Magneto-optical recording is often proposed as an alternative to conventional magnetic recording techniques. The interest in this approach is that it offers the potential of large capacity, fast data rates, and short access times for information storage. The practicality of this approach, however, is strongly dependent on the recording medium, a suitable transducer, and optical deflection techniques In this paper, we review the key considerations in terms of writing and reading which are involved in magneto-optical recording and report the progress which we have made in using thin films of gadolinium iron garnet GdIG for this purpose.