Smart Mobile Recorder

This document introduces the features of Smart Mobile Recorder in Katalon Studio.

Overview

The Smart Mobile Recorder is an upgraded version of the Mobile Recorder in Katalon Studio. It brings an enchanced UI with a new Interactive Mode, providing enhanced experience for recording mobile app interactions.

Key features

• Modern UI: Supports dynamic resizing, and object outlining on hover.
• Interactive Mode: Supports real-time test step capturing on Android and iOS.
• Playback: Verifies newly captured steps within the recording session to ensure they work as expected.
• Heartbeat mechanism: Prevents Appium session timeouts during long recordings.
• Pause and Resume: Controls recording flow better.
• Auto refresh: Auto-captures the latest app state (new screens, updated elements, or layout changes) every 60 seconds alongside manual refresh option.

Requirements

Install KS Recording Engine Extension

Starting Katalon Studio 11.1.0, Smart Mobile Recorder requires independent installation of the KS Recording Engine extension to avoid session conflicts. If you have not manually installed this extension on your browser's profile, see Katalon Studio Recording Engine extension for details.

Enable Smart Mobile Recorder

Follow these steps to switch to Smart Mobile Recorder:

1. Go to Preferences → Recorder.
2. Tick the Smart Mobile Recorder checkbox.
3. Click Apply and Close.

note

• Once enabled, launching Mobile Recorder opens the Smart Mobile Recorder UI instead of the usual Mobile Recorder.
• If you want to use Mobile Recorder, deselect Smart Mobile Recorder to opt-out, and opt back in any time.

Configure mobile device to record

Smart Mobile Recorder has four recording modes, each requires separate settings:

• Local Device requires a configured mobile device connected to your machine. See instructions at Mobile Recorder - Device Type.
• Remote Device requires a pre-configured remote device. See instructions at Mobile app testing with Remote Devies
• Custom Desired Capabilities requires a pre-configured device in Desired Capabilities. See configuration details at Desired Capabilities in Mobile Testing
• Cloud Provider requires at least one integration with a cloud provider (view all possible intergration options at Cloud device integrations).

note

• For Katalon Test Execution Cloud: you can select available apps that have been uploaded on your organization's domain (see more details at Upload a mobile app to TestOps)

Get started with Smart Mobile Recorder

Follow these steps:

1. Open Mobile Recorder from the main toolbar.
2. Select a record mode: Local Device, Remote Device, Custom Desired Capabilities, or Cloud Provider to select supported devices from Katalon Test Execution Cloud.
3. Pick your app source (upload an Application file or specify the Application ID). Application ID is the package name for Android apps, or the bundle identifier for iOS apps.

4. Click Start Record.
5. By default, you enter Manual Mode - this mode functions like the legacy Mobile Recorder, with a modern, revamped UI. Turn on Interactive Mode to record actions directly from the live device view.
6. Throughout the session, you can:

• Interact with the app via the Live Device view to record steps in real time.
• New Test Objects are auto captured and created with each interaction.
• Enable auto-refresh to update the device view every 60s.
• Verify and highlight objects to verify objects via different locators.
• Capture elements via screenshots, for image locator (see more details at Mobile object locator strategies - Image).
• Pause session to Add/Edit/Remove test steps in the Recorded Steps panel.
• Run test steps, all or selectively, for troubleshooting and see the Live Device view updates live.

7. When done, click Save to save the test script including test steps, test objects and variables (if any).

Feature details

Interactive mode (beta)

note

• Interactive mode is currently available as a beta feature in Katalon Studio version 11.0.0. In the beta phase, it is for evaluation purposes only and not recommended for production use.

Interactive Mode lets you capture actions directly on the live mobile preview. It’s fast and visual, ideal for exploratory testing phase.

Supported actions are:

Action	Keywords	How to perform
Tap	Mobile.tap()	Click any point on the Device View.
SetText	Mobile.tap() and Mobile.sendKeys	Click a text box on the Device View, and input text from the testing device's keyboards.
Swipe	Mobile.swipe()	Swipe upwards/downwards on the Device View.
Swipe with Duration Support	Mobile.swipeWithDuration(), with a parameter for duration.	Swipe upwards/downwards on the Device View.
Double Tap	Mobile.doubleTap()	Click any point on the Device View.
Tap-and-hold	Mobile.tapAndHold()	Click and hold at any point on the Device View, until the recorder prompts "performing TAP AND HOLD Action".
Zoom In/Out	Mobile.pinchToZoomInAtPosition() and Mobile.pinchToZoomOutAtPosition() (with default/customizable offset)	1. Press and hold Alt (Windows) or Option (Mac) to enable the zoom widget. 2. The widget appears with an anchor in the middle. Drag the anchor to your desired location, and drag the outer dots inwards/outwards.

See below a demonstration of the supported actions:

Global actions

Global actions are available on the left panel in both modes:

Action	Description
Hide Keyboard	Hides the on-screen keyboard if it is blocking elements.
Press	Provides quick-access buttons to perform Press Home, Press Back (Android only), or Press Key Code on the device.
Take Screenshot	Captures the current device screen. Screenshots can be used for future reference or for creating image-based locators (see more details at Mobile object locator strategies - Image).
Switch Context	Switch between Native, WebView, or other available contexts when testing hybrid apps.
Rotate Screen	Rotates the device orientation (portrait/landscape) and updates the device preview accordingly.
Scroll to Text	Scrolls to a specific text in the app (if found).

