Captures is a cross-platform screen capture utility built for quick captures and a lightweight workflow.
Warning
Experimental and under active development. See platform status below.
Capture what you need. A region, a window, or the full display. Screenshot and record from the same menu. |
Built-in editor. Add text, arrows, and shapes right after you capture. |
Keep captures handy. Collapse recent captures into a compact corner pile until you need them. |
Polish recordings. Preview, trim, crop, and export video with quality and audio controls. |
Fully customizable. Light or dark appearance, accent colors, shortcuts, and capture defaults. |
These links always download the latest validated Preview:
| Platform | Download |
|---|---|
| macOS 13+ (Apple silicon) | Captures-macOS-Apple-Silicon.dmg |
| Windows 11 (x64) | Captures-Windows-x64-setup.exe |
| Ubuntu / Debian (x64) | Captures-Linux-x64.deb |
| Other Linux (x64 AppImage) | Captures-Linux-x64.AppImage |
Preview builds automatically publish installed-app changes from main, and may contain bugs or incomplete features. Changes arriving during a build are grouped into the next Preview instead of waiting for an installer for every merge. Installed copies check captur.es for a new Preview shortly after launch and about every five minutes; the site caches GitHub's updater note so those checks stay off GitHub. The notice lists every Preview published since the version you have, then installs the latest. Turn Show what’s new on update notices off in Preferences for a compact Update now prompt. Installing still downloads the signed archive from GitHub and closes open captures; unsaved edits are kept as drafts and stay in Capture History. The update notice stays on screen during a capture so you can screenshot the changelog or an error. GitHub 403s are often a short rate limit, and Try again usually works. If the download is missing (404), use download from captur.es on the error, or the installer links above. You can also check from Preferences → Updates, or the tray Check for Updates… item. If Captures will not open or cannot install an update, download the installer for your OS from the table above. The macOS disk image, Windows setup, and Debian package replace the installed app. For the AppImage, copy it over ~/.local/bin/Captures.AppImage and make it executable (chmod +x); running it from Downloads starts a second copy. Settings, capture history, and OS permissions stay. Older dated builds stay in the build archive.
- Capture regions, windows, or full displays. Window mode treats the menu bar, taskbar, and desktop backdrop as a full-display capture instead of a window.
- Draw a region from an empty screen (no pre-sized outline); lock to common aspect ratios, or hold Shift for a square
- Press Enter in the capture menu to confirm a screenshot or recording once a target is ready
- Optional auto-start after selecting a region, window, or full display (Preferences). Draw a region, click a window, or click the desktop in Full screen mode to start; with auto-start off, confirm with Enter or the capture button
- Optional freeze while choosing a region or window, so hover states, tooltips, menus, and motion stay put (on by default; turn off in Preferences to select from the live desktop)
- On macOS, frozen display previews and region/display screenshots convert the display color profile to sRGB; colors outside the sRGB gamut remain limited by the current capture pipeline.
- Optional cursor in screenshots (on by default; freeze screen does not include the pointer by itself)
- Optional countdown before screenshots and recordings
- Region recordings keep the selected area highlighted on screen while recording
- Record as H.264 MP4, with desktop audio and microphone. Save or export as MP4 or GIF; WebM export is not supported
- Pause, resume, restart, and mute while recording
- On macOS and Windows, recording controls stay out of screenshots and recordings by default (Preferences). On Linux, use Hide controls during a recording to keep the bar off-screen
- Cursor and click highlights in recordings (where supported)
- Built-in screenshot editor — closed shapes start filled, with an optional stroke; text, shapes, images, and drawings can rotate from a shared handle (hold Shift to use a configurable snap increment); text and drawings with optional drop shadows (color, opacity, blur, and offset; the whole label, including a background plate), crop (drag from outside the canvas to reach an edge; hold Shift to lock aspect), layers that hang off the canvas stay clipped until you expand, erase to transparent; unsaved edits restore when you reopen
- Open PNG, JPEG, WebP, GIF, MP4, and WebM files with Captures from Finder, File Explorer, or your file manager. Captures appears in Open With and does not become the default app for those types. Installed macOS, Windows, and Debian packages register this; an AppImage needs a desktop entry with
%U. Save can overwrite the file you opened - Trim, crop, resize, and adjust audio in recordings, with an estimated saved size and an in-editor before/after compression comparison (Hide on the overlay, or switch back to Preserve quality)
- Default screenshot save format PNG, JPEG, or WebP (Capture History stays lossless PNG until you save); export with Tiny through Highest quality presets and an in-editor before/after comparison while Export settings are open. Hide the comparison or close Export settings to edit without the slider; save quality stays Compress or Maximum until you change it
- Mini previews for quick copy, save, and drag into other apps. Minimize the stack into a corner pile when it covers the desktop; click the pile to expand it, drag the pile to move it out of the way, and a new capture shows the pile again if capture hid it. Choose a default screen corner in Preferences (bottom left unless you change it). Near the top of the screen the pile fans and opens downward, with Show less on that edge; near the bottom it fans and opens up. On the right, Show less sits on the right of the stack so it stays on the screen edge. With two or more expanded previews, Clear all dismisses the stack; saved files and Capture History stay
- Screenshots during an active recording
- 30-day capture history, filtered by screenshots, video, or GIF
- Light, dark, or system appearance across every Captures window
- Customizable shortcuts and accent colors. Find a setting in Preferences with
Cmd+Fon macOS orCtrl+Fon Windows and Linux - Capture UI and capture actions stay disabled while the desktop session is locked or inactive
- Optional in-app feedback (never includes your captures)
- After an unexpected quit, Preview may send a crash diagnostic (app version, OS, and a redacted panic or OS crash summary) through the same feedback channel; it never includes captures or home-directory paths. An in-app update restart, normal logoff, or shutdown is not a crash.
Local screenshots, GIFs, and recordings never require an account. The website
shows an unavailable notice at /account; sign-in and account creation are not
available. A provider-independent users table is retained in PostgreSQL for
future development. Hosted uploads, sharing, and browser or desktop sign-in are
not implemented yet.
