How to Pause and Resume Recording in OBS Studio

Yes, OBS Studio allows you to pause and resume your local recordings, a highly useful feature that helps you avoid unnecessary editing by keeping your footage in a single, continuous file. This article will show you how to use the pause function directly from the user interface, how to set up convenient hotkeys for seamless control, and how to troubleshoot the issue if your pause button is greyed out or missing.

How to Pause and Resume Using the Interface

Once you start recording in OBS Studio, a pause icon (represented by two vertical parallel lines) will appear immediately to the right of the Stop Recording button in the bottom-right Controls dock.

To pause your recording, simply click this icon. The icon will turn into a play symbol, and the status bar at the bottom of the OBS window will display “PAUSED” in yellow text. To resume recording, click the icon again.

How to Set Up Hotkeys for Pausing

Using hotkeys allows you to pause and resume your recording without needing to tab out of your game or application. To set this up:

  1. Open OBS Studio and click on Settings in the bottom-right corner.
  2. Select the Hotkeys tab from the left-hand menu.
  3. In the search bar at the top, type “Pause”.
  4. Locate the Pause Recording and Unpause Recording fields.
  5. Click inside the empty fields and press the keys you want to assign (for example, F9 to pause and F10 to unpause, or assign the same key to both to toggle).
  6. Click Apply and then OK to save your changes.

Why is the Pause Button Missing or Greyed Out?

If you do not see the pause button, or if it is greyed out, it is almost always due to your output settings. OBS Studio cannot pause recordings if the recording quality is set to match the stream quality while streaming.

To resolve this issue:

  1. Go to Settings and click on the Output tab.
  2. Look at the Output Mode dropdown at the top. If it is set to Simple, find the Recording section and locate Recording Quality.
  3. If it is set to “Same as stream”, change it to High Quality, Medium File Size or another preset.
  4. If your Output Mode is set to Advanced, ensure that your Recording tab is not sharing the exact same encoder settings as your Streaming tab if you plan to stream and record simultaneously.
  5. Click Apply and OK. The pause button will now be active during your recordings.