Point

Point is a fast, clipboard-first screenshot and annotation tool for macOS. It lives in the menu bar and turns a captured region into a polished image without opening a separate editor.

Features

• A customizable global keyboard shortcut
• An optional three-finger double-tap trackpad gesture
• Exact native-resolution captures across Retina and mixed-scale displays
• Arrows, captions, irregular mosaic blur, and opaque redaction
• Screenshot backgrounds: desktop wallpaper, other locally available macOS wallpapers, built-in Aurora/Ocean/Sunset gradients, or a custom image
• Background choice and visibility remembered across captures and launches; custom images are stored by Point
• A customizable glass border and annotation styling
• Moving, resizing, deleting, undo, and redo
• Flattened clipboard output and explicit PNG saving
• No screenshot persistence by default

Download

Download the latest notarized build from GitHub Releases, unzip it, and move Point.app to your Applications folder. Point requires macOS 14 or later.

On first launch, Point guides you through enabling Screen Recording access in macOS. Setup resumes after reopening Point if a restart is needed. You can finish later from Finish Setup… in the menu bar. Point takes screenshots when you start a capture and does not capture audio.

Use Point

Press the configured shortcut, use the optional three-finger double-tap, or choose Capture Region from the menu-bar item. Select a region, annotate it, then press Return to copy and close, returning focus to your previous app so you can paste immediately. A small tilted thumbnail peeks in from the bottom left edge of that screen; hover to slide it fully into view. Choose Save… to save the PNG, then Show in Finder to reveal it. Drag the thumbnail into an image or file input to attach the PNG. The preview closes after six seconds away from the pointer; hovering or using the save dialog or dragging pauses the timer.

Canvas shortcuts:

• A: arrow
• B: mosaic blur
• R: opaque redaction
• G: toggle backdrop
• Command-Z / Command-Shift-Z: undo / redo
• Delete: delete the selected annotation
• Return: copy and close when not editing text
• Command-S: save a flattened PNG
• Escape: cancel the current operation; press again within 2.5 seconds to discard

Drag a selected arrow’s diamond along and away from the arrow to position its curve. Drag it back near the straight line to snap it straight. Double-click an arrow to add or edit its caption. While editing a caption, Return finishes, Option-Return inserts a line, and Command-Return copies. Selected text and captions have direct handles for changing width and font size.

Choose Settings… from the Point menu. Use Capture to set the global shortcut and trackpad gesture. Appearance previews the screenshot background, margin, and border. Hover over a color in Selection overlay to preview Sunset, Lagoon, or Twilight, then click to save it. Use Strength to adjust the wash from 0–100%. Annotations previews the default color, arrow size, and text size.

The wash softens in dark mode and stays outside the selected region. A crosshair and capture hint indicate readiness, and dimensions follow the dragged corner. Reduce Motion skips the entrance fade. The screen freezes when capture starts. Selection and the finished screenshot use that same frame, so video cannot advance while you choose a region.

Develop

Point requires macOS 14 or later and Xcode 15 or later.

Open Point.xcodeproj, select the Point target, and choose your Apple Development team under Signing & Capabilities. Debug builds appear as Point Dev with the bundle identifier com.eirikbjorndal.point.dev, keeping their Screen Recording permission separate from the installed release app.

Run the test suite with:

swift test

To create and install a local Release build with the same Developer ID signing identity as published releases:

Scripts/install-local.sh

Screen Recording recovery

If Point is enabled in Settings but asks again after a rebuild, run Scripts/install-local.sh --repair-permissions, then allow Point once and reopen it if macOS asks. Normal installs preserve the signing identity and never reset permissions. See the diagnosis and recovery guide.

Create a release

Public releases require a paid Apple Developer Program membership, a Developer ID Application certificate, and notarization credentials stored in the keychain under the point-notary profile.

xcrun notarytool store-credentials "point-notary"
Scripts/release.sh
Scripts/publish-release.sh 0.4.0

release.sh tests, archives, Developer-ID-signs, notarizes, staples, packages, checksums, and Gatekeeper-verifies the universal app. publish-release.sh revalidates the result before attaching it to a GitHub Release.

Privacy

Point processes captures locally and copies the finished image to the clipboard. It does not persist screenshots by default and contains no analytics or account system.

Compatibility note

The optional three-finger gesture uses macOS's private MultitouchSupport framework. Apple may change this framework without notice. The configurable keyboard shortcut remains the supported fallback.