Screen Capture for macOS – Open-source sticky-aware scrolling capture

Native, private-by-design screenshot & scrolling long-capture utility for Apple Silicon.

Built with pure Swift, AppKit & ScreenCaptureKit — 100% on-device, zero ads, zero paywalls, Apple Notarized.

⬇️ Download DMG (v0.5.0 · Apple Silicon)  ·  🍺 Install via Homebrew  ·  简体中文文档  ·  Privacy  ·  Changelog

💡 If Screen Capture saves you from bloated screenshot subscriptions or scrolling-stitch failures, please click ⭐ Star at the top-right to help more Mac users discover it!

Many macOS screenshot utilities start simple and gradually turn into bloated subscription suites with cloud accounts, intrusive background daemons, or brittle scrolling capture that stalls whenever a webpage has a sticky header or footer.

Screen Capture focuses relentlessly on the two everyday jobs you actually need:

Dimension Screen Capture (v0.5.0) macOS Built-in (Cmd+Shift+4) Freemium Tools (iShot / Xnip) Commercial Tools (CleanShot X / Shottr)

Price & License 100% Free & Open Source (Apache-2.0) Free (System Built-in) Closed-source Freemium / VIP Paywalls Paid License ($12–$29+) / Closed-source

Scrolling Long Capture Yes — Sticky Header/Footer Auto-Trim + 1:1 Pixel Refine ❌ Not supported ⚠️ Often stalls or duplicates sticky footers / watermarked ✅ Supported

Inline Vector Toolbar Compact 31×31pt AI-Era Glassmorphic Vector Strip Separate slow Markup preview window Heavy multi-row legacy toolbar Modern floating toolbar

WindowServer 120Hz Stability Process-level SCContentFilter + Deferred Panel Retire Native Legacy window filters prone to macOS 26/27 layer crashes Varies

Privacy & Network Boundary Zero Network Access · 100% Local RAM Local Often bundles analytics / cloud login Optional cloud upload

Apple Notarization Developer ID Signed & Stapled System App Store / Direct Direct

Install

Option 1: Homebrew Cask (Recommended for Developers)

brew tap nasadunadu/tap https://github.com/nasadunadu/screen-capture-macos.git brew install --cask screencapture

Option 2: Direct DMG Download

Download ScreenCapture-0.5.0-macos-arm64.dmg (or the fallback .zip from GitHub Releases).

Open the DMG and drag ScreenCapture into Applications.

Launch ScreenCapture — it is signed with an Apple Developer ID and notarized by Apple, so Gatekeeper opens it cleanly without terminal workarounds.

Key Highlights in v0.5.0

WindowServer Crash Hardening (macOS 26/27): Replaces per-window SCContentFilter arrays with process-level excludingApplications and retires NSPanel overlays safely across 120Hz display passes (EditorPanel.retire), preventing CARenderUpdateValidateRestrictedLayerHosts crashes.

Sticky-Aware Scrolling Long Capture Engine:

Decouples fixed header/footer overlap search from unmasked score gates so sticky navigation bars or chat input boxes never stall scrolling capture.

Combines horizontal and vertical gradient energy to detect stationary bottom bars and dynamically trims newly detected footers from the stitched tail (trimOutputTail).

Adds 1:1 native-pixel vertical alignment refinement (±3px) and 2-step lookahead during fast scrolling.

Compact AI-Era Precision Vector Toolbar: Custom Canvas-rendered 17×17pt vector glyphs inside 31×31pt hit targets, 1.5pt intra-group spacing, hairline dividers, .ultraThinMaterial glassmorphic capsule, and an indigo primary confirm button.

Strict Local-Only Architecture: No WebViews, no accounts, no analytics, no cloud uploads, and zero third-party runtime dependencies.

Native SwiftUI settings with click-to-record global shortcuts, output format controls, and permission diagnostics.

Action Default Shortcut Customizable

Region Capture & Annotation Command-4 ✅ Yes (Settings → 截图)

Scrolling Long Capture Command-5 ✅ Yes (Settings → 截图)

Cancel Active Capture / Export Escape Built-in global safety key

System Requirements

Hardware: Apple Silicon (arm64 — M1 / M2 / M3 / M4 / M5) Mac. (Intel Mac users can continue using the universal v0.4.14 release).

OS: macOS 14.0 (Sonoma) or later, compatible with macOS 14–26 and macOS 27.

Permission: macOS Screen Recording permission (requested only when your first capture starts; the app never records audio or video).

Build & Validate from Source

Open ScreenCapture.xcodeproj in Xcode 27+ and press Command-R, or build without code signing from the terminal:

DEVELOPER_DIR=/Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer xcodebuild
-project ScreenCapture.xcodeproj
-scheme ScreenCapture
-destination 'platform=macOS'
CODE_SIGNING_ALLOWED=NO build

Run the full validation suite (property-list lint, 86 deterministic unit tests, static analysis, arm64 Release build, and DMG/ZIP packaging smoke test):

./scripts/ci.sh

Repository Layout

ScreenCapture/App — Silent menu-bar and Dock lifecycle management

ScreenCapture/Capture — SCContentFilter display capture and adjustable selection overlay

ScreenCapture/Annotation — Non-destructive vector annotation canvas and compact floating toolbar

ScreenCapture/LongCapture — Stream collection, sticky-edge overlap matching, and 1:1 pixel stitching

ScreenCapture/Services — Export pipeline, permission recovery, and global Carbon/AppKit hotkeys

ScreenCapture/Settings — Local UserDefaults preferences and shortcut recorder

ScreenCaptureTests — 86 deterministic unit and regression tests

Casks/screencapture.rb — Official Homebrew Cask formula

Contributing & License

Read CONTRIBUTING.md before opening a pull request, and report security or privacy concerns via SECURITY.md. Licensed under the Apache License 2.0.