Flashback is a lightweight game clip capture and editor for Windows. It records your gameplay with hardware-accelerated encoding, keeps an Instant Replay buffer so you never miss a moment, and gives you a simple editor to trim and export — all without an account, cloud upload, or social feed. The goal is an app you can launch, forget is running, and reach for only when something worth saving just happened.Documentation Index
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Flashback is a Windows-only application. It relies on the Windows Graphics Capture (WGC) API introduced in Windows 10, and requires Windows 10 build 1903 or later, or Windows 11. macOS and Linux are not supported.
What Flashback Does
Most capture tools come with launchers, overlays, achievement systems, cloud libraries, and social feeds you never asked for. Flashback does one thing: capture and edit clips. It sits quietly in your system tray, watches for a game to start, keeps a rolling replay buffer, and surfaces a minimal editor when you need it. Nothing more.Key Features
Instant Replay
Flashback maintains a rolling buffer of your last 30 seconds to 15 minutes of gameplay. Press Alt+F8 at any time to save what just happened — no need to think ahead.
Manual Recording
Prefer to record on your own terms? Press Alt+F9 to start and stop a recording session whenever you like. Recordings are saved automatically when you stop.
Hardware-Accelerated Encoding
Flashback picks the best encoder available on your system — NVENC for NVIDIA GPUs, AMF for AMD, Quick Sync for Intel — and falls back to software encoding if none is found. CPU impact stays minimal.
Clip Editor
A built-in editor lets you trim, cut, and export clips without leaving the app. No external software required.
Local Clip Library
All clips are stored locally in
%USERPROFILE%\Videos\Flashback\Clips\. Browse, preview, and manage your library entirely on-device — no account, no sync, no internet required.Game Detection
Flashback automatically detects when a game is in the foreground and attaches capture to it, so you don’t have to select a window or configure a source manually.
Platform Requirements
Flashback is built on the Windows Graphics Capture API, which provides low-overhead, DRM-aware screen capture directly from the Windows compositor. This API was introduced in Windows 10 version 1903 (May 2019 Update), making that the minimum supported version. Windows 11 is fully supported. A DirectX 11-capable GPU is required for WGC. Hardware encoding (NVENC, AMF, or Quick Sync) is optional but strongly recommended; Flashback will use software encoding automatically if no supported encoder is detected.Tech Stack
Flashback is built with Tauri v2 — a Rust-based framework for building lightweight desktop apps with a web frontend. The Rust backend handles all the heavy lifting: capture via WGC, the Instant Replay ring buffer, hardware encoding through NVENC/AMF/Quick Sync, and the local clip library. The SvelteKit frontend (Svelte 5, TypeScript) provides the configuration UI and clip editor, communicating with the backend over Tauri’s typedinvoke bridge. The result is a native Windows binary with a minimal footprint and no Electron-style overhead.
| Layer | Technology |
|---|---|
| Shell | Tauri v2 (Rust) |
| Frontend | SvelteKit + Svelte 5 + TypeScript |
| Capture | Windows Graphics Capture (WGC) |
| Encoding | NVENC / AMF / Quick Sync + software fallback |
| Platform | Windows 10 build 1903+ / Windows 11 |
No Cloud, No Accounts
Flashback has no server-side component. There is no account to create, no footage uploaded anywhere, and no telemetry. Clips live in a folder on your machine and stay there until you delete them. Settings are stored in%APPDATA%\com.flashback.app\ as plain JSON files you can inspect or back up at any time.
Get Started
Installation
Download the installer, walk through first-launch setup, and learn where Flashback stores your clips and settings.
Quickstart
Configure capture quality, enable Instant Replay, and save your first clip in under five minutes.