Device View vs Screen Objects panel

Smart Mobile Recorder provides two synchronized views of your application under test (AUT): the Device View and the Screen Objects panel.

The Device View updates live as the mobile app state changes. Use this view to:

• Interact with the AUT in interactive mode.
• Confirm that UI updates correctly.
• Validate AUT state during playback.

The Screen Objects panel can be accessed by clicking Detected Objects. This panel displays the underlying object hierarchy of the current AUT's UI. Use this view to:

• Verify that an element exists in the structure.
• Verify overlapping/repeated elements.
• Inspect parent containers and grouping logic.
• Determine whether multiple similar-looking elements are actually different nodes in the hierarchy.
• Understand how deeply nested components are built behind the scenes.

Both views work together to provide a full understanding of your app's UI, ensuring both visual and structural accuracy.

Heartbeat Mechanism

This mechanism sends periodic commands to keep the Appium session alive, preventing session timeouts during idle periods and improve stability for long recordings.

The heartbeat stops automatically when you close the recorder.

Auto-Refresh Mechanism

Auto-refresh mechanism is on by default, alongside the Refresh button. Use it to auto-update UI changes.

Manage Test Steps, Objects, and Variables while you record

While you record, you can switch between Recorded Steps, Captured Objects, and Variables panels.

Recorded Steps panel

All recorded steps automatically appear in the Recorded Steps panel. In this panel, you can:

• Edit, remove, or arrange recorded steps by dragging.
• Manually add new steps.
• Run all steps or selectively. Run all steps auto restarts the session to its origin state.

During Playback, you can see the execution process live in the Device View, with execution details listed in the dedicated Running Logs panel.

Captured Objects panel

The Captured Objects panel lists all mobile UI elements detected during recording. In this panel, you can:

• Switch between locator types and Highlight & Verify objects on the device to confirm accuracy. This version of KS supports viewing the locators only - editing locators during recording will become available in later versions.
• Select a default locator with the Default button. Default locator will be marked with the bookmark icon.
• Generate an image locator by selecting Image and take a screenshot with the Take Screenshot button.

Variables panel

Manage temporary variables (such as credentials or config values) directly within your recording session.

You can:

• Add, edit, or delete variables during the session.
• Define attributes like type, default value, and description.
• Mask sensitive fields to hide passwords or tokens.
• Link variables to existing project data tables for data-driven testing.

Supported variable types:

• Basic types: string, number, boolean, null
• Global variables:
• Test Object (directory)
• Test data
• Test data value
• Property
• List
• Map

Known Issues

The initial version of Smart Mobile Recorder has the following limitations. These capabilities will be expanded in future releases:

• When saving, some variables have their type unexpectedly changed to “Method call” or trigger an “invalid test case” error.
• If the default locator doesn’t match any element, using Image locator’s Take Screenshot throws an error.about defaultValue being null and stops saving.
• On iOS (UIKitCatalog), recorded tap steps on list items (XCUIElementTypeStaticText) show as recorded but no actual tap occurs on the simulator.
• In iOS (UIKitCatalog), Interactive mode taps sometimes hit the wrong element (e.g., tapping Slider section actually triggers ProgressView). This can also cause capturing the same object multiple times.
• In iOS (UIKitCatalog 2.13), the highlight rectangle is drawn in the wrong position when hovering/moving the cursor over test objects.
• Old Mobile Recorder shows outdated iOS device versions when using Katalon Test Execution Cloud devices.
• Using Verify and Highlight with a “Custom locator” throws an error indicating that custom locator isn’t supported.
• When starting with Katalon Test Execution Cloud, if the Appium-device connection is slow or times out, the Recorder dialog appears but the Device View never shows. No clear timeout error is presented.
• In Interactive mode, when an in-app dialog is shown, tapping outside it (which should dismiss the dialog) times out and no step is recorded—even though in emulator that tap would close the dialog.
• If you edit the app path in the recorded Start Application step, playback still launches the original app path specified at the start of recording.
• If a locator matches multiple elements, neither Interactive mode nor Manual mode performs a click.
• In Interactive mode, function keys such as Shift, Tab, etc. get sent into the text field as actual input.
• In Interactive mode, pressing the delete key writes to the test script as Mobile.sendKeys('\\b'), and pressing enter key writes Mobile.sendKeys('\\n').
• [UI] When using Image locator → Take Screenshot → Highlight, an error appears (since Image locator isn’t supported yet), but the error message text overflows/overlaps the dialog bounds.
• [UI] The Device dialog appears too large with lots of unused white space by default.
• getElement keywords (getElementLeftPosition, getElementTopPosition, getElementWidth, getElementHeight) always attempted to locate elements using XPath, even when the Test Object was configured to use Attribute as the default locator.
• For “Tap and Hold” duration input, the dialog allows choosing complex types (Global Variable, Variable, etc.), but the recorder doesn’t support them, resulting in recorded steps always having zero duration.