Most likely, Microsoft’s Xbox Game Bar for Windows 11 and Windows 10 is the best thing they could have done for gamers. During gameplay, you may simply access and manage a variety of helpful features like sound controls, performance metrics, and framerate. Without having to quit or Alt + Tab your game, you may record all of your gameplay, snap screenshots, and even play your favorite Spotify music. The finest uses for the Xbox Game Bar on Windows are listed below for those who are interested in learning more:
How to Screen Record Using Xbox Game Bar

Want to record the screen of your computer? You could be a software engineer making a how-to video, a businessperson who has to record their screen for a presentation at work, or just a regular person who wants to upload a helpful YouTube video. Although a wide variety of third-party screen-capture applications are available, both Windows and macOS have built-in features that allow you to record your screen activity. Here is a place to start.
Games you play on your PC or stream from an Xbox console can be recorded using Game Bar, a built-in feature of Windows 10. However, it may also instantly record activities on other programs’ screens. To set this up, go to Settings > Gaming > Xbox Game Bar and choose the Enable Xbox option.
On this page, you can change the keyboard shortcuts for opening the game bar, taking screenshots, and recording videos. Additionally, you can open the Game Bar on your computer by hitting the Xbox button on an associated Xbox Controller (Opens in a new window).
You may record activity in most programs and windows, with the exception of the Windows desktop, File Explorer, and a few other Windows applications, like Weather. Navigate to the screen you want to take, then hit Win + G to open Game Bar. There are several Game Bar widgets showing on the screen, each with controls for taking screenshots, recording audio and video, and broadcasting your screen activity.
Click the Start Recording button or press Win + Alt + R on your keyboard to start recording your screen activities. Right now, carry out the screen actions you want to record. When you click on the screen, a little floating bar in the top-right corner of the display replaces the Game Bar widgets and allows you to control the recording.
To stop recording, click the Recording button on the floating bar. Once the recording is complete, you receive an alert letting you know that the game clip was recorded. By clicking the notice, you can view your video in the game bar. The video will begin when you press the Play button.
To change the Game Bar, go to Settings > Gaming > Captures. You can now change the default video from here.
Click the Settings icon in the Game Bar itself, which is to the right of the top bar. To edit the shortcuts, alter the theme, adjust the widgets, enable background recording, and record audio along with the video, look through the many Settings sections.
Xbox screen recorder windows 10

Record the Windows Screen with Xbox Game Bar
The Xbox Game Bar, which is a component of Windows 11 and Windows 10, provides a number of features aimed at enhancing your gaming experience, including easy access to Xbox chat and a glimpse into your CPU and GPU activities. Its ability to screen record MP4 films, whether you’re gaming or not, is its most valuable feature.
The Xbox Game Bar has one drawback: It can only record the screen of one application at a time and cannot record the Windows desktop or File Explorer. Therefore, you would need to gather a number of films if you wanted to demonstrate how to use an activity that involved several programs, such as creating a website in a code editor and then viewing it in a browser. And you can’t teach them how to use the Start menu or any other feature of the Windows 11 or 10 user interface. Use a different program, such as OBS, for those tasks; we’ll show you how to screen record using it later in this post.
1. Click into the app you wish to record.
2. Hit the Windows Key + Alt + R to start screen recording. A small recording widget showing how long you’ve been recording appears somewhere on the screen, most likely in a corner. You can also get here by launching the Xbox Gamebar (Windows Key + G) and then finding the capture widget, but the keyboard shortcut is much simpler.
3. Perform whatever actions you want and use your microphone to record audio. You can also mute the mic if you don’t want to capture any sound.
4. Hit the Windows Key + Alt + R again to stop screen recording. You can also hit the stop button on the widget You will get an alert that says “Game clip recorded. If you click on it, you will go into the Gallery section of the Gamebar app and be able to preview the video you captured. You can also find the MP4 file you recorded under your Videos/Captures folder.