- Scrolling capture for content larger than the screen
- On-device text recognition (OCR)
- Repeat the previous capture area
- Pinned captures that stay above other windows
- Editable click highlights and keystroke overlays after recording
- Hosted sharing with shareable
captur.es/<id>links - Faster recording on Windows and Linux
| Platform | Status |
|---|---|
| macOS 13+ | Supported; primary development target |
| Windows 11 | Supported; experimental |
| Linux X11 | Supported; hide recording controls manually when needed |
| Linux Wayland | Experimental; no window targeting, cursor capture, or click highlights. Mini previews cannot poll the pointer, so the stack stays interactive and may cover apps underneath |
These statuses describe the downloadable Tauri Preview.
Defaults follow each platform’s built-in screenshot keys. Captures-only actions keep extra shortcuts.
| Default shortcut | Action |
|---|---|
Cmd+Shift+Space |
Open New Capture |
Cmd+Shift+4 |
Capture a region |
Cmd+Shift+W |
Capture a window |
Cmd+Shift+3 |
Choose a display for a full-screen screenshot |
Cmd+Shift+5 |
Record a region |
Cmd+Shift+Option+W |
Record a window |
Cmd+Shift+Option+3 |
Choose a display to record full screen |
Esc |
Cancel an active capture, screenshot countdown, or recording countdown |
| Default shortcut | Action |
|---|---|
Ctrl+Shift+Space |
Open New Capture |
Win+Shift+S |
Capture a region |
Alt+PrtScn |
Capture a window |
PrtScn |
Choose a display for a full-screen screenshot |
Win+Alt+R |
Record a region |
Ctrl+Shift+Alt+W |
Record a window |
Ctrl+Shift+Alt+3 |
Choose a display to record full screen |
Esc |
Cancel an active capture, screenshot countdown, or recording countdown |
| Default shortcut | Action |
|---|---|
PrtScn |
Open New Capture |
Super+Shift+S |
Capture a region |
Alt+PrtScn |
Capture a window |
Shift+PrtScn |
Choose a display for a full-screen screenshot |
Ctrl+Shift+Alt+R |
Record a region |
Ctrl+Shift+Alt+W |
Record a window |
Ctrl+Shift+Alt+3 |
Choose a display to record full screen |
Esc |
Cancel an active capture, screenshot countdown, or recording countdown |
Global capture shortcuts can be changed in Preferences. In Preferences, Cmd+F on macOS or Ctrl+F on Windows and Linux finds a setting; Enter, F3, or Cmd/Ctrl+G moves to the next match. Installations still on earlier factory defaults (Ctrl+Shift or the shared macOS-style number keys) are updated automatically; custom shortcuts stay as they are.
On macOS, overlapping Screenshot app shortcuts (Cmd+Shift+3 / 4 / 5) are unbound immediately so those keys reach Captures instead of the system overlay; restore them in System Settings → Keyboard → Keyboard Shortcuts → Screenshots if you want both. On GNOME, overlapping screenshot keybindings are cleared when gsettings is available; on KDE, Spectacle’s rectangular-region shortcut is cleared when kwriteconfig is available. On Windows, Print Screen is turned off for Snipping Tool when Captures uses that key, and Win+Shift+S is intercepted so Snipping Tool does not open. If another screenshot tool still opens on the same shortcut, Esc always cancels Captures — even when that other overlay has keyboard focus or the freeze-frame has not finished painting. Captures lives in the menu bar or tray after setup (on Windows, look in the taskbar overflow if the icon is hidden). Open Captures from Start, Search, or the app icon to show Preferences, including Capture History. Capture from a shortcut, the tray New Capture item, or a tray capture action. If a capture starts while Start or Search is still open, Captures waits for those flyouts to close so they are not frozen into the screenshot.
While New Capture is open, the region, window, and display screenshot or recording shortcuts switch that overlay in place. They do not dismiss the menu or bring Preferences and other windows forward. Press the same screenshot shortcut again to freeze the capture menu into the next snapshot. An already-open region or window overlay does the same: the shortcut freezes that overlay instead of tearing it down, so you can capture Captures with Captures.
While selecting a capture region, pick an aspect ratio in the capture menu or hold
Shift for a square. In the screenshot editor, zoom with the header slider and
+/- controls, pinch or Ctrl/Cmd+scroll, pan with Ctrl/Cmd-drag or
middle-click, hold Shift while dragging a corner handle to scale
proportionally, and duplicate layers with Ctrl/Cmd+D. Header W×H resizes
the canvas. Hover a layer that hangs off an edge to preview the clipped part
and expand. Locked layers keep size and position until unlocked; layer width
and height stay proportional.
See DEVELOPMENT.md for local setup, validation, and packaging. The downloadable Preview uses Tauri and React for its UI, with Rust engines and platform-specific integrations for capture, recording, and media processing.
A browser-free native replacement is planned for macOS, Windows, and Linux,
developed feature by feature across platforms using shared Rust logic and the
Captures design. Development workbenches include Swift/AppKit on macOS and an
experimental Rust/wgpu renderer candidate for Windows/Linux. They are not
replacement downloads. An opt-in native capture workspace connects full-display
PNG capture, local screenshot history, copy, export, and deletion to
shared Rust engines. Its History uses the shipping card grid, header, filters,
Restore to a floating preview and empty states; Delete all asks for a second click, removes all capture types
regardless of the selected filter, and keeps exported files and recovery drafts.
It uses separate development data; Wayland capture is gated
until the candidate can hide its window reliably. Like the shipping app, the
native workbenches open Capture History, Preferences and first-run setup as
separate, resizable windows that reflow down to their minimum sizes. Native Preferences saves
appearance, custom colors, and capture/media defaults through shared Rust logic
in a separate development settings file. Fresh native profiles show the shipping
setup screen before capture or opening queued media. macOS offers explicit Screen
Recording and optional Microphone access, Settings links, and a permission restart;
Windows/X11 show screen capture as ready and do not require upfront screen access. Setup does not enable Wayland capture.
Finishing setup, or a hidden launch into the menu bar or tray, briefly shows a
"Captures is ready to use" notice with the New Capture shortcut.
