Glint is a free, open-source screenshot and screen recording tool for the Mac. Capture any part of the screen, annotate it, put it on a nice background, record a video or GIF, and drag the result straight into any app.
It's an independent alternative to apps like CleanShot X, Shottr, Xnapper, Snagit, Monosnap and macOS's built-in Screenshot app. Glint is not affiliated with, endorsed by or connected to any of them; all product names are trademarks of their respective owners.
Note
Glint is in beta (0.3). Expect rough edges, and please report bugs. Questions and ideas are welcome in Discussions.
Annotate a screenshot, put it on a background, edit a recording, and keep your latest captures at hand. (The dashboard in these pictures is made up.)
Screenshot editor: arrows, shapes (also hand-drawn), text, counters, highlighter, blur and a magnifier for enlarged callouts.
Backgrounds: gradients, wallpapers, padding, shadow and round corners, with presets.
Video editor: trim, cut and zoom a recording, add captions and a background, export as MP4, MOV or GIF.
Studio Mode: the screen, pointer, keys and camera are recorded separately, so all of it stays adjustable after recording. Automatic zooms follow your cursor, and you can change the cursor's size, style, smoothing and click effects, show or hide keystrokes, and move or resize the camera. The timeline shows every click, drag, scroll, shortcut and typed word, so you can find a moment quickly or remove what shouldn't be seen. Captions turn what you say into text, here on your Mac, and stay editable on their own track.
| Quick Access: your latest captures float in the corner, to copy, save, annotate, pin or drag anywhere. | Settings: formats, shortcuts, and what happens after each capture. |
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Important
macOS will block Glint the first time you open it. This is expected for now. Glint isn't notarized by Apple yet, so macOS says "Apple could not verify 'Glint' is free of malware" and offers no way to open it from that message.
To open it, once:
- Move Glint.app to your Applications folder and open it. When the message appears, click Done.
- Open System Settings → Privacy & Security and scroll down to Security.
- Click Open Anyway next to the message about Glint, and confirm with your password or Touch ID.
Or use Terminal, and why this happens
Instead of the steps above, you can remove the download flag from the app, then open it as usual:
xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine /Applications/Glint.appWhy: macOS only opens downloaded apps without asking if they're signed with a paid Apple Developer ID and checked by Apple (notarization). Glint is a free project that doesn't have this yet. It doesn't mean Glint was found to contain anything harmful; it means Apple hasn't checked it. Only do this with a copy from this repository's Releases page. All of the source code is here, and you can build it yourself if you prefer.
- A quick look
- Opening Glint for the first time
- Features
- Requirements
- Installation
- Getting started
- Updates
- Uninstalling
- Privacy
- Building from source
- Contributing
- Support the project
- License
- Acknowledgements
- Capture: area, window (on your wallpaper with padding and shadow, or transparent), full screen, previous area, self-timer, All-In-One (⇧⌘5), scrolling capture, freeze screen and crosshair with magnifier.
- Capture Text (OCR): copy the text in any part of the screen; also reads QR codes and barcodes.
- Annotate: arrows, shapes, text styles, counters, pen, highlighter (snaps to text lines), blur, pixelate, spotlight, a magnifier for enlarged callouts, a hand-drawn look for shapes, and added images.
- Backgrounds: gradients, your wallpaper or any image, padding, inset, shadow, rounded corners, alignment, aspect ratios and presets.
- Crop & Resize: ratios, exact sizes, rotate and flip, output size, and a zoom lens for placing handles to the pixel. Saved edits stay editable.
- Record: screen or window as video or GIF, with microphone and system audio, camera overlay, highlighted clicks and keystrokes, and Do Not Disturb while recording.
- Video editor: trim and cut, zooms, captions from your speech (transcribed on your Mac, as phrases or word by word), background presets, padding, corners and shadow, keyboard scrubbing, and export to MP4, MOV or GIF.
- Studio Mode: record the screen as an editable project: automatic zooms that follow the cursor, cursor size, style, smoothing and click effects, keystrokes and the camera, all adjustable after recording.
- Quick Access: a floating stack of your latest captures to copy, save, annotate, pin or drag anywhere. Pull a card down, swipe down with two fingers or click the bar above the stack to tuck it away; pull or swipe a card toward the screen edge to close it.
- Export formats: screenshots as PNG, JPEG, HEIC or TIFF.
- Pin to the Screen and Capture History to restore earlier captures.
- Open images from Finder: any PNG, JPEG, HEIC, TIFF, WebP or BMP opens in Annotate through Open With.
- Automation: the
glintcommand (glint fullscreentakes a screenshot and prints its path) for scripts and AI agents, andglint://links for Shortcuts, Raycast and others. See docs/command-line.md.
- macOS 15 Sequoia or later
- Apple silicon or Intel Mac
- Download the latest
Glint-<version>.zipfrom Releases. - Unzip it and move Glint.app to your Applications folder.
- Open Glint. macOS blocks it the first time: follow these steps.
- Glint lives in the menu bar; there's no Dock icon.
