Apple silicon, macOS 13 or later. Interface in English, Ukrainian and Russian. Copy Text works as OCR, Copy Color as #HEX.
For advanced users and language models
The screenshots of macOS (Shift-Command-3, 4 and 5) go either to a file or to the clipboard, one at a time, and a recording takes several clicks. Pixlift gives each kind of capture one shortcut and can do both: the file in a folder and the same capture on the clipboard. It has no capture engine of its own: screenshots are made by macOS’s own screencapture, recordings by ScreenCaptureKit, text by Apple’s Vision, color by the color sampler of macOS. Everything runs on the Mac, offline. No editor, no history, no cloud, no logs.
What it does
Six system-wide shortcuts, Option-Command-7, 8, 9, 0, 6 and 5 by default, each changed in the window. The first four are named as macOS names the same actions.
Two settings for screenshots and two for recordings: Save to (the Desktop, a folder chosen with Other Location…, or None) and Clipboard. A choice that would turn both off is greyed out, so a capture always goes somewhere. A file name already taken gets (2), (3) and so on.
The first launch reads the place of macOS’s own screenshots from com.apple.screencapture (location, and on macOS 27 location-screenshot and location-screenrecording); with none set it is the Desktop. Screenshots that macOS sends to its clipboard start as copied, not saved. After that the settings are Pixlift’s own. A Mac updated from 0.1 starts with both on and the Desktop.
The clipboard holds one item: the file and, for a screenshot, the picture itself as PNG. An app that takes files gets the file with its name, an app that takes pictures gets the picture. A recording is copied as its file. A screenshot that is not saved goes as the picture alone. A recording that is not saved is kept in ~/Library/Caches/com.geragaraza.pixlift/Clipboard, because a recording is pasted as a file; it is deleted once it is off the clipboard and more than an hour old.
Recording: the whole screen under the pointer, with the pointer, the Mac’s sound and the microphone. Nothing counts down, and Pixlift draws nothing over the screen or in the menu bar.
Nothing in the Dock or the menu bar. Open at Login stays off until it is turned on.
How it works
Screenshots are taken by /usr/sbin/screencapture, the program behind the screenshots of macOS itself, with its crosshair and its window picker. The PNG is what macOS’s own screenshot would be: the display’s own pixels, its color profile, 144 dpi on a Retina display. Pixlift then names the file and saves it, copies it, or both, as set.
The shutter sound is the one of macOS and follows its Play user interface sound effects setting; it is silent while a recording runs.
Recording runs on ScreenCaptureKit: the picture and the Mac’s sound from it, the microphone through AVFoundation, mixed into one sound track, because players and messengers play only the first track. The app’s own sounds are left out.
The MP4 is H.264 (High profile) at the display’s own resolution, with a variable frame rate up to the display’s refresh rate: frames come only when the screen changes, so a still screen costs almost nothing. Colors bt709, sound AAC, 48 kHz stereo. The bit rate is about twice the one macOS uses for its own recordings, about 20 Mbit/s for a 3456 x 2234 display.
A recording is written to a temporary file and moved to its place when it stops. Quitting the app during a recording finishes the file first.
Copy Text is the engine of OCR: the area is read by Apple’s Vision on the Mac, in every language Vision has on the installed macOS; an area with no text in it gives what its QR code or other barcode encodes.
Copy Color is the picker of #HEX: the loupe is NSColorSampler, the color is converted to sRGB and copied in upper case as #RRGGBB.
The shortcuts are Carbon hot keys (RegisterEventHotKey), which need no Accessibility. They are stored as physical keys, so they work in every keyboard layout.
macOS does not report a shortcut another app already holds, and then both apps act on one press. While OCR or #HEX runs with the same shortcut, that row shows Used by OCR or Used by #HEX, and Pixlift leaves the key to it until it quits.
Questions
Which permissions does it need, and why?
Screen & System Audio Recording (Screen Recording before macOS 15), for screenshots, recordings and Copy Text. macOS asks at the first press that needs it; until it is allowed, each such press shows an alert with a button to System Settings. Microphone, for recordings: macOS asks at the first recording, and when it is not allowed, a recording can go on with the Mac’s sound only. Copy Color needs none.
Why does macOS ask again about screen recording?
Since macOS 15, macOS itself asks from time to time whether an app may go on recording the screen. It asks this of every app except Apple’s own, and a Developer ID does not change it.
Can the files go to another folder, or only to the clipboard?
Yes, either, set apart for screenshots and recordings: Save to the Desktop, any folder (Other Location…) or None, and Clipboard on or off. One of the two always stays on. A chosen folder that is gone, such as a disk that was unplugged, gets the capture on the Desktop instead, with an alert that says so.
Does it work without internet?
Yes. Capture, recording and recognition never use the network; the only network call is the daily update check. Links in the window open only on a click.
Does it run on Intel Macs?
No. Apple silicon only, macOS 13 or later.
Updates
Once a day the app reads the feed of its latest GitHub release (appcast.xml) through Sparkle. Nothing about the Mac is sent. When a newer version is out, a window shows it with Install Update, Remind Me Later and Skip This Version; nothing is downloaded before Install Update. Check for Updates in the window checks at once.
The feed and the disk image are signed with an EdDSA key, and Sparkle installs only an app that carries the same Developer ID signature.
Settings and removal
It stores the shortcuts, where captures go, whether it has been opened and has asked for screen access before, and the time of the last update check in the defaults of com.geragaraza.pixlift, and Vision’s compiled model and a recording that is only on the clipboard in ~/Library/Caches/com.geragaraza.pixlift. The captures themselves are the files where they were saved.
To remove Pixlift: Quit in its window, move Pixlift.app to the Trash, delete that cache folder and clear its settings with this command:
defaultsdeletecom.geragaraza.pixlift
Installed with Homebrew, this command quits it and removes the app, its settings and the cache:
brewuninstall--zappixlift
Either way, its Screen & System Audio Recording and Microphone entries are removed in System Settings, Privacy & Security.
From Terminal
This command prints the text of pictures instead of copying it:
