Snappilot

The free, open-source Snagit alternative for macOS.
Capture · Annotate · Record · OCR — native, on-device, and private.

     

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📥 Download & install

1. Download Snappilot.dmg from the latest release.
2. Open the .dmg and drag Snappilot onto the Applications folder.
3. First launch: right-click Snappilot → Open (the app is signed but not yet notarized), or run xattr -cr /Applications/Snappilot.app.
4. On first capture/record, allow Screen Recording (and Microphone / Camera if used) in System Settings → Privacy & Security.

Prefer to build from source? See Build & run below.

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✨ Overview

Snappilot is a fast, modern screen-capture studio for macOS — think Snagit or CleanShot, but free, open-source, and 100% private. Grab exactly the part of the screen you want, annotate it in a Snagit-style editor, record it to a compact HEVC video (with a webcam bubble, mic and countdown), and pull selectable text out of anything with on-device OCR. Every capture auto-saves to a searchable local library — searchable even by the words inside your screenshots.

Explore the interactive product experience at the Snappilot website, or visit the complete documentation for installation, permissions, capture tools, recording, Meeting Mode, tasks, notes, architecture, and troubleshooting.

Why Snappilot?

🆓 Free & open source	No license, no subscription, MIT-licensed.
🔒 Private by design	100% on-device. No telemetry, no accounts, no cloud. OCR runs locally via Apple Vision.
⚡ Native & fast	Pure Swift + ScreenCaptureKit — lightweight, Retina-crisp, no Electron.
🎨 Genuinely powerful	Magnifier capture, a full annotation editor, screen recording, video trim/annotation, GIF export, auto-redaction, and more.

Typical workflow

1. Capture — ⌃⇧1 and drag a region (or record with ⌃⇧5).
2. Annotate — the editor opens; add arrows, callouts, step numbers, blur, stamps.
3. Share — Copy, Save, drag out, or turn a recording into a GIF.
4. Find it later — it's in your library, searchable by its OCR'd text.

🏠 Dashboard Colorful quick-capture cards (Region · Window · Full Screen · Grab Text · Record), one row of recording options (system audio · mic · camera · cursor · countdown · quality), and a searchable library of every capture — with copy, favorite & delete.

✏️ Annotation editor Snagit-style toolbar (arrow, text, callout, shapes, step, highlight, blur, pen, stamp, crop), a live Quick Styles preset grid, and Tool Properties (color, thickness, opacity, arrow start/end/size) on a clean canvas.

🚀 Features

Capture

• 🟦 Region · 🪟 Window · 🖥️ Full Screen — a crisp crosshair overlay with a live magnifier loupe, pixel dimensions, and keyboard hints.
• ⏱️ Delay timer — 3s/5s countdown before a screenshot.
• ⌨️ Global shortcuts — trigger any capture from anywhere. Fully customizable.
• 🫥 Snappilot hides itself during capture so it never lands in your shot.

Annotate (Snagit-style editor)

• ➡️ Arrows, lines, rectangles, ellipses, callouts, freehand pen
• 🔢 Step badges — auto-numbered 1·2·3, A·B·C, or a·b·c
• 🖍️ Highlighter · 🙈 Blur / redact · ✂️ Crop · ⭐ Stamps (emoji)
• 🛡️ Auto-redact — one click blurs detected emails & card numbers (on-device OCR)
• 🖼️ Polished frames — wrap a shot in a gradient background + shadow for sharing
• 🎨 Quick Styles — 10+ one-click presets per tool (solid / dashed / dotted, dot & bar arrow heads, fills, colors)
• 🎚️ Tool properties: custom color, thickness, opacity, arrow start/end/size
• ↩️ Non-destructive layers, undo/redo, move & edit anything

Record

• 🎥 Record a region or the full screen → compact HEVC MP4 (Small / Balanced / High quality)
• 🔊 System audio · 🎙️ Microphone · 📷 Webcam overlay · 🖱️ cursor — all optional
• 🎙️ Microphone noise cancellation — voice-processed mic (noise suppression + echo cancellation)
• ⏸️ Pause / Resume — the paused span is stitched out cleanly
• ⏱️ "Ready to Record" panel + 3·2·1 countdown (outside the frame) + a live frame indicator
• ✍️ Draw on screen while recording — pen, highlighter, a fading laser pointer & arrows, captured into the video. Ink auto-fades when you stop, Google-Meet style (press Esc to exit).
• 📸 Screenshot while recording — grab a still without stopping the recording
• ▶️ Recordings open in Snappilot's own player — never QuickTime — with Trim, Annotate (draw on a frame, baked over the whole clip), and GIF export

🧠 Meeting Mode (on-device AI)

• 🎙️ Record a call (Google Meet / Zoom) and get an automatic transcript — all processed on your Mac, nothing uploaded.
• 🗣️ Speakers split into You vs Participants automatically (mic vs system audio); real per-speaker names are read from Google Meet's live captions when they're on.
• ✅ Auto-generated Summary, Action Items & Key Points — saved as Markdown next to the recording, searchable, and one-click imported into the task board.

📸 Capture, extended

• 📜 Scrolling capture — auto-scroll a long page and stitch it into one tall image
• 🗂️ Collections — drag captures into named groups · 🏷️ tags · 📌 Pin to Screen
• 📄 PDF export — pick images and export a multi-page PDF

✅ Tasks — a Linear-style board

• 🗂️ Board To do / In progress / Review / Done + a List view; drag cards to change status
• 🔑 Issue-key chips · 🚩 priority · 🏷️ labels · 👤 assignee avatars · subtask progress bars
• 📝 Full task detail page: Markdown description, subtasks with their own descriptions, comments (Markdown), activity history, image/file attachments
• 🔔 Due-date reminders (local notifications) · ⬆️ export to Markdown / Apple Reminders

📓 Notes — a Markdown workspace

• ✍️ Live split editor — raw Markdown ↔ rendered preview, updating as you type
• 🖼️ Images in Markdown (insert, drag-and-drop, ![alt](url) renders inline)
• ⭐ favorite · 📌 pin · 🗄️ archive · duplicate · export; search; word count & reading time
• 🧭 Notes list lives in the collapsible main sidebar for a distraction-free editor

OCR & Library

• 🔤 Grab Text — extract selectable text from any region via Apple Vision
• 🗂️ Every capture auto-saves to a local library, searchable by the text inside it
• ⭐ Favorites · 📋 copy · 🗑️ delete · 🔎 instant search · 💾 live storage usage in the sidebar

Design

• 🌗 Full light & dark theme support (follows your system)
• 🧭 Clean collapsible sidebar dashboard · menu-bar quick access · full app menu with shortcuts

⌨️ Default shortcuts

Shortcut	Action		Shortcut	Action
⌃⇧1	Region		⌃⇧6	Record Screen
⌃⇧2	Window		⌃⇧7	Scrolling Capture
⌃⇧3	Full Screen		⌃⇧8	Record Meeting
⌃⇧4	Grab Text (OCR)		⌃⇧.	Stop Recording
⌃⇧5	Record Region			(all customizable in Settings)

🛠️ Build & run

Requires macOS 14+, Xcode 16+, and XcodeGen (brew install xcodegen).

xcodegen generate        # creates Snappilot.xcodeproj
open Snappilot.xcodeproj  # then Run (⌘R)

swift run snapverify      # framework-free logic tests for SnapCore

On first capture/record, macOS asks for Screen Recording (and, if used, Microphone / Camera) permission — enable Snappilot in System Settings → Privacy & Security.

🏗️ Architecture

• SnapCore — a UI-free, unit-tested Swift package: capture/crop geometry, the Vision OCR wrapper, image ops, sensitive-data detection, the annotation layer model, and the local-library index.
• App — SwiftUI + AppKit: capture overlay, ScreenCaptureKit controller, the annotation editor, recorder, video player, menu-bar UI, hotkeys, and settings.

Logic lives in SnapCore so it can be tested without a UI; everything visual consumes it through clean value types.

🗺️ Roadmap

Shipped: ✅ Meeting Mode · ✅ Scrolling capture · ✅ Collections & tags · ✅ PDF export · ✅ Pause/Resume · ✅ Noise cancellation · ✅ Task board · ✅ Notes workspace

Next:

• Timeline view + Filter / Sort / Group on the task board
• Per-subtask due dates & assignees · linked issues
• Note folders & backlinks · slash-commands in the editor
• Templates / step-guides · quick share

🤝 Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Please read CONTRIBUTING.md first.

• 🐛 Report a bug
• 💡 Request a feature
• 🔀 main is protected — changes land via pull request with review.

🛡️ Security

Found a vulnerability? Please report it privately — see SECURITY.md. Do not open a public issue for security problems.

🔒 Privacy

100% on-device. No telemetry, no third-party services, no account. OCR runs locally via Apple Vision; recordings and captures never leave your Mac.

📄 License

MIT.