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Updated: 2026-09-23 13:57
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What is Medal?
Medal is a free PC and mobile app for capturing gameplay clips after they happen and sharing them with an instant link. It runs in the background while you play, so when something worth keeping occurs you press a button and it saves the recent footage rather than requiring you to record continuously. The same service hosts the clips, which is why the site can point to a public library of popular clips and social features like tagging friends.
What it actually does
- Retroactive capture: Saves the last 15 seconds, 60 seconds, 10 minutes, or an entire session, depending on your setting.
- Lightweight background operation: The page describes a minimal performance impact, in the range of 100–400MB of RAM, with adjustable recording settings for low-spec machines.
- Instant sharing: Each clip gets a link you can post anywhere, and the mobile apps let you watch and post clips away from your PC.
- Editing basics: Multi-track audio lets you balance or mute game, microphone, and Discord audio separately, which matters if you want commentary without game sound or vice versa.
- Auto clipping: Event detection is supported for titles such as Fortnite, Valorant, League of Legends, Apex Legends, and Counter-Strike, so certain moments can be flagged automatically.
- Console footage: Medal itself records PC and mobile; console captures can be imported for editing and sharing.
Who it suits
It fits players who want to keep highlight moments without running a full recording setup, and who care more about fast sharing than cinematic production. Someone who wants to post a clutch round to a group chat within a minute is the core use case. If you need heavy multi-track editing, colour grading, or long-form YouTube production, a dedicated editor will take you further, and Medal is better treated as the capture-and-share front end.
Practical notes
Quality goes up to 4K at 144fps, and encoding uses H.264, H.265/HEVC, and AV1, so higher settings trade disk space and system load for sharper footage. The service is free with optional paid features; check what the paid tier covers before assuming a specific limit applies to you.
A sensible next step: install it, set clip length to 60 seconds, and play one session. If the clips are clean and you did not notice a frame-rate drop, raise the resolution; if your machine struggles, shorten the clip length and lower the bitrate first.
How do I set up Medal to automatically capture clips while I'm gaming?
Medal is built for exactly this: it runs in the background while you play, and when something worth keeping happens you press a button to save the last stretch of gameplay. Setup is mostly about choosing how much footage is held in reserve and making sure capture starts with your game.
Getting it running
- Install Medal on the PC you game on (Windows 10 or later per the site) and sign in so clips can sync and generate share links.
- Leave it running in the background before you launch a game — the site describes it as "always ready," meaning it keeps a rolling buffer rather than starting to record only when you tell it to.
- Set your clip length. Medal lets you replay the last 15 seconds, 60 seconds, 10 minutes, or the whole session, so pick the window that matches how far back you usually want to reach.
- Check your audio tracks. Game, microphone, and Discord can be balanced or muted separately, which matters if you later want to cut your mic out of a clip.
- Pick your quality and resolution if the defaults strain your machine — the site mentions support up to 4K and 144fps, with variable settings for weaker PCs.
The parts that actually need decisions
| Setting | What it affects | Practical guidance |
|---|---|---|
| Clip length | How much past gameplay is saved | Short buffers fill storage slowly; long ones suit montage editing |
| Resolution/frame rate | File size, disk writes, frame pacing | Match your monitor rather than maxing it out |
| Audio tracks | Whether mic and chat are separable later | Keep them separate if you ever post clips publicly |
| Auto event detection | Clips triggered without you pressing anything | Supported for titles like Fortnite, Valorant, League of Legends, Apex Legends and Counter-Strike |
Auto clipping versus manual capture
Medal's event detection handles specific competitive games, so if you play those, kills and similar moments can be flagged for you. For anything else, the button-press buffer is the mechanism — you still have to react, but you don't have to have been recording beforehand. If you play a mix of supported and unsupported games, don't rely on detection alone; treat it as a bonus on top of manual saving.
A realistic first session
Play one match with the buffer set to 60 seconds. Save two clips — one deliberately, one right after a moment you'd normally miss. Check the files for audio balance and smoothness before you commit to a longer buffer or higher resolution. That tells you more about your PC's headroom than any spec sheet.
Where to go next
If you want to compare capture tools before settling in, OBS Studio is the usual free alternative for full-session recording, though it's less oriented around instant replay links. Medal's own FAQ and premium page cover the paid tier if you outgrow the free features.
Can I use Medal to record clips on a console, or is it only for PC and mobile?
Medal records directly on PC and mobile only. It does not natively capture console gameplay. The page lists Windows, iOS and Android as supported platforms, and its FAQ confirms that console recording is not currently offered.
What you can do instead: import console system captures into Medal to edit and share them. If you already use your console's built-in capture button, Medal can serve as the editing and distribution layer rather than the recorder.
Who this suits:
- PC and mobile players who want background recording, instant links and multi-track audio (game, mic and Discord balanced separately).
- Console players who mainly want a place to trim, organize and share existing captures.
- Console players wanting automatic event detection or full-resolution 4K/144fps capture straight from the console — that needs a dedicated capture card or the console's own tools.
Decision criterion: if your priority is one-tap capture of something that just happened on a console, Medal won't replace a capture card. If your priority is editing and sharing clips you've already captured, the import route works.
Next step: check whether your console's native capture resolution and length limits are enough for your clips, then decide whether you need a capture card before committing to a PC workflow.