The native workspace now applies
automatic copy, output folder, PNG/JPEG/WebP save-format, screenshot countdown,
and cursor inclusion preferences. Cursor rendering matches the shipping app:
system cursor pixels on macOS, a synthetic arrow on Windows/X11. Escape cancels
a pending capture even with another app focused. Both the macOS workspace and
Windows/X11 candidate connect region draw/move/resize, aspect constraints, freeze,
and auto-start to shared Rust capture logic. Window selection uses the same Rust
targeting and pixel-source policy, with window/desktop confirmation, freeze/live
selection, countdown and cancellation. Real desktop, mixed-DPI and accessibility
acceptance is still open; private-X11 tests check saved region/window pixels and
simulated session cancellation. Both native hosts connect screenshot mini previews
with Copy, Save/Reveal, Edit and nondestructive Dismiss, respecting the four
corner placements and capture-inclusion preference. Multiple captures remain in
a stack with expand/collapse, scrolling with Show older/newer edge cues and Clear
all; dismissing previews leaves
history and exports intact. Expanded cards now use the Tauri layout: full-bleed
images and idle dimensions, hover-only corner icons and centered Copy/Save actions,
with controls mirrored for right-side placement. Hover blurs and dims the image;
cards show byte sizes, clipboard confirmation and editor-presence pills. Delete
uses a white icon on the signal-colored hover background. Native previews also
animate arrival, dismissal, pile expansion and settling, respecting reduced motion.
After export, Show in Folder selects the saved file in the file manager (on Linux
through the desktop's FileManager1 service, or by opening its folder when none
answers) instead of saving another copy; a missing export leaves the capture available.
Edit opens that screenshot directly without reopening a hidden workspace or
changing the selected History item; opening it again preserves its pending edits.
Trash moves only the saved export to the OS trash, then dismisses its preview;
an unsaved preview is only dismissed. Private History stays intact. Failed Trash
keeps the preview available for retry. macOS may request Finder automation permission;
physical Finder/Recycle Bin acceptance remains open.
Drag a collapsed pile within its capture display;
its session position survives expansion and new captures without activating the
workspace. Hovering the collapsed front card fans the rear cards outward; pressing
and dragging keeps the fan open. macOS follows Reduce Motion; the Windows/Linux
candidate reads the desktop animation preference at startup and when the workspace
regains focus, and follows change notifications while it runs (Windows setting
broadcasts, the Linux Settings portal's change signal). Linux requires a portal
exposing the reduced-motion setting; --reduced-motion can force it when that
setting is unavailable.
Expanded native screenshot previews can offer the original file to another app
as a COPY. An accepted external drop dismisses only its source card; cancellation
and in-app drops retain it. A self-drop briefly shakes the card unless reduced
motion is enabled. Unsaved captures use retained temporary files cleaned on the
next startup; saved exports are never removed by drag cleanup. X11 transfers and
the isolated Wayland protocol are tested on disposable desktops. Physical macOS,
Windows OLE, mixed-DPI and full Wayland capture-host acceptance remain open.
The pile includes 3D tilt, depth blur, shadows and staggered fan motion.
Cross-display movement, automatic top/bottom anchor changes, backdrop blur and
remaining control-transition details still need parity work and platform acceptance.
Rear cards use fixed-glass depth shading; front and idle expanded images stay unshaded.
Live native hosts expose menu-bar/tray New Capture,
screenshot, History, Preferences, output-folder and Quit actions, plus configured
New Capture and region/window/display screenshot and recording global shortcuts. New Capture opens shared
Screenshot and Record controls for Region, Window and Full screen, retaining selections when
switching targets with the toolbar. While these controls are open, the configured
region/window/display shortcuts and New Capture switch mode and target in the same session; keyboard
Full screen does not auto-start capture. As in the shipping app, pressing the shortcut of
the screenshot target the controls opened on or a shortcut last selected (New Capture for
Region) freezes the controls into a new capture instead. Any capture shortcut or tray item over an open region or window
selector does the same, opening its selector or these controls on a snapshot that shows the
old one; that selection never counts down. Over a screenshot selector beside a recording,
the region and window shortcuts do this too, and Screenshot Display saves the display with
the selector in it at once. As in the shipping app, the display
screenshot shortcut and tray Screenshot Display open these controls on Full screen
with its display picker, and a failed capture shows a "Captures" error dialog
instead of a History error. During a running or paused recording the region, window
and display screenshot shortcuts and tray items take that screenshot beside the take,
as the shipping app does: region and window open their selector on the display under
the pointer, display captures that display directly, and each uses the screenshot
countdown and leaves out the recording controls unless they are included in captures.
The recording keeps running untouched. Focused Preferences suppresses those shortcuts.
While a screenshot outside a recording is preparing, counting down or capturing, New Capture
and Screenshot Display report that a capture is already in progress and the other shortcuts and tray
items do nothing. An active recording ignores the recording shortcuts and tray items, and
New Capture reports that a capture is already in progress. While recording controls are
hidden, or left out of a screenshot beside the take, New Capture brings them back, and
the screenshot shortcuts and tray items still take a screenshot. Native Preferences can edit all seven capture
and recording shortcuts. Recording keys open the selector without starting a take. Linux requires
a StatusNotifier tray host; without one,
closing the window quits instead of leaving an unreachable background process.
Native Record creates H.264 MP4 using the stored recording defaults and supported
audio options. Its compact controls support pause/resume, confirmed restart with
the stored countdown, microphone mute/unmute, stop/save to development History,
and discard. Running mute changes durably complete the current segment before
continuing with the same target and options; paused changes do not resume. Restart
replaces only the current take and resets its elapsed time. Both native HUDs show
live microphone level while visible, running, and unmuted, clearing it when paused,
muted, hidden, or changing the take. Physical microphone and device acceptance
remain open. Hide removes only the controls, shows a temporary
noninteractive notice, and preserves the session, timer, pause and microphone state. New Capture
(its shortcut and the menu bar/tray item) and app reactivation restore the controls; Linux disables Hide without a
usable tray and restores the controls and workspace if its tray host disappears. FFmpeg and FFprobe must
be installed separately for these development builds; native media-tool bundling
is not connected. Started recordings are saved on session loss instead of being
discarded; failed finalization retains recovery data. Linux cannot exclude the
controls from captured pixels, so Hide is the native workaround on X11. Shared
native recovery can identify, assemble, or explicitly discard interrupted takes
in isolated development History. Both native workbenches list interrupted recordings
separately in History, with cancellable recovery and an inline Discard permanently? confirmation.