Configuring Xbox Gamebar Screen Recording
While the default settings are probably fine for most people, there are a few options you can change.
1. Navigate to Settings->Gaming->Captures.
2. Change any of the following settings. Note that though they use the word “game,” the settings should apply to any app you record whether it’s a game or not.
- Record what happened (Win 11) / Background Recording (Win 10): this creates a 30-second (or greater if you change the settings) buffer of automatically recorded content. So if you are playing a game and just had an epic kill, you can hit Windows key + G to launch game bar and you can save the 30 seconds that just passed, even though you weren’t actively screen recording it. Note that the name of this setting is different in Windows 11 than 10, but the feature is the same.
- Max recording length: The amount of time after which screen recording will automatically shut off. I recommend leaving this at the default two hours.
- Capture audio when recording a game: By default, this records the sounds from your mic and the game itself, but excludes background sounds from Windows or your other apps. You can disable the audio recording entirely or enable it to record system sounds or change the balance.
- Video frame rate: defaults to 30 fps, but you can change it to 60 fps.
- Video quality: choose standard or high.
- Capture mouse cursor when recording a game: I recommend
Xbox Game Bar

It is deceivingly easy to determine what the Xbox Game Bar is and what it accomplishes. Microsoft created the Xbox Game Bar, a gaming overlay that is integrated into Windows 11 and Windows 10, to let us use different widgets while playing games on our PCs.
You may use the Xbox Game Bar widgets to record gameplay, take screenshots, find friends, control performance, and more without leaving the current game you’re playing by using the straightforward keyboard shortcut Win + G.
What can you do with Xbox Game Bar
It Screenshots and records your gameplay.
The ability to effortlessly record gameplay and take photos of your game while playing it is one of the best features of the Xbox Game Bar for Windows. All you have to do is use the Capture widget and open the Xbox Game Bar (Win + G). In this manner, you can either preserve the entirety of your gameplay for historical purposes, from beginning to end or simply the highlights, such as your most recent boss fights or Pentakills.
It Modifies the volume of each audio channel separately.
The Xbox Game Bar displays all of the audio channels that are currently producing sound on your Windows device as soon as it is opened. You may use a slider on each of them to adjust the level of each audio channel. This can be helpful for those who, like us, prefer to play video games while listening to music.
You can now control the volume of other apps and media players without switching to the desktop thanks to the Xbox Game Bar. Instead, you can perform it from within your game.
You can modify the microphone’s loudness using the Audio widget. This can be helpful if you want to record your voice along with your games because you can control how loud or quietly your voice is recorded.
It Checks your computer’s performance while playing games.
You may get a sense of how well your computer performs when playing games with the Performance widget. If you enable this widget, the CPU, graphics card, and RAM usage levels for your computer are gathered and shown by the Xbox Game Bar using percentage numbers and graphs. Additionally, you can monitor the number of frames per second that the game is rendering, which is really useful if you occasionally want to check the caliber of your game.
You may control performance using the Xbox Game Bar’s Resources widget.
As all computer gamers are aware, having to Alt + Tab and exit a game when you shouldn’t have is one of the most unpleasant things that may happen. Most of the time, we all do that to improve the performance of our PCs by shutting down certain programs or processes. The good news is that you can finally drop the outdated Alt + Tab method! Resources is a built-in widget in the Xbox Game Bar for Windows 11 and Windows 10 that enables performance management from the Xbox overlay. You may even close them without ever leaving your game because it displays all the programs and processes that have an impact on your game.
It Utilizes the Spotify widget from Xbox Game Bar to play and control your music as you play your favorite games.
The Xbox Game Bar now has a widget named Spotify if you enjoy listening to music while playing games on your Windows PC. You don’t need to minimize (Alt + Tab) or close your game in order to play and control your music from the Spotify widget.
You can Use Xbox services from Microsoft to get social
Some players may enjoy the social widgets that the Windows Xbox Game Bar provides. Xbox Social, Xbox Achievements, and Looking for Group are their names. The Xbox Social widget enables you to chat with other gamers who also use Windows PCs or Xbox gaming systems.
How to Open the Xbox overlay

o open the Xbox Game Bar in either Windows 11 or Windows 10, all you have to do is press the Win + G keys on your keyboard.
Xbox Game Bar shortcut: Win + G
You can press Win + G to launch the Xbox Game Bar anytime you want: while playing a game or even while roaming on the Windows desktop or in File Explorer. To get a better idea of what to expect, here’s a screenshot we took when we opened the Xbox Game Bar while playing League of Legends:
The Xbox Game Bar overlay in Windows 11 while playing League of Legends
And here’s what the Xbox Game Bar looks like when you open the Xbox overlay on Windows 11’s desktop directly, not during gameplay.
Xbox Game Bar in Windows 11 on the desktop
TIP: If you want to change the default Win + G keyboard shortcut for opening the Xbox Game Bar, follow the steps from this guide: 2 ways to change the keyboard shortcuts for the Game Bar in Windows.
If you are using an Xbox controller, you can also push the Xbox button on your Xbox controller to launch the Game bar. This should work by default. However, if it doesn’t, you might want to ensure that the “Open Xbox Game Bar using this button on a controller” switch is turned on. You can find it on the Xbox Game Bar page from Windows 11’s or Windows 10’s Settings > Gaming > Xbox Game Bar.
Open Xbox Game Bar using the Xbox button on an Xbox controller
NOTE: Although the Xbox Game Bar is enabled by default, it can happen that the Xbox overlay from Windows doesn’t show up on your PC when you press Win + G on your keyboard. In that case, you might want to do some troubleshooting, and we have an article just for that: Xbox Game Bar is not working. 3 ways to fix it in Windows.
What to expect from the Xbox Game Bar overlay in Windows
When you open the Xbox Game Bar on your Windows computer, while playing a game or otherwise, it displays an overlay with a generous array of useful default widgets:
- The main widget, found by default at the top of the screen, is where you can see the time, enable or disable the other widgets available, as well as access the settings of the Xbox Game Bar.
- The Audio widget helps you control individual audio channels without having to leave your game.
- The Capture widget gives you the tools for capturing screenshots and recording your gaming sessions.
- Gallery shows you the screenshots and game clips you’ve made with the Xbox Game Bar.
- Looking for Group shows you other players connected to Microsoft’s Xbox service looking to join a gamers’ group.
- The Performance widget shows information about the utilization of resources, such as processor (CPU), graphics card (GPU), RAM (memory), and number of FPS (frames per second).
- The Resources widget shows you the apps that are using up system resources and lets you terminate them without leaving your game. The Resources widget is sort of a minified Task Manager Processes tab.
- Spotify lets you play your favorite music from this streaming service without having to leave your game or switch to the Spotify app.
- Xbox Achievements shows your achievements as Xbox records them.
- Xbox Social is the widget that lets you connect and chat with your friends, as long as they’re also on Windows 10, Windows 11, or Xbox.
- Widget Store allows you to download and install additional widgets for the Xbox Game Bar.
The Xbox Game Bar with all the default widgets enabled
What are you using the Xbox Game Bar in Windows for?
Now you know how to open the Xbox Game Bar in Windows. As you’ve seen, it should be pretty easy, as all you have to do is press the Win + G keys on your keyboard to show the Xbox overlay on any Windows PC. Do you have any questions about the Xbox Game Bar shortcut? Use the comments section below to let us know.
Conclusion
Xbox One games are a great way to enjoy your favorite games, but there are some things you should be aware of before buying or playing any Xbox One game. First and foremost, make sure that the Xbox One game you are interested in is available for purchase on the Game Bar. Another thing to keep in mind is how to display Xbox One games on the Game Bar. You can either use the front-screen or side screens of your console. Finally, it’s important to evaluate Xbox One games before making a decision about whether or not to buy them. By doing so, you’ll be able to make an informed decision and avoid any regrets down the road.