screendrop

Screendrop is a native macOS application that combines screenshot capture, screen recording, and an optional self-hosted sharing service. It is positioned as a free, self-hostable alternative to tools like Loom, and the README notes it is under active development with possible rough edges and breaking changes. Capture and screenshots Screendrop can capture a full display, a window, or a selected area, at native display resolution. Default global shortcuts cover full screen, window, area, the recording picker, and OCR text capture, and all are customizable. Screenshot preferences include a 3/5/10 second self-timer, optional window shadows, trimming of the black menu-bar strip on notched Macs, PNG or JPEG export with configurable quality, a configurable export folder, and a lower-resolution editor preview that preserves full-resolution exports. A Capture Text mode uses on-device Vision OCR to put recognized text on the clipboard without saving an image, returning lines in reading order. After-capture automation can show a preview overlay, copy to clipboard, save, upload and copy a link, open the annotation editor, or pin the capture above other windows. New captures appear in a floating preview stack of cards from which users can copy, save, compress, pin, Quick Look, annotate, edit, upload, delete, or copy recognized text. The overlay position, auto-close delay, and action layout are configurable. Library and annotation A native Library window unifies screenshots, videos, and recording projects, with sidebar filters, grid and list views, search, sorting, and an inspector showing dimensions, dates, duration, disk usage, project state, file location, and cloud actions. Multi-select supports copy, export, reveal, rename, and move to trash. Screendrop also registers as an image editor in Finder; opening images imports copies into the Library and never modifies originals. The annotation editor is non-destructive, preserving the base image and writing editable state to a `.screendrop` sidecar. Tools include rectangles, circles, lines, arrows, freehand drawing, numbered markers, text, highlight regions, pixelate, blur, and select/move/resize/undo/redo. Smart Redaction scans for sensitive text and can add blur or pixelation automatically. Cropping supports freeform and common aspect-ratio presets and remaps existing annotations. Background and mockup features include solid colors, gradients, custom images, downloadable wallpaper packs, padding, corner radius, shadow, aspect ratio, alignment, borders, text watermarks, camera-style perspective, and progressive blur. Background presets can be exported and imported as versioned JSON files. Screen recording and Studio The recording picker lets users choose a display, app window, or area, plus camera, microphone, system audio, a start timer, and an optional teleprompter script. During recording, a floating control bar supports pause/resume, restart, stop-and-keep, and delete. Screen, camera, cursor activity, clicks, keystrokes, microphone, and system audio are captured as coordinated inputs, with raw screen and camera masters kept separate. A notch-native teleprompter follows narration using on-device speech recognition when a microphone is enabled; otherwise it acts as a static prompt. Recording Studio stores each recording as a non-destructive session package and supports timeline scrubbing, splitting, trimming, deleting, per-clip speed changes, undo/redo, background and layout options, social aspect ratios, fill or fit framing, and named presets. Interaction data is recorded separately from pixels, enabling auto zoom from clicks, manual zooms, pointer-following or fixed-focus zooms, reconstructed cursor size, click highlights, and keystroke captions. On-device transcription with Apple's Speech Analyzer powers editable captions, karaoke-style word highlighting, and text-based video editing where cutting transcript passages removes matching footage; filler-word removal and silence trimming are also available. Export options include quality, codec, resolution, format, 30/60 fps, motion blur, and audio, with cached renders. A lightweight trim-and-compress editor for regular video files uses FFmpeg. Cloud sharing and privacy Cloud sharing is optional and Cloudflare-first: a Worker receives authenticated uploads, R2 stores files, and D1 stores metadata. Screendrop needs only the Worker URL and an upload token, stored in Keychain. Shared recordings get a player with captions, playback speed, theater mode, scrub previews, a synced searchable transcript, moment-attached comments, view counts, and rich link previews; shared screenshots get a simple viewer. A companion Worker repository and a Deploy to Cloudflare flow are provided. The app is local-first: captures, project files, annotation sidecars, and transcripts stay on the Mac, transcription runs on-device, and there is no central account or hosted Screendrop server. macOS permissions may be requested for screen and system audio recording, camera, microphone, and input monitoring. Screendrop windows are excluded from captures by default. Build and release Building locally requires macOS 26.4 or newer and an Xcode 26.4 beta toolchain; dependencies resolve automatically. There is no test target, and a successful Xcode build is described as the automated verification gate. A Go release helper handles archive, notarize, package, and publish steps. Installation is via a DMG or a Homebrew cask, and the app can self-update through Sparkle.