Medal Clips: What Medal Does and 4 Alternatives

Medal clips are short gameplay videos saved by Medal, a free clipping app for Windows PCs and phones. The app records in the background and saves the last moments when you press a hotkey, then gives each clip a share link. Alternatives fit when you’re on a Mac, or want edited highlight videos and Shorts rather than raw clips.

Plenty of players look Medal up by its clips, and for quick captures it is hard to beat. This post covers what Medal does well, where it stops, and which tools cover the gaps.

What is Medal and how does it work?

Medal is a free app for PC and mobile that clips and shares gameplay. On a Windows PC it keeps a rolling buffer of your game, and a hotkey saves what just happened. Its site says you can save the last 15 seconds, 60 seconds, 10 minutes or the whole session. In some games, including Fortnite, Valorant and League of Legends, it can also save clips automatically when something happens in the match.

Clips are saved on your computer and to the cloud as MP4 files, and each one gets a link you can share anywhere. Medal records the game, your mic and Discord as separate audio tracks, so you can balance or mute each one. Medal also has a community where people browse each other’s clips. The app is free, with optional paid features.

Where does Medal fall short?

Medal is built around the single clip: save a moment, share a link. That covers a lot, but not everything.

• No Mac recorder. Medal supports Windows PCs and phones, not macOS.
• Raw clips, not finished videos. A saved clip is the moment as it happened, in 16:9. Turning it into a vertical TikTok with captions, a zoom and a hook is still editing work, in Medal’s editor or elsewhere.
• You have to press the key. Hotkey clipping depends on noticing the moment while it happens. Automatic clips only cover supported games.
• Long recordings. If you recorded a three-hour session with OBS, a hotkey clipper can’t go back and find the strong parts in it, because it only saves what was in its buffer when you pressed the key.

What are the alternatives to Medal?

The right alternative depends on what’s missing for you. The details come from each tool’s site as of October 2026.

Tool	Platforms	Clips how	Best for
Medal	Windows, iOS, Android	Hotkey replay, automatic event clips	Saving and sharing single moments on PC
NVIDIA app (Instant Replay)	Windows with an NVIDIA GPU	Hotkey replay of the last moments	Low-overhead clipping with no extra account
Xbox Game Bar	Windows 10/11	“Record that” hotkey (Win+Alt+G)	A built-in option with nothing to install
OBS Studio (Replay Buffer)	Windows, macOS, Linux	Hotkey replay + full recordings	Full control, and the Mac option
GameClip	macOS, Windows	Finds the moments in your recordings after you play	Highlight videos and Shorts from long sessions

NVIDIA Instant Replay saves the last few minutes on a hotkey (Alt+F10 by default) with a small performance cost, so you can leave it on all session. The guide to clipping with NVIDIA walks through it.

Xbox Game Bar is built into Windows. Win+Alt+G saves the last moments once background recording is on. It is basic but always there.

OBS Studio is free on every desktop platform. Its Replay Buffer works like Medal’s hotkey, and it can record full sessions with separate audio tracks. See the OBS recording settings for gameplay.

When should you use GameClip instead of a clipper?

A clipper saves moments while you play. GameClip works after you play: it takes the full recording and finds the moments for you.

GameClip is a desktop app for macOS and Windows that turns long gameplay recordings into a 16:9 highlight video and 9:16 vertical clips with captions, zooms and sound effects. It looks at the game one frame per second to find the action, so it catches the plays you forgot to clip, and you post what actually happened, not only what you remembered to save. Every cut lands on a timeline you can edit before export, and one change can be applied to all the clips. On a Mac, it also has a built-in recorder (macOS 15 or later) with hotkeys to mark the last 30 seconds (F8) or 2 minutes (F7) as highlights, the same habit as a clipping hotkey. On Windows, record with OBS, Medal or the NVIDIA app, then bring the files in.

It doesn’t host clips or give you share links, and it doesn’t post to TikTok or YouTube for you yet. You can keep Medal for quick share links and use GameClip for the videos you post. Download GameClip and try it on your next session.

What should you do next?

Try this: decide what you are missing. If it is a Mac recorder, set up OBS Studio’s Replay Buffer or the GameClip recorder. If it is finished videos, keep clipping the way you do now, record the full session as well, and let an editor turn it into a highlight video and Shorts. Try it on one evening of play and compare the result with the clips you saved by hand. The full recording also holds the moments you forgot to clip, and some of them may be the ones worth posting.

FAQ

What are Medal clips?

Medal clips are gameplay videos saved by the Medal app, usually with a hotkey that keeps the last moments of play. They are stored on your computer and in Medal’s cloud as MP4 files, each with a share link.

Is Medal free?

Medal is free on PC and mobile, with optional paid features on top.

Does Medal work on Mac?

No. As of October 2026 Medal supports Windows PCs and phones, not macOS. On a Mac, OBS Studio’s Replay Buffer or GameClip’s built-in recorder are the closest options.

Can I edit Medal clips into TikToks or Shorts?

Medal clips are MP4 files, so any editor can crop them to 9:16 and add captions. The guide to turning gameplay into a vertical video covers the crop.

Does GameClip work with Medal clips?

GameClip imports MP4 files, so Medal clips and full Medal session recordings work as input. It builds vertical clips and a highlight video from them.