Capture. Annotate.
Done.
⌘⇧7, drag a region, and the tools are right there — pen, arrows, shapes, text. Copy with Return or save to Desktop. The Lightshot workflow, rebuilt local-first: your screenshots never touch a server.
Watch it in action
Screenshot: capture and annotate on Mac. Capture an area, mark it up and copy it without leaving the overlay.
Copy for AI0:24 · Screenshot to AI, sized for the model.
Blur and Find secrets0:24 · Share the screenshot, not the keys.
Copy text and Translate0:24 · Copy the text in any screenshot.
Inspect0:24 · Check what the AI built. Exactly.
Pin and Overlay0:24 · Build vs design, one over the other.
The markup happens on the screen, not after it
Drag, Annotate, Done
Press ⌘⇧7, drag a region, and the annotation bar appears right there — pen, highlighter, line, arrows, shapes, and text. Return copies, one click saves. No app switch, no export dialog.
An Adjustable Selection
Grabbed 2px too little? Drag the 8 handles to resize or move the selection after the fact — your annotations stay glued to their pixels while you adjust, exactly like Lightshot.
Real Annotation Tools
Pen and highlighter for freehand, lines and arrows that scale with stroke width, rectangles, ellipses, and text in three sizes and seven colors — with undo and redo (⌘Z / ⇧⌘Z).
No Uploads. Ever.
Unlike Lightshot, captures are never uploaded. The capture exists in memory, on your clipboard, or on your Desktop — there is no server, no share link, no account. By design.
Multi-Display Native
Every display freezes at native resolution — drag your selection on whichever screen you like. Retina-exact output: what you annotate is pixel-for-pixel what you get.
Fails Loudly, Never Silently
Screen Recording permission missing? You get a prompt with a fix. Desktop not writable? Your capture is preserved and you can still copy. No mystery no-ops.
Copy Text From Any Area
⇧⌘C in the toolbar reads the selection with on-device text recognition, code and Terminal lines in order, QR codes too. Or use the Copy Text from Area mode to copy on mouse-up. The text is never logged or stored.
Translate It
Translate the copied text with Apple's on-device translation, right in the Copied text panel. macOS 15 and later.
Blur and Find Secrets
Blur and Pixelate tools, plus Find secrets: it covers API keys, tokens, NAME=value lines, private keys and emails it reads in the capture with solid boxes before you copy or save. It finds most, not all; check before you share. Never counted.
Inspect Colours and Spacing
Inspect mode picks a colour from the frozen screen as HEX, RGB, HSL, OKLCH, SwiftUI or Tailwind, checks contrast with WCAG and APCA, and measures gaps between elements.
Pin and Overlay
Pin a capture on top of your windows to compare against. Overlay, a see-through, click-through pin over the running app, is Pro.
Copy for AI
One click (or ⌥↩) puts the capture on the clipboard sized for AI chats, at most 2,000 px and 3.75 MB, as an image, a file and its quoted path, so it pastes into a chat app, Finder or a coding agent in a terminal.
For every "look at this" moment
Bug reports with arrows
Freeze the glitch, circle it, arrow the culprit, add a one-line caption — paste into the issue before the app even repaints.
Read more →PR feedback on UI
Screenshot the diff preview, highlight the misaligned padding, drop it in the review comment.
Read more →Docs and runbooks
Annotated captures saved straight to Desktop with timestamped names — collect a folder of steps without touching an editor.
Read more →Sensitive screens
Because nothing uploads, you can capture internal dashboards and customer data without a compliance conversation.
Read more →Questions
How is this different from macOS's built-in ⌘⇧4?
The built-in screenshot gives you a file you then have to open and mark up somewhere else. FavTray gives you the annotation tools right on the frozen screen — draw arrows, highlight, add text — then copy the finished image to your clipboard with Return, or save it to Desktop. It's the Lightshot workflow, without Lightshot's uploads.
Does it upload my screenshots anywhere?
No — and it can't. There is no upload code, no server, and no share-link feature in FavTray Screenshot, as a deliberate design decision. Your capture exists in three places only: app memory while annotating, your clipboard if you copy, and your Desktop if you save.
What annotation tools are included?
Pen, highlighter (translucent marker), line, arrow, rectangle, ellipse, and text — in seven colors and three stroke widths (text scales with them). Undo and redo are ⌘Z and ⇧⌘Z. The selection itself stays adjustable: 8 handles to resize, drag the border to move.
Can I change the capture shortcut?
Yes. The default is ⌘⇧7 (the free slot after macOS's own ⌘⇧3–6), and you can record any shortcut you like in Settings → Screenshot.
What permission does it need?
Screen Recording — the standard macOS permission for reading screen pixels, granted once in System Settings. FavTray prompts you on first capture. Detection, capture, and annotation all run locally via Apple's ScreenCaptureKit.
Is Screenshot free?
Yes, for 10 captures a day. A capture counts when you copy or save it; pressing Esc is free, and recent captures always open, copy and save. The count resets at local midnight, and past it macOS's own ⌘⇧4 still works. Pro, a one-time $4.99, is unlimited, and the 7-day trial is unlimited.
Can FavTray copy text from a screenshot?
Yes, from FavTray 2.1.0. Select an area and press ⇧⌘C, or use the Copy Text from Area mode. Text recognition runs on your Mac with Apple's Vision framework, keeps code and Terminal lines in order and reads QR codes. The text is never logged or stored, and it counts as one Free capture only when text is found.
Can it blur passwords and API keys in a screenshot?
Yes. Find secrets reads the capture on your Mac and covers keys, tokens, NAME=value lines, private keys and emails with solid boxes, and Blur and Pixelate cover anything else by hand. Text recognition can miss tiny text, so check before you share. Redaction is never counted toward the daily limit.
Your screenshots stay yours
Free for 10 captures a day. Unlimited with Pro, $4.99 once. 7-day unlimited trial — no credit card, no uploads, no account.