Modern macOS screen capture for the menu bar. Screenshots, screen recording, GIF export, in-place annotation, color picker, and a searchable history — without ever leaving your keyboard.
- Capture region, window (with shadow), fullscreen, or repeat the previous area
- Self-timer (3 / 5 / 10 s) with a live viewfinder around the picked region
- Open from clipboard / Open file to annotate any existing image
- Camera-shutter sound on capture
- Every shot lands on the clipboard, in History, and pops a bottom-left card with Save / Edit
- Record video (H.264 MP4) of any region via
ScreenCaptureKit - Record GIF (auto-converted, 12 fps, 720 px max)
- Floating stop pill with elapsed time +
⌘.to stop - Subtle bottom-center options panel (dimensions, cursor toggle)
- Viewfinder rectangle around the region — accent during setup, red while recording
- ShotX's own UI is excluded from the captured frames automatically
- Editor opens for any captured image (also from History)
- Tools: Arrow (chunky filled polygon), Rectangle, Text (in-canvas, drag/resize/typing live), Numbered Step
- 8-color palette, undo (
⌘Z), drop shadows - Preview-style centered canvas with a glass-material toolbar
- Cancel / Save (Desktop) / Copy (clipboard, default —
⏎)
- Last 100 captures persisted to disk — images, video, and GIFs side-by-side
- Hover for Edit/Play · Copy · Save action buttons
- Type badges in the corner:
GIF(purple) orM:SSduration (red) - Double-click: image → copy, video/GIF → play in default app
- Right-click for full menu (Reveal, Delete, …)
- Native
NSColorSamplerloupe — click any pixel on any screen - Hex value (
#FF8C00) copied to clipboard with a color-tinted toast - Configurable global shortcut (default
⌥⇧C)
- All-In-One floating capture palette at the cursor
- Pin to screen — float a screenshot above all apps with hover actions
- Drag-out — drag screenshots straight from the popup into Slack / Mail / Finder
- Show Desktop Icons toggle (defaults +
killall Finder) - Auto-updates via Sparkle — prompts when a new version ships
- Two configurable global shortcuts, live re-registration on change
- Menu-bar accessory app — no Dock icon
| Action | Shortcut |
|---|---|
| Capture region | ⌥X |
| Pick color | ⌥⇧C |
| Stop recording | ⌘. |
| Open from clipboard | ⇧⌘V |
| Settings | ⌘, |
| Quit | ⌘Q |
Both the capture and color-picker shortcuts are configurable in Settings → Shortcuts — changes apply immediately, no restart needed.
- Grab the latest
ShotX-x.y.dmgfrom Releases - Mount and drag ShotX.app to Applications
- Right-click → Open the first launch (Gatekeeper warning since the app is ad-hoc signed, not Developer ID)
- Grant Screen Recording permission when prompted, quit and re-open ShotX once
Requires macOS 13.0 or later.
Requires Swift 5.9 + macOS 13 SDK (Xcode 15+).
git clone git@github.com:aimen08/shotx.git
cd shotx
# Run in development
swift run
# Bundle as .app
./Scripts/build-app.sh
open dist/ShotX.app
# Bundle as DMG installer
./Scripts/make-dmg.sh
open dist/ShotX-*.dmg
# Regenerate the app icon (only if you change the design)
./Scripts/make-icon.swift
# One-shot release: build + commit + push + GitHub release
./Scripts/release.sh # auto-bump patch
./Scripts/release.sh 1.5 # specific version
./Scripts/release.sh 1.5 "Fix bug" # version + commit messageBy default, builds are ad-hoc signed, which means each rebuild produces a new code identity and macOS revokes Screen Recording permission on every update. To keep permissions persistent across updates without paying for an Apple Developer ID:
- Open Keychain Access → menu Keychain Access → Certificate Assistant → Create a Certificate…
- Name it (e.g.,
ShotX Signing), Identity Type Self Signed Root, Certificate Type Code Signing, click Create - Save the cert name to
.signing-identity(gitignored, per-machine):echo "ShotX Signing" > .signing-identity
- Future
Scripts/build-app.sh/Scripts/release.shruns sign with that cert. The first install still triggers a Gatekeeper "from unidentified developer" warning (right-click → Open once); subsequent updates run silently and Screen Recording permission persists.