Unavailable bundles remain read-only for manual inspection; failures allow retry,
and cancellation cannot undo a recording already published to History. This is
interrupted capture recovery, not persistent recording-editor drafts or an
installed-data migration.
Region recordings keep a click-through boundary and dimming outside the recorded
area during countdown, recording, pause, and hidden controls. The guide leaves
the recorded pixels transparent and disappears when the take ends or is cancelled.
The recording HUD can open a region screenshot selector without pausing or replacing
the accepted take. Escape cancels only that selector or its screenshot countdown;
successful screenshots use the normal native History, preview and auto-copy paths.
AppKit and Windows can exclude native capture UI. X11 temporarily hides the HUD and
guide from the screenshot, but cannot keep the selector out of the ongoing recording.
As in the Preview, a take that cannot start keeps the HUD open with the error and
offers Retry recording or Delete. A resume that cannot reopen the microphone
leaves the take paused so it can still be saved.
The Windows/Linux candidate's Edit recording opens a decoded frame preview
with source-relative scrubbing, draggable trim handles, numeric trim/crop controls, custom output dimensions
and MP4/GIF saving. Crop dimensions start aspect-locked; unlock to change
width and height independently. As in shipping, edits take effect as they are made:
the edited preview updates once a drag ends or a typed value is committed, and
failed updates leave the last accepted frame intact.
Both native editors follow the shipping layout (Edit GIF for GIF sources). The save
footer starts with the original's name and folder, with Change… and the
.mp4/.gif/.webm format; after a successful save, Show in Folder reveals it.
WebM is offered as in shipping but, like shipping's bundled media tools, cannot
encode it, so saving WebM shows shipping's error.
The shared recording editor now also supports same-format replacement of an
existing permanent MP4/GIF when History retains identical recovery media.
As in shipping, Save with Save as new file off replaces it without a
confirmation; turning the switch on saves an -edited copy beside it. Replacement is
unavailable for recovery-only or reference-only recordings (the switch then stays on),
pending edits or a different output format; the backend
also rejects missing or divergent recovery files. Success rebases the editor and
updates the existing History item. Cancellation stops preparation but cannot undo
publication once it begins. Ordinary failure keeps accepted edits; an uncertain
result requires closing and reopening. This is not crash-atomic across the saved
file and History. Saving with Save as new file on remains non-destructive.
Trim handles do not decode on each pointer move; the preview updates when the drag
ends. Focused trim handles also accept arrow keys and Page Up/Page Down.
Clicking the trim track seeks the accepted preview; Reset trim restores the full range.
Adjust crop shows an uncropped source frame with draggable edges/corners and
interior move. Crop handles follow the aspect lock; arrows move one source pixel,
or ten with Shift. Crop changes apply when each gesture ends, and Done cropping
shows the edited preview. Loading this source frame can be canceled or retried.
Both native recording editors provide Fit / 100%, which changes only the
displayed scale. At 100%, one decoded image pixel occupies one screen point; larger
previews scroll within the preview area. Playback
still uses its bounded decoded size, not full-source resolution.
The trim track shows retained full-source thumbnails, independent of the edited
preview. Thumbnail generation can be canceled or retried without losing edits;
it does not change the source recording. Play/Pause offers motion within
the accepted trim, with a preview capped at 30 fps and 1280 × 720. Pause retains
the last displayed frame; reaching the trim end makes Play restart that range.
Editing and export controls wait for playback to stop. Losing focus or minimizing
pauses playback. Loop preview, off by default, repeats the accepted trim until
paused. It can be switched on or off during playback and never changes the export.
Sound, on by default like the shipping preview and changeable while stopped,
plays the accepted MP4 audio mix on the default output device. GIF and mixes with no audible tracks stay
silent without opening a device. Device failures are visible; turn Sound off to
retry silently. Loop continues from the trim end to the trim start without a
gap, keeping the same sound output. Physical audio routing and A/V synchronization acceptance remain open.
The preview identifies its accepted format/quality, and saving uses those settings.
Save quality offers Preserve quality (MP4 only; choosing GIF switches to Compress),
Compress with Tiny, Smaller, Balanced, High or Highest, or Maximum file size.
GIF palettes follow the preset: Tiny 64 colors, Smaller 96, Balanced 128, and
High/Highest/Preserve 256. Maximum mode keeps that palette while saving at Preserve
quality to fit the size cap; MP4 does not use it.
As in shipping, Est. size updates automatically shortly after edits settle,
without publishing an export; newer edits cancel an estimate in progress.
Copied or fully encoded short ranges show exact sizes; sampled longer ranges and
audio-only Preserve changes show approximate sizes. WebM and failed estimates show "—".
Both native recording editors show nonzero percentage changes versus the original
recording beside estimates; pending estimates and Maximum mode hide the delta.
Both native recording editors, like shipping, automatically encode a read-only
before/after sample at the accepted frame while Compress or Maximum is accepted and
playback is paused, drawn as a split with size badges, "% smaller" and Hide (Show
before / after restores it). It does not follow paused playback time or publish a
file or History entry; staged edits hide it. The screenshot editor shows the same
comparison while Compress or Maximum is chosen and Export settings are open. Maximum mode shows the first encoded attempt, not
necessarily the final capped save; output cadence may select neighboring frames.
Both native recording editors offer Maximum file size for MP4/GIF, using
decimal KB/MB/GB with a 100 KB minimum. The size label shows the cap instead of an
estimate. Save may reduce resolution, frame rate or
audio quality to fit, so its first-attempt preview is not a promise of final output.
An unattainable limit fails without publishing a copy.
Available system and microphone tracks each have an include checkbox and 0–200%
volume, plus Convert to mono. Accepted settings apply to MP4 exports and Sound
preview. GIF output shows that GIFs have no audio, without discarding the MP4 settings.
Both native recording editors offer 8, 10, 12, 15 (default), 20, 24 or 30 FPS for
GIF exports. The frame rate applies with the other edits; switching to MP4
keeps the GIF choice without changing MP4 cadence.
Both native recording editors offer GIF Maximum width choices of 320, 480, 640,
800 (default) or 1200 px, applied after crop and output sizing without upscaling.
Changing the cap recomputes from that base; switching to MP4 restores base sizing
and remembers the GIF choice.
