QuickSnap

A tiny, native macOS menu-bar app: press one shortcut to capture your whole screen, save it as a PNG to a folder of your choice, and copy it to the clipboard — all in a single keystroke.

No Dock icon, no window in the way, no dependencies. It just lives in your menu bar and waits for the shortcut.

---

What it does

• Global shortcut → capture the full screen (default ⌃⌥⌘S, rebindable).
• Saves a PNG to the folder you pick (Desktop by default; switch to Downloads or any folder in Settings).
• Copies the same image to the clipboard so you can paste it straight away.
• Menu-bar only — lightweight and out of the way.

Requirements

• macOS 14 or later
• Swift toolchain (comes with the Xcode Command Line Tools: xcode-select --install)

Build & run

git clone https://github.com/Nihirdas/QuickSnap.git
cd QuickSnap
./build_app.sh
open build/QuickSnap.app

build_app.sh compiles the app and wraps it in a proper QuickSnap.app bundle, then ad-hoc code-signs it.

First run

1. QuickSnap appears in your menu bar (a small camera icon).
2. The first time you capture, macOS asks for Screen Recording permission — allow it under System Settings › Privacy & Security › Screen Recording, then capture again.
3. Press ⌃⌥⌘S (or your custom shortcut) anywhere. The screen is saved and copied; the menu-bar icon flashes a checkmark to confirm.

Because the app is ad-hoc signed (not notarized), macOS may re-ask for Screen Recording permission after a rebuild. That's expected for a local dev build.

Settings

Open Settings… from the menu-bar menu to:

• choose the save folder (Desktop / Downloads / any folder), and
• record a new capture shortcut — click the field and press your combination.

How it's built

A small, dependency-free Swift package. The interesting pieces:

Concern	How
Menu-bar presence	NSStatusItem + activation policy .accessory (no Dock icon)
Global shortcut	Carbon RegisterEventHotKey — fires app-wide, no Accessibility permission needed
Screen capture	ScreenCaptureKit (SCScreenshotManager), Apple's modern capture API
Clipboard + saving	NSPasteboard and NSBitmapImageRep → PNG
Settings UI	AppKit — an NSWindow with a custom NSView shortcut recorder

Roadmap

• Region / window capture (not just full screen)
• Annotate mode — a second hotkey opens a quick editor (arrow, box, circle, and text with adjustable size), then a single Save & Copy button saves the marked-up PNG, copies it to the clipboard, and closes. macOS first.
• Launch at login
• Windows version — see windows/ (beta)

Windows

A Windows counterpart (C#/.NET tray app) lives in windows/ — same idea: Ctrl+Alt+S captures the whole screen, saves a PNG, and copies it to the clipboard silently, filling the gap Win+PrtScn (no clipboard) and the Snipping Tool (overlay required) leave open. Build steps are in windows/README.md; CI publishes the .exe on each push.

License

MIT