BetterShot

One app for the whole screen. Screenshots, screen recording, and a video editor, native on macOS. An open-source alternative to CleanShot X and Loom with no subscription, no account, and no telemetry. Nothing leaves your Mac unless you share it, and shares go to storage you own.

Features

• Screenshots: region, fullscreen, and window capture with macOS's native selector. OCR text extraction and hex color picker included.
• Screenshot saving: Copy is clipboard-only for every capture mode and in the editor. Screenshots stay in private working storage until you choose Save or Export; editor Save also works before making edits.
• Screen recording: capture a display, window, or adjustable region with system audio, microphone, camera overlay, and teleprompter.
• Image editor: arrows, shapes, text, numbered markers, highlight, blur, pixelate, and crop. Background framing with padding, corners, shadow, wallpapers, and ten soft gradients.
• Video editor: cuts, clip speeds (0.25x to 8x), transitions, crop, zoom, masks (blur/pixelate with Crop Only or Full Frame), captions, and camera controls. Camera layout presets include Camera Bubble, Overlap, Side-by-Side, Presenter, Camera Only, and Screen Only, with left/right positioning for paired layouts. Layouts apply to the whole video and are saved with the project. Camera Bubble and Overlap start at the compact 0.5.2 size (1:1, 26%); selecting either preset restores that size. Floating cameras offer 1:1, 4:3, 3:4, 16:9, 9:16, and 4:5 frames; set 1:1 with 50% rounding for a circle. Background > Video aspect ratio controls the whole video independently, with Original, 16:9, 16:10, 4:3, 9:16, 1:1, and 4:5 plus Fill/Fit.
• Default Look: choose No Background for unframed screenshots and videos, or set background padding down to 0%. Available in General and both editors.
• Cursor styles: Recorded, Arrow (white outlined, starting at 2.5×), Dark, Light, and Dot. Older projects using Hand keep their saved appearance.
• Cursor styling: choose Recorded, Dark, Light, Dot, or native Hand with size, motion, press/ripple effects, and idle hiding. High-resolution artwork preserved in exports.
• Capture deck: keep up to five captures in a floating stack with Copy, Save, Pin, Edit, cloud share, and drag-out. Configurable layouts, tool positions, and dismissal timing.
• Media Gallery: browse captures, edits, and recordings with search, filters, and cloud link management. Delete locally (Trash) or remotely (R2) with confirmation.
• Video export: GPU compositing and hardware encoding, with 30/60 fps, resolution, quality, and MP4/MOV controls. Export and sharing reuse unchanged saved renders.
• Cloud sharing: upload to your own Cloudflare R2 bucket. Optimized image compression, MP4 video, native progress, and retry on failure.
• 75 customizable shortcuts: configure global capture, recording controls, deck actions, image tools, and video editing keys. Conflict detection per scope.
• URL scheme: trigger actions from Raycast, Shortcuts, Alfred, or scripts: bettershot://capture/region, bettershot://record, bettershot://ocr, and more.

Both editors use a left inspector with compact controls and frosted chrome. Action icons use Apple SF Symbols. Full-resolution previews are the default, and original source files remain editable.

Install

brew install --cask bettershot

Or grab the .dmg from Releases. Drag BetterShot into Applications and launch it. A three-step introduction (Welcome, Permissions, First Capture) walks you through setup on first run.

Default shortcuts

All shortcuts are customizable in Settings > Shortcuts. Additional actions (area recording, deck controls, editor tools) start unassigned and can be bound from the same page.

Build from source

brew install xcodegen
git clone https://github.com/KartikLabhshetwar/better-shot.git
cd better-shot
make release
open .build/Build/Products/Release/BetterShot.app

Requires macOS 26.0+, Xcode 26+, and XcodeGen. Pure Swift and SwiftUI with a single dependency (DockProgress). No Electron, no web views.

Run make test to verify with unsigned builds, regression checks, editor snapshots, and export integration tests.

Contributing

Contributions are welcome. See CONTRIBUTING.md for the build workflow, project layout, and submission process. Read AGENTS.md for the required UI and interaction rules.

License

BSD 3-Clause. See LICENSE.