better-shot

BetterShot

Capture, edit, and share your screen. Native on macOS.

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BetterShot is a free, open-source Mac app for screenshots, screen recordings, and image and video editing. No account or subscription.

Install

brew install --cask bettershot

Or download the Apple silicon or Intel .dmg from Releases.

Requires macOS 14 or later. Microphone narration needs macOS 15, and narration subtitles and teleprompter speech tracking need macOS 26.

Features

• Screenshots: region, window, fullscreen, and scrolling capture, plus OCR and a color picker.
• Image editor: arrows, shapes, text, numbered markers, highlights, blur, and pixelate. Crop, rotate, flip, and frame captures with backgrounds, padding, corners, and shadow.
• Recording: a display, window, or area, with system audio, microphone, camera, and a teleprompter.
• Video editor: cuts, speed, zooms, captions, masks, camera layouts, cursor styles, and 3D shots. Export MP4 or MOV at 30 or 60 fps.
• Sharing: copy, save, pin, or drag from the floating preview, browse everything in the Media Gallery, and share links through your own Cloudflare R2 bucket.

Original captures and source recordings are never modified.

See the video editor

Getting started

1. Open BetterShot. Setup asks for Screen Recording and Accessibility access and where to save screenshots.
2. Press ⌘⇧4 and select an area.
3. Copy, Save, Edit, Pin, or Share from the floating preview.

Action	Shortcut
Region screenshot	⌘⇧4
Fullscreen screenshot	⌘⇧3
Capture previous region	⌘⇧1
Capture and recording bar	⌘⇧2
Recording options	⌘⇧5
OCR text scan	⌘⇧O
Color picker	⌘⇧C

Change shortcuts in Settings > Shortcuts. New installs save screenshots to the Desktop; change the folder, file names, or automatic saving in Settings > General > Saving.

Permissions

Permission	Used for
Screen & System Audio Recording	Screenshots, recordings, and system audio
Accessibility	Global shortcuts
Input Monitoring	Cursor effects and shortcut overlays. Plain typing is never recorded.
Microphone	Voice in recordings
Camera	Camera recording

If capture or shortcuts still fail after granting access, quit and reopen BetterShot. When BetterShot opens at login before macOS applies Screen Recording access, it offers to restart itself the first time you capture.

Cloud sharing

Optional. Sharing uploads to a Cloudflare R2 bucket you own.

1. Create an R2 bucket with a public URL and an API token with Object Read & Write access.
2. Enter the credentials in Settings > Sharing, choose the bucket’s Jurisdiction if it has one, and click Test Connection.
3. Click Share on any capture to upload it and copy the link.

Credentials are stored in your login Keychain, and anyone with a link can view it. Outside of sharing, BetterShot only goes online to check GitHub for updates.

Automation

Trigger captures from Shortcuts, Raycast, or the terminal:

open 'bettershot://capture/region'

Route	Action
capture/region	Region screenshot
capture/fullscreen	Fullscreen screenshot
capture/window	Window screenshot
capture/scroll	Scrolling capture
ocr	OCR text scan
color-picker	Color picker
record	Start a recording
settings	Open Settings

Build from source

Requires Xcode 26 and XcodeGen.

brew install xcodegen
git clone https://github.com/KartikLabhshetwar/better-shot.git
cd better-shot
make release
open .build/Build/Products/Release/BetterShot.app

See CONTRIBUTING.md for Xcode setup, the code map, and tests.

Contributing

Issues and pull requests are welcome. Read the contributor guide and Code of Conduct first.

Built by Kartik Labhshetwar and contributors. If BetterShot helps you, consider supporting its development.