Original, 1080p maximum and 720p maximum output presets preserve the current crop's
aspect ratio and never upscale. Custom dimensions override the preset.
Custom dimensions are independent (no aspect lock); the shared media engine rounds
sizes to even pixels.
Re-encoded Windows/Linux MP4 fits within 3840 × 2160 (2160 × 3840 for portrait);
its preview reflects that cap, while GIF previews retain their requested dimensions.
Save new copy reports progress, supports cancellation, never replaces an existing
file, and adds a distinct History item. A History failure retains the saved path.
Recording edits are not drafts: save or explicitly discard them before closing or
quitting. AppKit connects a separate History editor with decoded source-relative
frames, numeric trim and source-relative crop, Original/1080p/720p or independent
custom output dimensions, MP4/GIF/WebM settings, automatic size estimation and
cancellable Save with the same shipping save semantics as Windows/Linux. Available system and microphone tracks have independent 0–200%
volume and mute controls plus mono output; audio applies to MP4 while GIF disables
the controls without losing their MP4 values. Its graphical trim handles overlay an
immutable 12-frame source-relative thumbnail strip and stage the same numeric values
without seeking; the edited preview updates when the drag ends. Loading can be
canceled or retried without disabling editing. Play/Pause presents bounded accepted-edit motion frames and
a source-relative playhead without changing the accepted preview, edits, History or
source. Like the shipping preview it plays the accepted MP4 mix with Sound on by
default, on the default device; GIF and inaudible mixes stay silent without opening a device.
Optional Loop preview repeats the accepted trim gaplessly without changing
exports or dirty state.
Adjust crop loads one immutable full-source frame at the accepted position, then
stages source-pixel crop changes with eight resize handles or interior movement without
decoding on each pointer event. Crop changes apply when each gesture ends while the
source frame stays shown; Done cropping shows the edited preview. Loading is
cancellable and retryable.
Fit or 100% applies to the accepted, paused/playback or crop-source frame without
decoding again or changing edits, estimates, exports or History; each item defaults to Fit.
Windows/X11 provide the same full-source graphical adjustment alongside numeric crop
and output sizing. This is not Tauri editor parity; physical audio routing, A/V sync,
macOS, Windows and Wayland acceptance remain open.
History displays recording posters and metadata; Save file
copies the original media to the output folder without re-encoding, and
Show in Folder reveals that saved copy. Both native
hosts offer counted All, Screenshots, Video and GIF history filters; filtering
does not delete captures or exports. After finalization, a temporary Recording ready
notice offers Save file, then Show in Folder after saving a permanent copy. Dismissing
or letting it expire preserves History and exports; failed saves can be retried.
Both native workbenches also render the Preview update notice (release notes,
download progress, restart countdown and errors) from a simulated status source.
Native builds cannot check for, download or install updates yet.
A screenshot History card's Edit opens the AppKit screenshot editor. Its first
native editor slice restores and saves isolated drafts, previews shared-Rust crop
and canvas-resize operations, and supports Undo, Redo and confirmed draft discard.
Its Layers panel connects shared visibility, lock, opacity, movement, image rename,
duplicate, delete and adjacent ordering commands while preserving locked barriers;
both native hosts also provide Merge down, Merge visible, and Flatten image
with undo/redo and saved-draft restoration. Merge down requires adjacent unlocked
layers; Merge visible retains hidden layers; Flatten removes hidden layers and
bakes the canvas background into one locked image.
The original History image and its exports remain unchanged until explicit replacement. Recording completion
still presents its notice immediately; opening the recording editor is a separate History action. Real macOS and
Windows recording, audio devices, multi-display and hardware acceptance remain open;
Wayland recording is gated with the rest of native capture.
Both native development hosts accept repeatable --open-media PATH arguments
only with --live; --open-image remains an alias in the same ordered queue.
AppKit also handles macOS file-open requests while running. PNG, JPEG and WebP
become local History-backed screenshot editor sessions. GIF, MP4 and WebM open
in the recording editor as external references, without copying or changing the
source. Unsupported files report an error without stopping later paths.
Reopening an already-open source focuses its editor without replacing unsaved
edits. Closed sources reload under the same History ID; screenshot sources with
a saved draft must first be restored or explicitly discarded from History.
AppKit switches its editor between sources only after opening settles and without
dropping pending text or unsaved edits; a refused source remains in History.
The shared backend validates the actual recording container, editor preview and
poster before publication. WebM is an input format, not a WebM export;
Preserve-to-MP4 transcodes it rather than copying WebM bytes into an MP4 file.
External recording references cannot replace an original; that requires a private
recovery copy and a separate permanent save. Save as new file stays locked on.
Live development hosts now forward subsequent launches to the process using the
same History directory, preserving file order and sender-relative paths; a launch
without files restores hidden recording controls or focuses the open setup, editor,
History or Preferences window in that order, else opens Preferences. A visible
native launch opens Preferences (setup on first run), as the shipping app does.
Native Preferences → About offers explicit Launch native Captures at login
for macOS, Windows and X11 development profiles. It starts that profile hidden;
relaunch or the tray/menu bar restores it. This uses a separate user-owned login
entry, not Tauri's setting or registration. Disable it before moving/removing the
development binary. Wayland hidden startup and physical sign-in acceptance remain
open; development setup/removal
documents the platform entries and conflict recovery.
Fixture launches remain independent. Optional unsigned development packages provide
Open With metadata for these six formats on macOS, Windows and Linux, under a separate
Captures Native Development identity. Staging does not install them or change
default handlers; local opt-in instructions
include removal. Signing, distribution and physical file-manager acceptance remain
open; these are not replacement downloads. TIFF is supported by in-editor import,
not this external-open path.
Native Preferences (and the tray/menu bar Send Feedback…) opens an optional
feedback form in its own window, matching the shipping layout. Sending shares only
the message, optional contact, category, and displayed app/system details with
captur.es; it never attaches captures, files, or diagnostics. Fixture mode cannot
send feedback, and failed requests preserve the draft for retry.
Shared Rust now defines the screenshot editor's layered document, crop/translation/
orientation geometry, canvas sizing and bounded snapshot history, checked against
the shipping TypeScript behavior. A shared renderer now flattens real image layers
and editor shapes, including closed annotations, curved lines, tapered arrows and
freehand paths with crop geometry, rotation, opacity, blending and enabled shape/path
drop shadows, without host I/O.
