In Red Dead Redemption 2, the time between gunfights sticks with you as much as the gunfights themselves. Marking several enemies with Dead Eye and dropping them all at once is great, but just as often you want to show a friend a sunset ride across the plains or a quiet night around the campfire with the gang. This guide covers one method only: record Red Dead Redemption 2 with DOR, find those scenes in a session that runs for hours, trim them, and send them as a dor.gg link. It also covers how to cut a short shootout differently from a long, scenic ride.
The recording holds every hour on the frontier; you send one section cut to fit the scene
DOR saves Red Dead Redemption 2 as a whole-session recording. After you load your save, starting the day at camp, riding to the next mission, hunting, and stopping in town all go into one video. DOR does not detect gunfights or successful hunts to make separate clips, so you find the scene you want in the recording and pull it out with trimming. Travel takes a long time in this game, so recording files grow quickly; if a recording from a long session does not appear in the library, start with disk space and the save path in fixing recordings that won't save. Recording stops automatically when free drive space falls below 20GB.
From picking a shootout or a view to sending it
- 1Decide first whether it is action or sceneryA short, sharp scene like a Dead Eye shootout can be enjoyed in a few seconds, while a mood-driven scene like a ride or a night at camp needs a bit more length for its appeal to come through. Deciding which one you are sending also settles where to look in the recording and how long to cut.
- 2Load your save with DOR runningDOR is a free Windows app, and when you launch Red Dead Redemption 2 it detects the game and starts recording automatically. If you want to add your own narration over scenic moments, connect a microphone. Game sound and microphone are recorded together in one video.
- 3Use the Dead Eye color shift to mark gunfightsWhen you use Dead Eye, the screen color changes and motion slows, so that stretch stands out even when you scrub quickly through the recording in the library. Start a few seconds before the color shift, where the enemies come into view, to keep the tension.
- 4Find scenic rides by loading screens and mounting upThe loading screen you see during fast travel or when loading a save marks the edge between areas. For a scenic ride, the moment you mount up and start galloping is the starting point, and if you glance at the clock on your phone when the sky starts turning at sunset, it will be easy to find later.
- 5Trim to a length and ratio that fit the sceneIn the app library's trim tool, set a start and an end. End a shootout the moment the last enemy drops, and give a ride room to breathe until you crest a hill and the view opens up. Pick 16:9, 9:16, or 1:1, and when trimming finishes a dor.gg link is created.
- 6Paste the link with one line about where it wasFor a scenic clip, just noting the area and time of day lets a friend who plays ride out and find the spot themselves. Missions that move the story forward can spoil things for friends who have not finished, so name the mission and leave out what happens.
Clues in the recording and the best fit for each scene
| Scene | Clue in the recording | Good length and ratio |
|---|---|---|
| Dead Eye shootout | The moment the screen color shifts and time slows | 5 to 15 seconds, works as a 9:16 short too |
| Frontier ride | Where you mount up and leave the road at a gallop | 30 seconds to 1 minute, 16:9 for wide scenery |
| Night at camp | Right after you return to camp and dismount | About 1 minute, 16:9 |
| Gang heist | Riding side by side with the gang toward the target | 1 to 2 minutes, starting just before the first shot |
| Hunting | Holding your breath and lining up a shot on your prey | About 20 seconds from aim to hit |
| Unexpected events | A sudden commotion or accident out on the trail | 30 seconds with a little context on each side |
Before you send an RDR2 clip
- My shootout clip starts from the moment the enemies first appear.
- I cut the parts of the ride where I opened the map or stopped.
- For scenery, I picked the stretch with the best mood, such as sunset or weather.
- I checked my friend's progress before sending a mission that changes the story.
- I have well over 20GB of free drive space before a long session.
- I opened the link once to check that hoofbeats and gunshots come through.
How DOR captures Red Dead Redemption 2
DOR is a free Windows desktop app. Since an app update in October 2026, Red Dead Redemption 2 is a supported game: launch it and DOR detects it automatically and records the entire session as a single mp4 until you quit. Because the game is not split into matches, there are no automatic highlights, and you can turn full-session recording on or off per game in the settings. On a PC with an NVIDIA graphics card, NVENC hardware encoding is the default. If you want to lay a gentle track under a scenic ride, DOR Studio lets you add background music and adjust the volume, and adding music to game videos explains how to pick tracks without copyright worries. For framing a Dead Eye scene as a vertical video for phones, see making vertical game videos. You can send the finished video as a dor.gg link or download it as an mp4, and a friend who gets the link plays it in a browser with no install.
