How to Record Project Zomboid with DOR: Official Guide (2026)

Project Zomboid records automatically once DOR is installed: launch the game and the AI handles the rest. Unlike OBS, there are no scenes or sources to build. Start Zomboid from Steam and DOR detects it, keeping every in game day in Knox County from picking an occupation and locking your first front door until you close the game, all in one video. One bite can end a character and you never know when that moment will come, but with the whole session recorded you can always rewatch how it went wrong. This guide takes you from installing DOR to building a survival documentary and sharing it with friends on your server.

• Keep your survival run on video, from boarding up windows on day one to the night you got bitten.
• Save the helicopter horde dodge or the pickup truck run through a crowd of zombies as separate clips.
• Use AI Voice Notes to find the moment a co op partner said 'fill the tubs before the water shuts off' and jump to that day.
• Combine a base defense, the first day with the generator running and a baseball bat brawl into a short survival documentary.
• Post an escape to your multiplayer server's Discord with a single dor.gg link.

Before you record Project Zomboid: install and recording mode

Project Zomboid is light on hardware, so getting ready to record takes very little. DOR is a free Windows app and never adds a watermark. Zomboid uses full session recording, which means the video keeps running through every day and night cycle and every time you sleep through the hours, until you close the game. Zomboid sessions tend to run for hours once you start, so it is worth reading recording long gameplay without stutter in advance. The table below lists what is worth knowing before your first Zomboid recording.

Record Project Zomboid with DOR: step by step

1. 1Install DORDownload DOR and install it. Setup takes about a minute and the app is free. Leave DOR running afterwards. Even when you roll a new character, there is no recording setup to do.
2. 2Launch Zomboid from SteamStart Project Zomboid from Steam. Recording begins as soon as DOR detects the game, so the occupation and traits screen is part of the video. Joining a multiplayer server works the same way.
3. 3Check that recording is runningOnce you get into your first house and lock the door, glance at the DOR app once to confirm the recording is in progress. If the game is not picked up, follow what to do when the recorder does not detect your game. After that, focus on looting and staying alive.
4. 4Clip it right after you surviveRight after you finally lose the horde a helicopter dragged over, or right after you make it to morning in a boarded up house, press the clip save shortcut. The last 30 seconds are stored as a separate clip, so you will not have to dig through hours of footage later.
5. 5Quit and open My ClipsSave and close the game, and the full session video plus every clip you saved appear together in My Clips in the DOR app. The day your character finally got bitten is kept the same way, right up to the last scene.

Find your recordings

Your recordings live in My Clips in the DOR app, also called the library. Each time you open and close Zomboid becomes one session, and anything you saved with the clip save shortcut appears as its own clip. To find a moment in a long session, use the day and night cycle, where the screen brightens and darkens, and the moments your character goes to sleep and wakes up. A death is always at the very end of a session, so scrub backwards from the end to reach it. Set a start and an end point to trim what you need, then export as 16:9, 9:16 or 1:1. The full walkthrough is in how to trim game clips. Like the videos you want to keep, such as the last day of your longest run. When space fills up, older videos you have not liked are cleared first, so liked videos stay.

Save the moments you want to keep

Even with the whole session recorded, saving the moments you survived on the spot makes them much easier to find. Press the clip save shortcut and the last stretch of play becomes a clip. The default length is 30 seconds, and you can pick 15, 30, 45 or 60 seconds in settings. In Zomboid, good moments to press it are right after you slip out of an alley ahead of a horde, right after you drive through a crowd, and right after the lights come on when you first start a generator. A boarded house defense can last all night, so set the clip length to 60 seconds to capture the last minute before the door gives way. To change the shortcut, see saving the last few seconds instantly.

Find what was said with AI Voice Notes

Surviving with friends on a multiplayer server means a steady stream of lines like 'Helicopter, everyone hide', 'I got scratched, please not a bite' and 'Windows are boarded, we hold tonight'. DOR records game audio and your microphone together, and AI Voice Notes writes your conversation onto the recording timeline as text. If you want to know which day your friend got the generator running, or the moment that scratch turned out to be a bite, find the line in the timeline text and select it to jump straight to the scene. It works like a written survival log you never had to keep. If your voice sounds quiet, check your input device with recording games with mic audio.

Build a montage with AI Highlight

Weeks of survival include a lot of looting and walking. In the library, check your clips of dodging the helicopter horde, the all night boarded house defense, the pickup truck run, the first day with the generator on, the baseball bat brawl and the last day after the bite, then select AI Highlight. DOR joins them into a survival documentary that tells a long story in a few minutes. To put the days in your own order, see how to merge game clips.

Edit in DOR Studio

DOR Studio opens in your browser with nothing to install. Trim your character's final moments, stamp the days survived on screen as text, then add a shake zoom and some music for that bleak Zomboid ending in the spirit of the death screen. Try a punch zoom the instant zombies break through a window, and a glitch transition where one day cuts to the next. A survival documentary suits 16:9 for YouTube, while an escape works as a 9:16 short. Download the result as an mp4 or share it as a link straight away.

Share with a dor.gg link

Send trimmed moments as dor.gg links. Whoever opens the link plays it in the browser without installing anything, so you can drop a fresh escape into your server's Discord in seconds. For friends on the same server, pick the defense they were part of; for friends who have never played, pick something instantly readable like a truck plowing through a horde. Tips on choosing the moments just before a death are in keeping Project Zomboid survival videos, and posting to Discord is covered in sharing clips on Discord.

Project Zomboid recommended settings and troubleshooting

Project Zomboid is fairly light, so recording runs smoothly even at minimum spec. The default 1080p at 30fps captures hordes and building interiors clearly, and 60fps makes car chases and melee fights smoother. If you survive for long stretches on a laptop, the 720p/30fps mode keeps the load low. Fullscreen, windowed and borderless windows all record, so leave the game's display settings alone. DOR uses GPU hardware encoding, so its effect on frame rate is small. On an older PC, also see recording games on a low end PC. DOR has no cheat features and never touches game files, saves or mods.