A separate shared text prerequisite shapes and rasterizes single lines from explicit
font bytes, including ligatures, combining marks and right-to-left text. Shared
paragraph helpers now provide measured wrapping, alignment, auto-width boxes and
background-plate geometry. An opt-in document renderer composites filled/outlined text and
square/rounded plates from those fonts, with rotation, opacity and blending. Shared
text selection, movement and resizing follow the shipping editor's interaction rules.
Outlines use scalable monochrome glyph contours; color/bitmap glyphs return an error
in outline mode. Text shadows follow the glyphs, or the plate
when one is enabled. Editor workers can own explicit
fonts and preserve their exact bytes in local draft sidecars, so text edits, undo,
export and reopening use the same fonts. Typed commands create plain or preset text and edit
content, type, alignment, color and plates transactionally. Both native hosts now
connect a basic Text tool. Selected text's properties, including its style and
shadow color, opacity, blur and offsets, apply as you edit, as in the shipping
editor; typing in one field is one undo step. Before placement, choose a
named style and size; boxed styles center on the click. As in the shipping editor,
new text takes the drawing Color (annotation red until you change it). These
defaults last only for that editor. Both hosts start at Rounded Box when its
font is offered, otherwise Standard, then Plain, with an initial size scaled to the
original capture (24–72). The bundle includes
Nunito and Liberation Sans, Serif and Mono (OFL 1.1); exact font
bytes and license notices stay with the draft. As in the shipping editor, every
draft offers all four families: an older draft saved with fewer fonts adds a
bundled family's files the first time its text uses that family.
Like the shipping editor's browser fallback, a character the chosen font lacks
(Nunito has no Greek λ, for example) is drawn from another bundled font, then from
the fonts installed on the computer, rather than failing; installed fonts are
never copied into drafts.
Selected-text named styles use those fonts, including Rounded and Rounded Box.
In both native editors, explicitly choosing a named style for selected text also makes that
style the next new-text choice for this editor. Undo or a failed edit does not
undo that future choice; size, color and manual font edits do not carry forward.
The Windows/Linux candidate and AppKit host separately connect an on-canvas native
multiline text box to the same shared transaction, drawn like Tauri's inline editor
in the layer's own bundled face, size, colour, plate and position. Typing previews text
without saving or adding undo steps; clicking away or Escape commits one edit, Return
inserts a line, and clearing the box discards it. AppKit rotates the box with the
layer; the Windows/Linux box rotates its glyphs, plate and caret but keeps selection
highlights and pointer caret placement unrotated, and both draw outlined labels
approximately. Physical macOS, Windows, Wayland, IME and accessibility acceptance
remain unverified.
This is not Tauri system-font equivalence: the four families use the bundled faces
rather than the operating system's, installed fonts only fill in missing characters,
and fonts are never imported or downloaded.
Worker-owned editor sessions add draft restore/save/discard, transactional crop/
resize/lossless image transforms/undo, single decoded-RGBA image import, and retained
pixel frames for native hosts. Typed rectangle/ellipse/triangle/diamond/star, straight-line/arrow and
completed freehand-path creation are also available; native hosts still own pointer
sampling, drawing gestures and cancellation.
Shared annotation-style patches can update existing
shape/path colors, closed-shape fill/stroke controls, widths and shadow settings
without replacing documents.
The shared C boundary accepts one borrowed decoded RGBA
buffer into session-owned storage; hosts own file decoding and interaction.
Full-canvas photos rotate their canvas; layered overhang stays clipped and fully
off-canvas transformed images expand the canvas so they are not lost. Shared
interactive crop geometry also matches shipping bounds, aspect presets and Shift
locking; physical input acceptance remains separate work.
The Windows/Linux candidate opens screenshots from History in a native crop,
canvas-size and draft editor with undo/redo. Both native hosts place their scrolling
inspector to the right of the canvas and center the image in Fit mode without
upscaling small captures. Both use the shipping header and tool rail, and the
shipping sidebar: Layers always sits above the current tool's properties. Both editor windows resize
down to 760×540, with scrollable inspector controls. A shipping-style export bar spans
the bottom of both editors in every section: an Export settings disclosure whose
summary reads like PNG · 1920 × 1080 · ≈ 240 KB, the filename with a format suffix
menu, Saving to with Change…, Copy image (briefly Copied), a
Save as new file switch and Save. The Crop tool selects directly on the
preview with free or preset aspect ratios and Shift ratio locking, then shows the
selection's size with Clear and Apply crop. Apply commits the selection;
Clear or Escape leaves the document unchanged. Layer rows show a grip,
a live preview, the name and kind, and eye, lock and ⋯ actions. Drag a row to
reorder it (one undo step) and double-click an image row to rename it. The ⋯ menu
holds blend mode, opacity, image transforms, Bring to front and Send to back, Merge
down, Merge visible, Flatten image, Duplicate and Delete. Selected images show
Width, Height, X and Y fields that apply as you type.
Draw adds rectangles, ellipses, triangles, diamonds, stars, straight lines, tapered arrows and freehand Pen strokes in the default
annotation color, one undoable layer per gesture. Escape cancels unfinished work;
short arrow gestures are discarded and drafts retain completed shapes and strokes.
Both hosts use shared polygon geometry for transient previews and committed layers.
Pen smooths sampled points and retains click-only dots.
Layers → Annotation style edits fill, stroke and shadow color (the shipping
eight swatches plus a custom color), width, layer opacity and shadow opacity, blur and
offsets. Changes apply as you make them; a burst in one field is one undo step and
each toggle is its own. Hidden and locked annotations remain editable.
Image layers also expose lossless left/right rotations and horizontal/vertical
flips, including when hidden or locked; each action supports undo and draft restore.
Add images imports one or more PNG, JPEG, WebP or TIFF files: the first lands below
the selected visible image, each later one below the previous, expanding the canvas
when needed. Imports respect EXIF orientation, are undoable (one step per file),
and keep their own draft pixels so reopening does not require the source file.
Supported RGB/grayscale ICC profiles convert to sRGB; unsupported profiles and
PNG gamma/chromaticity-only or CICP metadata require conversion to sRGB first.
