ClickLight

A small macOS menu bar app that highlights your clicks during live demos, screen sharing, UX reviews, and other moments where people need to follow what you are doing.

Screen recorders like Screen Studio and CleanShot can add click effects after the fact. ClickLight is for the live moment itself, when you need the audience to see exactly when you clicked without interrupting your flow.

Demo

https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/d00d36ea-dd80-4cf4-a0f6-f3bf4b132138

Use Cases

• Live product demos where viewers need to follow exactly what you clicked
• UX reviews where the delay between click and response matters (the original motivation for ClickLight)
• Bug reports where a recording should show both the action and the app behavior
• Tutorials, workshops, and conference talks where pointer movement alone is easy to miss
• Pairing with a larger macOS pointer so clicks stay visible in live demos and recordings

Install

With Homebrew:

brew tap aurorascharff/clicklight https://github.com/aurorascharff/ClickLight
brew install --cask aurorascharff/clicklight/clicklight

Homebrew installs are updated with brew upgrade --cask clicklight.

Prefer not to use Homebrew? Download ClickLight.zip from GitHub Releases.

Manual install If you want to build ClickLight from source or iterate on it locally, use Manual Install.

Features

• Click highlights across macOS apps
• Separate visuals for press, release, right-click, and drag
• Optional laser pointer mode with fading freehand strokes while dragging
• Optional live keyboard shortcut display, including Tab and arrow navigation, pinned to the bottom of the screen by default, with pointer-following placement and sizes through XL available
• Optional screenshot shortcut handling that hides the release highlight after Command + Shift + 4
• Local daily click activity chart with a resettable seven-day history
• Optional daily click count in the menu bar
• Dedicated settings window with presets, sliders, optional menu sections, and a sidebar preview pad with Randomize
• Custom color picker in Settings
• Menu-bar quick presets for size, duration, intensity, and color
• Customizable status-bar menu sections for hiding optional controls you do not use
• One default ClickLight toggle shortcut, with optional shortcuts for other actions
• Optional compact menu-bar icon
• Test pulse for verifying overlay behavior
• Native Swift/AppKit app
• No Xcode project required

Keyboard Shortcuts

ClickLight includes one default global shortcut for quick toggles during demos. Other actions can be assigned shortcuts in Settings if you want them.

All shortcuts can be changed or disabled in Settings.

Permissions

ClickLight requires Accessibility permission to detect clicks outside its own menu-bar app. You will be prompted on first launch, or grant it manually in:

System Settings -> Privacy & Security -> Accessibility

The optional Live Keyboard Shortcuts display and screenshot shortcut handling additionally require Input Monitoring, because macOS protects keyboard input separately from mouse clicks.

After enabling Accessibility permission, quit ClickLight from the menu bar and reopen it. Input Monitoring changes are picked up when you return to ClickLight.

Tip: for recorded demos or presentations, pair ClickLight with a larger macOS pointer in System Settings -> Accessibility -> Display -> Pointer.

Modify It

ClickLight is personal software: one small presentation annoyance, fixed directly. The project is intentionally small so you or an agent can change it without much ceremony.

Start with Local Development.

Contributing

Contributions are welcome. See CONTRIBUTING.md for setup, testing, and pull request guidance. Please report security issues privately as described in SECURITY.md.

Releasing

Releases are signed, notarized, published to GitHub Releases, and followed by a reviewed metadata pull request for Homebrew and Sparkle updates.

See Releasing. What's new is tracked in GitHub Releases.

Uninstall

brew uninstall --cask clicklight

To remove ClickLight preferences too:

brew uninstall --cask --zap clicklight

Manual uninstall If you installed ClickLight manually from source, use Remove Manual Install.

License

MIT. See LICENSE.