EasyScreen

A free, open-source screenshot tool for Apple Silicon Macs.
Lives in your menu bar · ⇧⌘1 to grab a region · annotate · copy, save, or both at once.

Download the latest DMG

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Features

• Menu bar app that starts at login — no Dock icon until you open the editor or settings.
• Region capture with ⇧⌘1 (changeable). Screenshot mode is unmistakable: the screen freezes and dims, an accent border and a "Screenshot mode" banner appear, plus crosshair guides, a pixel loupe and a live size readout.
  • Drag to select a region · Shift for a square · Option to draw from the centre · hold Space to move the selection
  • Click a window to capture just that window, or click the desktop / press Return for the whole screen
  • Esc or right-click to cancel
• After-capture actions you can combine — tick any of these and they all run at the same time on every capture:
  • Open in editor
  • Copy to clipboard
  • Save to a folder (PNG or JPEG, custom filename prefix)
• Annotation editor
  • Rectangles/squares, circles/ellipses, arrows, and text — with or without a background label
  • Colour swatches + full colour picker, line thickness, font size
  • Select, move, resize and delete annotations; full undo/redo; zoom
  • Copy (⌘C) or Save (⌘S) the annotated image; Save As… for anywhere else
• Custom keyboard shortcuts for capture region, capture full screen, and opening settings.
• Retina-aware: output keeps full resolution and the right DPI.
• Built natively in Swift with ScreenCaptureKit. No dependencies, no analytics, no network access.

Install

1. Download EasyScreen-<version>-arm64.dmg from Releases.
2. Open the DMG and drag EasyScreen into Applications.
3. Open EasyScreen from Applications.
   • Release builds are not notarized by Apple (unless the maintainer adds signing secrets — see below), so the first launch is blocked. Go to System Settings → Privacy & Security and click Open Anyway, or run:

     xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine /Applications/EasyScreen.app

4. When prompted, allow Screen Recording (System Settings → Privacy & Security → Screen & System Audio Recording), then relaunch EasyScreen (Settings has a Relaunch button).

Requirements: an Apple Silicon Mac (M1 or newer) running macOS 14 Sonoma or later.

Note: recent macOS versions occasionally re-confirm that screen-capture apps may keep recording; choose Allow if asked.

Updating: macOS ties the Screen Recording permission to the app's code signature. Ad-hoc–signed builds get a new signature every release, so after updating you may need to toggle EasyScreen off and on again under Screen & System Audio Recording.

Using it

Action	How
Capture a region	⇧⌘1, or menu bar icon → Capture Region
Capture full screen	menu bar icon → Capture Full Screen (assign a shortcut in Settings)
Choose what happens after capture	Settings → After capture, or the menu bar icon's quick toggles
Change shortcuts	Settings → Keyboard shortcuts → click a shortcut and type a new one (⌫ clears, Esc cancels)
Annotate an existing image	menu bar icon → Open Image…

Editor shortcuts

Key	Tool / action
V · R · O · A · T	Select · Rectangle · Circle · Arrow · Text
Shift while drawing	Square / circle / 45° arrow
Double-click text	Edit it (Return finishes, Shift-Return adds a line)
⌫	Delete selected annotation
Arrow keys (+ Shift)	Nudge selection 1 pt (10 pt)
⌘Z / ⇧⌘Z	Undo / redo
⌘C · ⌘S · ⇧⌘S	Copy · Save · Save As
⌘0 · ⌘9 · ⌘+ · ⌘-	Actual size · Zoom to fit · Zoom in · Zoom out
Esc	Deselect, then close

Build from source

Requires Xcode 16 or newer (Swift 5.10+).

swift test                          # unit tests
VERSION=1.0.0 ./scripts/build-app.sh   # → build/EasyScreen.app (arm64 only)
VERSION=1.0.0 ./scripts/make-dmg.sh    # → build/EasyScreen-1.0.0-arm64.dmg
open build/EasyScreen.app

To exercise the real ScreenCaptureKit capture and global-hotkey registration (needs Screen Recording permission for your terminal; pixels are only measured in memory):

EASYSCREEN_LIVE_TESTS=1 swift test --filter LiveSystemTests

To render the overlay, editor and settings UI to PNGs for a visual check:

EASYSCREEN_SNAPSHOT_DIR=/tmp/easyscreen-shots swift test --filter SnapshotRenderTests

Releases (CI)

.github/workflows/build.yml runs on every push and pull request on a GitHub Apple Silicon runner: it runs the tests, builds the arm64 app, packages the DMG and uploads it as a build artifact.

Pushing a tag like v1.2.0 additionally publishes a GitHub Release with the DMG and its SHA-256:

git tag v1.2.0
git push origin v1.2.0

Optional: Developer ID signing & notarization

Add these repository secrets and CI will sign with your Developer ID and notarize the DMG, so users can open it without the Gatekeeper workaround:

Secret	Value
MACOS_CERTIFICATE_P12	Base64 of your Developer ID Application certificate exported as .p12
MACOS_CERTIFICATE_PASSWORD	Password for that .p12
MACOS_SIGN_IDENTITY	e.g. Developer ID Application: Your Name (TEAMID)
APPLE_ID	Apple ID email used for notarization
APPLE_TEAM_ID	Your 10-character team ID
APPLE_APP_PASSWORD	An app-specific password for that Apple ID

License

MIT © 2026 Patrick Hastings