Draw, annotate and laser-point directly on your screen — over any app, in seconds. A lightweight macOS overlay app written in Swift + AppKit.
macdraw is a full-screen transparent overlay that captures your clicks so you can write on top of whatever is on screen — presentations, videos, code, anything.
- 17 drawing tools — rectangle, diamond, ellipse, arrow, line, freehand sketch, magic shape, frame, text, image, eraser, lasso, laser, fill and more
- Glowing laser pointer — neon glow that fades tail-first, leaves no marks
- White / black screen — flip the whole display to a clean writing surface
- Full color palette — stroke & fill colors, stroke width, dashed strokes
- Real text — type anywhere, pick a font family and size, re-edit anytime
- Images & emoji — drop pictures, or press
/for a quick emoji palette - Selection editing — move, resize, rotate, lasso-select, delete, undo
- Autosave — your drawing persists across quits and relaunches
- Keyboard-first — every tool has a one-key shortcut
Open the sparkle button and choose a provider. API keys are stored in the macOS Keychain separately for each provider. Supported providers are OpenAI/Codex, Anthropic, OpenRouter, Google Gemini, and OpenAI-compatible endpoints.
Google Gemini uses the native Gemini API; create a key in Google AI Studio, choose Google Gemini, and paste it into the Gemini key field. For local diagrams, choose Local (Ollama) and use the setup button—macdraw finds an existing Ollama installation, starts its local server when needed, and downloads the selected model.
Download the DMG or zip from the macdraw site and drag to Applications. First launch: right-click → Open → Open (Gatekeeper is cautious about free unsigned apps).
git clone https://github.com/aadityakumarsah/macdraw.git
cd macdraw
bash scripts/make_signing_identity.sh # one-time: creates the self-signed signing cert
bash build.sh # builds build/macdraw.app
bash dist.sh # signs it + packages DMG & zip into dist/
open build/macdraw.app