPhone.