The short version
macOS sometimes terminates screen recordings while they're in progress. This isn't unique to Supercut — Apple's own built-in screen recorder, OBS, QuickRecorder, Loom, and other recording tools all hit the same issue.
The four most common causes:
Free disk space drops too low, including space held by Time Machine snapshots. Its recommended that you have more than 20gb of free space or if on a MacBook Air 30-40gb.
Time Machine starts backing up during a recording.
Your Mac is under sustained thermal or memory pressure, especially on fan-less MacBook Air models.
Try recording a lower resolution like 1080p or 720p.
Supercut saves what was captured before the interruption, so your recording isn't lost. The sections below cover each cause and what to do about it.
Free disk space — including Time Machine snapshots
The "Available" disk space figure in System Settings can be misleading. A large chunk of what looks free may actually be held by Time Machine local snapshots. macOS will eventually release that space, but not always quickly enough — and macOS 15 terminates screen recordings when usable free space drops below roughly 25 GB.
For long sessions: aim to keep at least 30 GB of actual free space available before recording.
Pause Time Machine during recording (if you use it):
Time Machine runs in the background, typically once an hour. While a backup is in progress, the backupd process competes with Supercut for the same disk bandwidth. macOS's screen capture system can interpret this contention as a failure and stop the recording.
Before a long recording:
Open System Settings → General → Time Machine
Click "Pause Backups"
Resume after your recording finishes
Good news: Supercut automatically excludes your ~/Movies/Supercut folder from Time Machine starting in this version, so your recordings won't bloat your backups or compete with the next backup window. You can verify this in System Settings → General → Time Machine → Options.
Recommended settings for long recordings:
If you use an external display (like Apple Studio Display): check its sleep settings too. External displays can sleep independently of the lid-state of your Mac.
Fan-less MacBook Air models (Thermal) or low powered machines, are best connected to a power supply, low power mode can cause the macOS system to throttle system services.
Turn off Low Power Mode during recordings (System Settings → Battery) — it deliberately throttles CPU.
If you are experiencing issues, additional options to try:
Record fewer sources. Three sources is dramatically more reliable than four. Common combinations: camera + screen + mic, or screen + mic + system audio.
Use a laptop stand to give the bottom of the Mac airflow. Even a 1 cm gap helps a fanless Air.
Close heavy apps before recording: Zoom, Slack huddles, Photos, video editors, Docker, browser tabs running Google Meet.
Record at a lower resolution. If your display is 4K, recording at 1080p makes the encoder do much less work.
If you keep hitting this, please reach out — we collect this information to push back on Apple and to improve our warnings.