Capso
Free open-source screenshot & screen recorder for Mac
Start new thread
Kevin

Capso - Free open-source screenshot & screen recorder for Mac

by
Capso
•
Capso is a free, open-source screenshot and screen recording app for Mac (Apple Silicon), built entirely in Swift. ✨ Features: • Screenshot (area, window, fullscreen) • Screen recording • Annotation tools • OCR (text from images) • Image beautification Think CleanShot X or Cap — but completely free and open source. No subscriptions, no paywalls, no telemetry. Just a clean, native Mac app that does everything you need.

Add a comment

Replies

Best
Kevin
Maker
📌
Hey everyone! I'm Kevin, the maker of Capso. I've been a macOS user and Apple fan for years, and I always loved how polished the ecosystem feels. But as someone who relies on screenshot and screen recording tools daily, I kept running into the same problem: the best tools out there are genuinely great, but they come with a price tag that not everyone can justify, especially indie developers, students, or folks just getting started. That's what inspired me to build Capso. It's completely free and open source, built natively for Apple Silicon in Swift. I wanted to make something that actually feels at home on a Mac, without asking anyone to open their wallet. I'm honestly a little nervous sharing this with the Product Hunt community, but also incredibly excited. Capso is still young and has a lot of room to grow, and I'd love to hear what you think. If you find it useful, or if you have ideas for how to make it better, please don't hesitate to share. Your feedback means everything to a solo builder like me. Thank you so much for taking the time to check it out!
Ankit Narang

One question - why we need this if mac already have this feature inbuild?

Kevin
Maker

@ankit_narang1 Great question. A few things Capso adds on top of the native macOS screenshot:

  1. Annotation editor: arrows, shapes, text, pixelate/blur, counters, highlighter

  2. Screenshot beautification, add backgrounds, rounded corners, shadows with one click

  3. OCR: select any area and extract text instantly

  4. Pin to screen: float screenshots as always-on-top windows

  5. Screen recording with webcam PiP, 4 shapes, drag-resize, presentation mode

  6. Quick Access panel, floating preview after capture with copy/save/annotate/pin actions

Basically macOS gives you the raw capture, Capso adds everything you'd want to do with it afterwards.
Please give it a try and let me know what you think!

Ankit Narang

@lzhgus Good to hear that - All the best

Anas Ansari
Thats great @lzhgus ! Were you able to solve the dual channel voice input issue that is common in most of the screen recorders? Looking forward to test it!
Kevin
Maker

@_anasansari  Thanks for the kind words, Anas! Great question.


Capso does support capturing system audio and microphone simultaneously as separate audio tracks, so they don't interfere with each other. That said, we're still pretty early and there's definitely room for improvement in the

audio mixing department.


Would love for you to give it a try and let us know how it works for your use case! If you run into any issues, feel free to open an issue on GitHub, your feedback would really help us improve.

Mykola Kondratiuk

free, open source, native Swift, OCR included - that's a rare combo. most tools compromise somewhere on the annotation layer.

Kevin
Maker

@mykola_kondratiuk Thanks Mykola! You're right, the annotation layer is where a lot of tools cut corners, and honestly ours still has a long way to go too.

I am working on adding more tools like spotlight, magnifier, and image overlays. If there's anything specific you'd like to see in the annotation side, we're all ears, GitHub issues are always open!

Mykola Kondratiuk

That kind of self-awareness is actually rare from a maker. Worth the investment - annotation UX is what people actually feel when using a tool.

Kevin
Maker

@mykola_kondratiuk Absolutely, annotation UX is the top priority for us right now. Appreciate the encouragement!

Mykola Kondratiuk

Makes sense as the priority - annotation is the thing users touch every single session, so any friction compounds hard. Every UX call there has outsized impact.

Germán Merlo
Yeahhh! Exactly what I needed. Just guessing why do you open source it. Congrats btw! All the best
Kevin
Maker

@german_merlo1 Thanks Germán! I built Capso because I use screenshot tools every day and wanted something that fits exactly how I work. Figured if it's useful to me, it might be useful to others too, so why not share it with the community. Hope you enjoy it!

Farrukh Butt

Finally a free alternative to CleanShot X that doesn't feel cheap. The fact that it's built natively in Swift makes a real difference on Apple Silicon.

Kevin
Maker

@farrukh_butt1 That means a lot, "doesn't feel cheap" is exactly what we're going for.
Being native Swift is a deliberate choice. Screenshot tools should feel instant and lightweight, not like a browser tab running in the background. Still lots to improve, but glad the foundation feels right!

Farrukh Butt

@lzhgus That's exactly it — you can tell the difference the moment you open it. Keep shipping!

Takahito Yoneda

Building a native Mac screen recorder is no easy feat given all the strict capture permissions Apple requires. I can see myself using this daily to grab quick bug repros for my GitHub repositories. I would love to know if you built this with pure Swift or used a cross-platform framework like Tauri under the hood.

Kevin
Maker

@y_taka Thank you, Takahito! Really appreciate the kind words, and yes, the ScreenCaptureKit permissions dance was quite a journey 😅

To answer your question, Capso is 100% native Swift 6 + SwiftUI/AppKit, no Electron, no Tauri, no web views. I wanted it to feel like a true Mac app, and the core capture/recording/annotation pieces are all independent Swift packages (CaptureKit, RecordingKit, AnnotationKit, etc.) that you can actually drop into your own projects if you find them useful.

Hope it serves you well, and any feedback is always welcome on our GitHub!

Marvin Weigand

Based on the screenshots and videos it seems to have a very nice look and feel. Amazing that you provide that as open source and free! Despite the look and feel are there more upsides in comparison to the native mac os screenshot and video capture functionality?

Kevin
Maker

@drunreal  Thanks Marvin! Great question. A few things Capso adds on top of the native macOS screenshot:

  1. Annotation editor: arrows, shapes, text, pixelate/blur, counters, highlighter

  2. Screenshot beautification, add backgrounds, rounded corners, shadows with one click

  3. OCR: select any area and extract text instantly

  4. Pin to screen: float screenshots as always-on-top windows

  5. Screen recording with webcam PiP, 4 shapes, drag-resize, presentation mode

  6. Quick Access panel, floating preview after capture with copy/save/annotate/pin actions

Basically macOS gives you the raw capture, Capso adds everything you'd want to do with it afterwards. Give it a try and let me know what you think!

Marvin Weigand

@lzhgus I will definitely give it a try!