Alternative: set CODE_SIGN_IDENTITY env var per-build instead of the file.
Each release ships a signed DMG and an entry in appcast.xml; existing installs poll it daily and prompt when a new version is available.
First-time setup (one-time, per machine):
./Scripts/sparkle-setup.shThis downloads Sparkle's CLI tools into .sparkle-tools/ and generates an Ed25519 key pair. The private key stays in your Keychain; the public key is saved to .sparkle-public-key (committed — it's embedded in the app at build time).
After setup, Scripts/release.sh automatically:
- Signs the DMG with
sign_update(Ed25519 signature over the file bytes) - Appends a new
<item>toappcast.xmlwith the signature - Commits both source and appcast changes in one commit
- Pushes, then publishes the GitHub release with the signed DMG
| File | Role |
|---|---|
main.swift |
App entry |
AppDelegate.swift |
Status menu, hotkey wiring, capture pipeline |
HotKeyManager.swift |
Carbon global hotkey registration |
OverlayController.swift |
Region-selection overlay |
OverlayWindow.swift |
Per-screen borderless overlay window |
SelectionView.swift |
Drag-to-select view with crosshair + size label |
ScreenCapture.swift |
CGWindowListCreateImage wrapper |
WindowCapture.swift |
Window-pick overlay + per-window capture |
ScreenRecorder.swift |
ScreenCaptureKit + AVAssetWriter pipeline |
GIFConverter.swift |
MP4 → GIF via AVAssetImageGenerator |
RecordingController.swift |
Recording flow orchestration (@MainActor) |
RecordingUI.swift |
Options panel + stop pill SwiftUI views |
RecordingCompletePopup.swift |
Bottom-left video/GIF popup with thumbnail |
RecordingFrameOverlay.swift |
Viewfinder rectangle around target region |
Annotation.swift |
Editor: canvas, toolbar, in-canvas text editor |
MainWindow.swift |
History grid + Settings tabs |
HistoryStore.swift |
Persistent capture index (image / video / GIF) |
ShortcutStore.swift |
Shortcut persistence + key formatting |
ShortcutRecorder.swift |
NSViewRepresentable shortcut recorder |
PostCapturePopup.swift |
Bottom-left image popup |
PinnedImage.swift |
Floating always-on-top pinned screenshots |
AllInOne.swift |
Cursor-anchored capture palette |
DesktopIcons.swift |
Toggle Finder desktop icons |
SoundEffect.swift |
Camera-shutter playback |
FloatingPanels.swift |
Countdown + toast controllers |
LastCaptureStore.swift |
Persist last region for "Capture Previous" |
ImageSaver.swift |
PNG encode + clipboard + Desktop save |
ColorPicker.swift |
NSColorSampler wrapper + hex-to-clipboard |
Permission.swift |
Screen Recording permission prompt controller |
Updater.swift |
Sparkle auto-update bootstrap |
~/Library/Application Support/ShotX/
History/— capture files (.png,.mp4,.gif)history.json— index (id, kind, dimensions, duration, timestamp)
UserDefaults:
com.shotx.shortcut— capture shortcut combocom.shotx.colorPickerShortcut— color-picker shortcut combocom.shotx.lastCapture— last region rect + screen index
- Microphone + system audio in recording
- Webcam overlay
- Keystroke visualization in recordings
- Mouse-click highlights in recordings
- Scrolling capture (stitched long-form screenshots)
- Notarized / Developer ID-signed distribution
- Custom DMG background
Built with Swift, AppKit, SwiftUI, and Claude.
