To show a friend the tense moment you met a stranger in DayZ, or the time you drove a repaired car out of a horde of infected, record with DOR, trim that stretch, and send a link. DayZ became a DOR 'full-play recording' game in the October 2026 app update. When you launch the game, DOR detects it and keeps everything until you quit as one video. DayZ has no missions or quests: you start empty-handed on the coast and spend most of your time walking in search of food and gear, so the real stories hide in a few minutes here and there inside hours of footage. This guide covers how to find those moments, trim them and send them.
Decide first: include your voice, or just the picture?
In DayZ, an encounter is often more about the conversation than the visuals. When two players aim at each other, someone shouts 'friendly' over voice chat and a negotiation begins, the person watching only feels the tension if your voice is in the clip. A solo chase by the infected, on the other hand, works fine with game sound alone. DOR records game sound and your mic together, and you can check that your mic is actually being captured with how to record game sound and mic together.
Finding moments in hours of survival footage and sending them
- 1Check that DayZ recording is on in settingsIf DayZ is switched on in the 'full-play recording' group in DOR settings, recording starts automatically the moment you launch the game on your Windows PC. A confirmation window appears when you turn it off, so it rarely gets disabled by mistake.
- 2Jot down roughly when something happensDayZ has no map markers or minimap, so skimming the recording rarely tells you where you are from the picture alone. When you meet a stranger or fix a car, note just the time, such as 'encounter about 1h20m in', and you can jump the timeline straight to that area.
- 3No notes? Search by soundIf you did not write anything down, sound is the quickest way in. Stretches where you hear your own voice calling out, gunshots or a car engine starting are usually where something happened. Skip quickly through the quiet walking.
- 4Trim encounters through to the outcomeAn encounter with another survivor is only complete once you know whether you became friends or enemies. Trim it as one segment from just before the stranger appears until you part ways or the fight ends, and if a stranger's player name is visible on screen, think about who you are sending it to.
- 5Keep chases and deaths short and verticalBeing chased by the infected or dropping for no good reason gets dull if it runs long. Cut it to around 20-40 seconds in 9:16 so friends can watch on their phones, and in the browser-based DOR Studio you can add a line of text such as 'just went to get water' to set the scene.
- 6Send the clip to your fellow survivors as a linkVideos made with the trim tool in the app library or in the studio can be shared as a dor.gg link. Send just the link to the friends you survive with, or to someone who has never played DayZ, and they watch it in a browser with no app.
Picking DayZ moments by survival stage
| Survival situation | Clue in the recording | Length and who to send it to |
|---|---|---|
| Right after a coast spawn | The first shot of waking up empty-handed on the shore | 30-60 s until your first gear, for a friend who just started |
| Meeting a stranger | Your voice when you first speak over voice chat | 1-2 min from the first word to the outcome, for your squad |
| Chased by the infected | Running footsteps and a pack of infected behind you | 20-40 s of the escape, 9:16 for the group chat |
| Escape in a repaired car | The sound of the engine starting | From ignition until you leave the danger zone, 16:9 |
| Looting a dynamic event | Wreckage from a train crash or military convoy coming into view | About 1 min from approach to loot, 16:9 |
| A pointless death | The moment your character drops | From 15 s before the fall, for laughs with friends |
Before you send
- DayZ is on under 'full-play recording' in settings.
- You noted roughly when encounters, car repairs or deaths happened.
- The encounter is in one segment that runs to its outcome.
- Chase and death clips are trimmed to around 40 seconds.
- You checked any visible stranger's player name against who will watch.
- You have comfortably more than 20GB of free disk space.
How DOR records and edits DayZ
DOR is a free Windows desktop app. When you launch DayZ, it detects the game and records everything until you quit as one mp4 video. It does not cut out encounters or deaths for you, so you find the moment in the app library and set a start and end point with the trim tool. Choose an output ratio of 16:9, 9:16 or 1:1, and see how to trim game clips for pinning down a segment precisely. To add text or join several moments, use DOR Studio, which opens in your browser with nothing to install, then download the result as an mp4 or share it as a link. If a recording does not show up in the library after a long session, go through disk space and save location checks in how to fix recordings not saving. Game sound and your mic are recorded together, so whatever you shouted during the encounter stays in the clip.
