QuickSnap

A tiny, native macOS menu-bar app: press one shortcut to capture your whole screen, save it as a PNG to a folder of your choice, and copy it to the clipboard — all in a single keystroke.

No Dock icon, no window in the way, no dependencies. It just lives in your menu bar and waits for the shortcut.

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What it does

• Quick capture (⌃⇧C, rebindable) → grab the whole screen, save a PNG to your folder, and copy it to the clipboard — one silent keystroke.
• Annotate (⌃⇧Q, rebindable) → capture, then mark it up in a quick editor (arrow, box, circle, text) and Save & Copy in a single click.
• Crop & Annotate (⌃⌘A, rebindable) → drag-select a region of the screen, mark it up, then just close the window — it auto-saves the result and copies it to the clipboard, no button needed. The raw crop is saved the moment you select it too, and Crop Again lets you re-pick the region. The editor floats on top so it isn't lost behind your other windows.
• Choose your folder — Desktop, Downloads, or any folder, from Settings.
• A silent haptic tap confirms each capture (on Force Touch trackpads).
• Menu-bar only — lightweight, no Dock icon, no dependencies.

Requirements

• macOS 14 or later
• Swift toolchain (comes with the Xcode Command Line Tools: xcode-select --install)

Build & run

git clone https://github.com/Nihirdas/QuickSnap.git
cd QuickSnap
./build_app.sh
open build/QuickSnap.app

build_app.sh compiles the app and wraps it in a proper QuickSnap.app bundle, then ad-hoc code-signs it.

First run

1. QuickSnap appears in your menu bar (a small camera icon).
2. The first time you capture, macOS asks for Screen Recording permission — allow it under System Settings › Privacy & Security › Screen Recording, then capture again.
3. Press ⌃⇧C (or your custom shortcut) anywhere. The screen is saved and copied; the menu-bar icon flashes a checkmark to confirm.

Because the app is ad-hoc signed (not notarized), macOS may re-ask for Screen Recording permission after a rebuild. That's expected for a local dev build.

Settings

Open Settings… from the menu-bar menu to:

• choose the save folder (Desktop / Downloads / any folder), and
• record shortcuts for all three actions (Save & Copy, Annotate, Crop & Annotate) — click a field and press your combination.

How it's built

A small, dependency-free Swift package. The interesting pieces:

Concern	How
Menu-bar presence	NSStatusItem + activation policy .accessory (no Dock icon)
Global shortcut	Carbon RegisterEventHotKey — fires app-wide, no Accessibility permission needed
Screen capture	ScreenCaptureKit (SCScreenshotManager), Apple's modern capture API
Clipboard + saving	NSPasteboard and NSBitmapImageRep → PNG
Settings UI	AppKit — an NSWindow with a custom NSView shortcut recorder

Roadmap

• Annotate mode — second hotkey opens a quick editor (arrow, box, circle, text) → Save & Copy
• Crop & Annotate — drag-select a region, annotate, auto-save + copy on close (⌃⌘A)
• Windows version — see windows/ (beta)
• Window capture (click a window to grab just it)
• Launch at login

Windows

A Windows counterpart (C#/.NET tray app) lives in windows/ — same idea: Ctrl+Alt+S captures the whole screen, saves a PNG, and copies it to the clipboard silently, filling the gap Win+PrtScn (no clipboard) and the Snipping Tool (overlay required) leave open. Build steps are in windows/README.md; CI publishes the .exe on each push.

License

MIT