Export settings hold output size, save quality (Preserve, Compress or a maximum
file size) and Est. size, which re-encodes automatically a moment after edits
or option changes and shows the % change from the original; an encoded-output
toggle previews the result on the canvas without saving. As in the shipping app,
Save overwrites a screenshot's saved file by default, atomically replacing it and
updating the same History item (its date is kept) after re-checking that file and
entry. Turning on Save as new file, editing the filename or choosing another
folder saves a new file instead, and a format that differs from the original always
does; new files never replace an existing file and add a distinct History entry.
A capture without a saved file writes its first Save to the output folder. The saved
file then becomes what Save overwrites. As in the shipping app, every Save then
shows the saved file in its folder, and Show in Folder appears. If History
cannot be updated, the saved file's path remains available for recovery. The status
line under the filename explains what Save will do and warns when JPEG will fill in
transparent areas. The editable document, draft, undo and output preview are
retained; Undo affects the editor, not the saved file.
Closing can save or keep the previous draft; explicit Discard edits restores the
current History image. Failed draft saves keep edits open and cancel normal quit. Private-X11 checks
cover both appearances, persisted drafts, real preview pixels and error recovery.
AppKit now connects the same crop, canvas-resize and draft operations in its own
window. Its Crop tool also uses the shared aspect presets and Shift ratio locking;
the selection stays separate from the document until Apply crop, and Clear
or Escape drops it.
It includes native image-layer controls, lossless rotate/flip actions, and
PNG/JPEG/WebP output previews without saving. Both native export settings offer
Tiny, Smaller, Balanced, High and Highest compression presets alongside custom
values. Highest PNG preserves pixels with lossless packing; JPEG/WebP presets are lossy.
Both hosts also offer Original, 75%, 50% and Custom output dimensions, with an
aspect lock for custom sizes. Preview/save resize only the exported pixels and the
published History image; the editable document, draft and full-resolution clipboard are unchanged.
Its export bar uses the same shared save model and status copy as the
Windows/Linux candidate, and preserves the draft. AppKit
also imports still images, one per new image layer, using its color-managed
system decoder. It normalizes imported pixels to straight-alpha sRGB RGBA8 and retains
them in the draft without depending on the source file. ImageIO-supported sources use
their first image; files without a usable color description are rejected rather than
silently relabeled.
Its Draw view maps Rectangle, Ellipse, Line, Arrow and Pen gestures from the fitted
edited preview into shared document coordinates, including reverse and off-canvas
gestures. Release creates one undoable layer; Escape, focus loss, close, or leaving Draw
cancels transient geometry without editing the document. Arrow outlines and Pen
smoothing come from shared Rust; Pen supports click-only dots and round caps.
Both native editors offer stroke/fill colors, stroke width and opacity before
drawing. These choices stay local to the editor; drawing creates one undoable
layer. Pre-placement drop-shadow controls include color, opacity, blur and X/Y
offsets. While dragging an annotation, both hosts update its pixels and shadow
through the shared renderer in the background; Escape restores the unchanged image.
An approximate vector guide appears until the first pixel frame is ready.
Its Layers panel also edits annotation fill, stroke, opacity and shadow settings live,
as shipping does; shared Rust owns style defaults, rendering, undo folding and draft
persistence.
In both native hosts, Layers supports clicking the edited preview to select an
unlocked visible layer, or empty space to clear selection. Drag shows a translated
selection outline; release moves the layer in one undoable edit. Escape, focus loss,
preview resizing or leaving Layers cancels the drag. Pixels update on release, not
continuously during dragging; selection alone does not change the document.
The selected layer also exposes a rotation grip when it fits inside the image.
Drag it to rotate; hold Shift for stops configured under Layers → Shift rotation snap
(1–180°, initially 15°). The increment is per-editor UI state, not a document edit
or saved preference. Rotation uses the same outline-only
preview, cancellation, undo and draft behavior. Hidden or locked layers have no
grip.
Eight border grips resize images, shapes and drawings. Shift keeps corner drags
proportional; edge grips remain single-axis. Unrotated resizes snap to canvas and
visible-layer edges with guide lines; rotated resizes retain the opposite anchor.
Resizing uses an outline-only preview and commits on release.
Selected lines and arrows show curve dots: drag a dot to bend the stroke, double-click
the path to add a point and double-click a point to remove it. Layers offers a Curve
slider for straight or single-bend strokes and Straighten for multi-point ones. Curves
survive saves and drafts. A selected layer that hangs past the canvas shows an
Expand canvas action; hovering previews the grown canvas and one click grows it as
a single undo step. Dropping PNG, JPEG, WebP or TIFF files on the canvas adds image
layers where the placement guide shows (Place above/left/right/below, or stacked);
each file is one undo step. As in shipping, the snapped edge and the hovered Expand
canvas preview breathe with an accent bloom and streaming particles; with reduced
motion they hold still and show no particles.
Canvas moves now snap painted bounds to canvas and visible-layer edges, including
locked layers, with alignment guides. The snap range stays constant on screen;
numeric X/Y edits remain exact and do not snap. Clicks and small pointer movements
do not trigger snapping or change the document.
Both hosts connect view-only zoom and pan: Fit, 100%, zoom steps, Recenter,
Cmd/Ctrl-wheel zoom and Cmd/Ctrl-drag or middle-button pan. AppKit also connects
native magnification. Zoom stays anchored under the pointer and shares the image's
coordinate mapping with editing tools. These controls do not change drafts or undo.
Fit does not enlarge small screenshots; manual zoom still can.
Cmd/Ctrl +/− zoom in 1.25× steps; Cmd/Ctrl 0 shows 100% (not Fit), including while
an editor field has focus. Zoom shortcuts cancel unfinished canvas gestures.
Cmd/Ctrl Z undoes and Cmd/Ctrl Shift Z redoes document edits outside text entry
and open dialogs. Typing retains its own Undo; commands do not queue while the
editor is busy. These are editor-local shortcuts, not global capture shortcuts.
Cmd/Ctrl D duplicates the selected layer; Delete/Backspace removes an unlocked
selection. Locked and hidden layers can still be duplicated, and typing fields
keep their own deletion keys. Arrow keys nudge an unlocked selection by one image
pixel, or ten with Shift, without snapping or expanding the canvas. Hidden layers
can be nudged too. Focused fields and zoom controls retain their arrow keys.
Cmd/Ctrl C copies the selected layer inside that editor; Cmd/Ctrl V pastes the
snapshot, even after its source is changed or deleted. Repeated pastes offset by
24 pixels and support undo/redo. This does not replace the system clipboard or
import clipboard images; Copy image remains the separate pixel-copy action.
Closing the editor or discarding its draft clears the internal layer clipboard.
Right-click a layer for Copy layer, Paste layer, Duplicate, Delete and Merge down.
These actions target that row; Merge visible and Flatten image affect the document.
Empty list space offers Paste and the document-wide combine actions.
Locked layers cannot be deleted or merged down.
With canvas focus, V selects layers, C starts Crop, T selects Text, R Rectangle,
O Ellipse, L Line, D Diamond, S Star, A Arrow, P Pen, and B the last-used
Wand/Erase/Restore mode (initially Wand). Switching tools cancels unfinished
gestures without applying them; selecting the same tool again preserves them.
Focused native controls retain typing and letter navigation.
Both hosts also keep a left tool rail visible beside the canvas, with the shipping
labels and hover tips: Select & move, Crop, Text, Shapes, Arrow, Freehand and Eraser.
Shapes opens Rectangle, Ellipse, Line, Triangle, Diamond and Star, recalling the last
choice. The rail chooses the inspector (there are no section tabs); pending work
disables it. Like shipping, the header holds the canvas W × H fields, Trim edges and
the canvas background, then Undo/Redo (hidden at 1040 points and narrower), the zoom
group and Add images. Like shipping, both hosts autosave the edit draft 700 ms after
each change and flush it when the editor closes, without a save prompt. Reopening a
draft shows the shipping restored-edits notice with Discard, and Recenter
appears only while the canvas is panned mostly off screen.
The zoom menu offers Fit, 50%, 100% and 200% and displays the current custom zoom.
Both hosts also provide a logarithmic 5–800% zoom slider. It tracks the actual Fit
scale and preserves the viewport-center image point when dragged.
Fit retains each workbench's existing placement.
Windows, Wayland and physical AppKit presentation remain unverified.
Preview controls, History actions and screenshot-editor tools use shared shipping
icon paths on both native hosts, rather than platform-specific approximations.
The inspector follows the shipping sections, controls, labels and spacing in the
shipping 320 px sidebar column on both hosts.
Native cloud sharing is not implemented. Its required flow starts from a mini-preview
Share icon and opens a native upload/settings popup, including native sign-in and OS
credential storage. The sharing integration slice
remains required regardless of accounts/backend or rewrite merge order; opening a
preview never uploads automatically.
Shared Rust has an unconnected account-client prerequisite for explicit email-code
sign-in and native credential-vault sessions. It does not add a native sign-in
screen, enable the account service, or make sharing available.
Both hosts can copy the full-resolution edited image without saving a file or draft;
copy ignores export format and quality settings.
The Background color card offers a Solid background toggle, the shipping eight
swatches and a custom color; each change applies immediately as one undo step and
survives draft restore. It changes the canvas fill, not backgrounds within image layers.
Trim edges fits the canvas to visible layer geometry, preserving off-canvas
content and moving hidden layers with the document. It does not scan image alpha
to remove transparent borders. Trimming supports undo/redo and draft restore.
The button is disabled when there is nothing to trim; hovering or focusing it
previews the cut: the discarded margins turn red, a dashed outline marks the
kept area and the cut edges pulse (static under reduced motion).
Both hosts also connect Draw → Wand: click an image to remove similar colors,
using a color tolerance and either a contiguous region or all matching pixels.
The frontmost visible image is editable even when locked; transparent pixels do
not let clicks reach images underneath. While the Wand hovers an image, a colour
loupe beside the crosshair magnifies the image pixels and shows the sampled hex. Each edit clears the canvas fill, keeps
the original image pixels, and supports undo/redo and draft restore. The original
History capture remains unchanged. The Tolerance slider runs from 0 to 120 like
Tauri's. Erase and Restore use brush Size and Softness sliders; Restore
paints from the retained original image. As in the shipping editor, a ring
the brush's size replaces the pointer over an image (dashed for Restore; elsewhere
the pointer shows not-allowed) while shared-renderer pixels preview the stroke during dragging.
Release commits one undo step; Escape, focus loss or changing tools cancels the
preview without editing. Properties shows a stroke or brush preview for drawing
tools and Erase/Restore, and Apply crop pulses while a crop is staged. Physical-platform
input acceptance remains parity work.
Text controls support a style picker, multiline content, font families (listed
as Sans serif, Serif, Monospace and Rounded), size, bold/italic and alignment buttons,
swatch-row text and background colors, a Text background plate and a Drop shadow
toggle; outlined and rounded plates come from the Outlined and Rounded Box styles.
Drawing default colors use the same swatch rows.
Changes apply as you make them; a typing burst in one field is one undo step.
Custom shadows and pinned-font named styles are connected, including style/size
choices for new text; new text also takes the drawing defaults' Drop shadow, as in
the shipping editor. Font import and physical input/IME/accessibility acceptance
remain open.
Like the shipping app, the native Capture History window shows only its header,
filters and grid; captures start from the tray, shortcuts and New Capture menu. A
denied capture opens the native permission recovery: Restart & Retry on macOS, or a
Capture permissions dialog that reuses the setup permission cards. Check or refresh without prompting; request macOS
screen or optional microphone access explicitly. Done returns to the workspace
even after denial or a check failure, without restarting or closing editors.
Windows/X11 need no upfront screen grant; microphone status is not reported there.
Wayland live capture remains gated. Physical permission-revocation/retry acceptance
is still open.
Post-save source adoption, remaining editor layout/interaction parity,
physical setup/login acceptance and updates remain open. Shared editor support is prerequisite work,
not native editor acceptance. Resident shortcuts and single-instance relaunch are
connected, but physical cross-platform acceptance and full feature/design parity
remain open. The
migration checklist tracks the plan and parity gates;
existing Preview features remain available during development. The wgpu candidate
does not yet support hidden-window idle on Wayland; see its
evaluation limits.
The source code is licensed under the Apache License 2.0.
The Captures name and logo are governed by the Captures Trademark Policy and are not licensed under the Apache License 2.0.