What are the differences between the free version of Medal and Medal Premium?
Medal's free tier covers the main workflow: background recording, clipping the last 15 seconds to 10 minutes or a whole session, an instant shareable link, mobile viewing and posting, and separate game/mic/Discord audio tracks. Premium is an optional paid layer on top rather than a different app.
The site itself is explicit that Medal is free on PC and mobile with optional premium paid features, and it links to a premium page — but the supplied page content doesn't itemize what premium adds, so treat any specific premium benefit as something to confirm there rather than assume.
What the free version clearly includes
- Always-on background capture with a hotkey save of what just happened
- Custom clip length: 15 seconds, 60 seconds, 10 minutes, or full session
- Instant link sharing anywhere
- Multi-track audio so game, mic, and Discord can be balanced or muted separately
- Mobile apps for watching and posting clips
- Auto event detection in titles like Fortnite, Valorant, League of Legends, Apex Legends, and Counter-Strike
- Recording of any PC game, up to 4K at 144fps, with H.264, H.265, HEVC, and AV1 codecs available
How to decide
The honest answer is that most casual clippers never need premium. If you're capturing a few aces, fails, or friend-group moments and sharing links into Discord, the free tier does that. Premium tends to matter for people who treat clips as a channel or archive — heavier storage needs, more editing headroom, or a branded presence. Since the feature split isn't detailed here, the practical next step is to open the premium page, list which of those limits actually bites you, and only then compare it against the free tier.
One realistic scenario: a player who records nightly sessions will eventually care less about clipping and more about how much footage they can keep and how quickly they can turn it into something postable. That's the point where the free/premium line becomes a real decision instead of a formality.
How do I edit and share a clip once I've recorded it with Medal?
Once you've recorded a clip in Medal, the workflow is: find the clip in your library, trim or adjust it in the built-in editor, then generate a shareable link or export it. Medal is designed around a "capture now, decide later" model — the recording is saved automatically, so editing and sharing are separate steps you do afterward.
Editing
- Open the clip from your Medal library to enter the editor.
- Trim to the moment you want; Medal's recording options let you capture the last 15 seconds, 60 seconds, 10 minutes, or the whole session, so the raw file may be longer than the highlight.
- Use multi-track audio controls to balance or mute game audio, your microphone, and Discord as separate tracks — useful if your voice is too loud relative to the game or you want a clean gameplay-only cut.
- Tag friends in the clip if you want them credited or notified.
Sharing
- Medal's core sharing feature is an instant link: after editing, you get a URL you can paste anywhere (Discord, chat, social posts).
- You can also post and watch clips from the mobile app, which is convenient if you want to share while away from your PC.
- Console captures aren't recorded directly by Medal, but you can import them into Medal to edit and share through the same flow.
A practical decision rule
| Goal | What to do |
|---|---|
| Quick reaction clip for friends | Trim to a few seconds, keep all audio, copy the instant link |
| Montage or edited video | Trim multiple clips, mute or rebalance tracks, export and edit further |
| Sharing from your phone | Use the mobile app to post or watch the clip |
If you're deciding whether the free tier is enough: Medal is free on PC and mobile, with optional premium paid features. For most casual clip-and-share use, the free editor and instant links cover the job; premium matters mainly if you need more storage or advanced options.
A useful next step: record a short test clip, trim it, and share the link to yourself first — that confirms your audio tracks and clip length settings behave the way you want before you post publicly.
What are the system requirements and performance impact of running Medal on a low-end PC?
Medal is designed to stay usable on modest hardware: it supports any PC game you run, works on Windows 10 or later, and the page states a typical RAM impact of roughly 100–400MB. Recording resolution and frame rate are adjustable, so you can lower settings to reduce load on a low-end machine.
System requirements (per the page)
- OS: Windows 10 or later for PC; also available on iOS and Android.
- Games: Any PC game you are running; no fixed list.
- Hardware: No strict CPU or GPU minimum is stated; the page explicitly says variable recording settings and cloud storage make it workable on low-spec systems.
- Recording ceiling: Up to 4K at 144fps, but lower settings are allowed.
Performance impact
- RAM: About 100–400MB, described as the multitasking/low-spec range.
- Lag: The page claims minimal impact and says Medal is optimized to run in the background.
- Audio: Game, mic, and Discord can be balanced or muted as separate tracks, which is processing work but not typically the main performance cost.
- Clip length: Replay the last 15 seconds, 60 seconds, 10 minutes, or the whole session. Longer buffers and higher resolution/frame rate increase disk and encoding load, even if the page does not quantify that.
What this means in practice
If you play on a low-end PC, the realistic trade-off is between clip quality and smooth gameplay. Start at 1080p and a moderate frame rate, keep the replay buffer short (15–60 seconds), and record to a drive with free space. If you notice stutter, drop resolution or frame rate before assuming Medal is unusable. The 100–400MB RAM figure is small relative to most games, but encoding still competes for CPU/GPU time, so test with your heaviest game rather than a light one.
Next step
Install it, set a 15-second replay buffer at 1080p, and play your most demanding game for a session. If it stays smooth, increase clip length or resolution one step at a time. If not, lower the frame rate first, since that usually reduces encoding load more than resolution alone.
For the product itself, see Medal.
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