If you use an AI coding agent (Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, …), you can let it do the setup. Ask it:
Help me set up Glint: https://github.com/TheOnlyKuhni/Glint/blob/main/docs/agent-setup.md
docs/agent-setup.md walks the agent through downloading, the Gatekeeper step, permissions, turning off Apple's shortcuts and a test capture. It asks you before changing anything.
A Homebrew cask is planned.
See Building from source.
Glint asks for a permission when a feature first needs it:
| Permission | Used for |
|---|---|
| Screen Recording | Screenshots and recordings (required) |
| Microphone / Camera | Only if you turn them on for a recording |
| Accessibility / Input Monitoring | Only for showing keystrokes in recordings and for auto-scrolling |
Default shortcuts match macOS's own screenshot shortcuts:
| Shortcut | Action |
|---|---|
| ⇧⌘3 | Capture full screen |
| ⇧⌘4 | Capture area (press Space to pick a window) |
| ⇧⌘5 | All-In-One |
| ⌃⇧⌘4 | Capture area and copy to the clipboard |
While macOS's own screenshot shortcuts are on, macOS takes these keys and Glint's shortcuts don't work. To turn them off:
- Open System Settings → Keyboard.
- Click Keyboard Shortcuts… and choose Screenshots on the left.
- Uncheck these:
- Save picture of screen as a file (⇧⌘3)
- Save picture of selected area as a file (⇧⌘4)
- Copy picture of selected area to the clipboard (⌃⇧⌘4)
- Screenshot and recording options (⇧⌘5)
- Click Done. The change works right away.
Copy picture of screen to the clipboard (⌃⇧⌘3) has no Glint default, so you can leave it on. Glint's Settings → Shortcuts shows a warning while any of the others is still on.
If you'd rather keep Apple's shortcuts, give Glint different ones in Settings → Shortcuts. Every shortcut can be changed there.
Glint updates itself with Sparkle. It checks once a day; you can also choose Check for Updates… in the menu bar menu or turn automatic checks off in Settings → General → Updates. Updates are signed, and Glint only installs updates signed with the project's key.
Builds you make from source check the same feed and would update to the official release. To turn that off, remove
the SUPublicEDKey value from Config/Info.plist.
From the app: open Settings → Advanced → Uninstall Glint…. Glint deletes its settings, Capture History, saved edits and logs, turns off Launch at Login, resets its privacy permissions, moves itself to the Trash and quits.
With the script (if Glint no longer opens):
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/TheOnlyKuhni/Glint/main/Tools/uninstall.sh | zshBy hand: quit Glint, move /Applications/Glint.app to the Trash and delete:
| Location | Contents |
|---|---|
~/Library/Application Support/Glint |
Capture History and saved edits |
~/Library/Preferences/com.philippk.glint.plist |
Settings |
~/Library/Logs/Glint |
Log file |
~/Library/Caches/com.philippk.glint |
Update cache |
~/Library/HTTPStorages/com.philippk.glint |
Update-check data |
/usr/local/bin/glint |
The command line tool's link, if you installed it |
Then remove Glint from System Settings → Privacy & Security (Screen Recording, Microphone, Camera, Accessibility, Input Monitoring) and General → Login Items. If you set up Do Not Disturb while recording, delete the "Glint Focus On" and "Glint Focus Off" shortcuts in the Shortcuts app.
Screenshots and recordings you saved (by default on your Desktop) are never removed.
Glint works entirely on your Mac. It has no accounts, analytics or cloud upload. The only network request is the
update check, which downloads the release feed from GitHub. Captures stay in the folders you choose and in
~/Library/Application Support/Glint.
Requirements: Xcode 27 or later (the project uses the macOS 27 SDK and runs on macOS 15+).
git clone https://github.com/TheOnlyKuhni/Glint.git
cd Glint
open Glint.xcodeproj- In Xcode, select the Glint target → Signing & Capabilities.
- Choose your own Team, and change the Bundle Identifier to something of your own
(for example
com.yourname.glint). - Press ⌘R. Xcode fetches the Sparkle package on the first build.
Or build and launch from the terminal (after setting your team once in Xcode):
Tools/run.shSigning with a stable identity keeps the Screen Recording permission across rebuilds.
Project layout: Glint/ holds the app sources, grouped by feature (Capture, Annotate, Record,
VideoEditor, QuickAccess, Pin, History, Settings, …). Config/ has Info.plist and entitlements, Tools/
has build, release and uninstall scripts, and docs/RELEASING.md explains how releases and
updates are published.
Bug reports, ideas and pull requests are welcome. Please read CONTRIBUTING.md first.
Glint is free and always will be. If it saves you time and you'd like to say thanks, you can support it on Ko-fi. It's completely voluntary and very much appreciated.
Glint is released under the MIT License.
- Sparkle for updates (MIT-style license, see THIRD_PARTY_NOTICES.md).
- Icons in the app are Apple's SF Symbols, loaded from macOS at runtime and used under Apple's terms for apps on Apple platforms.