Skritch

Skritch scratches an itch.
For the missing features you wished Skitch had.

Website · Download for Mac · Report a bug · MIT license

Skritch is a local screenshot, annotation and quick video-editing app. It pairs a compact, familiar markup interface with multiple image layers, independent image crops, canvas cropping, editable projects and native drag-to-save exports. Built with Tauri 2, React, TypeScript and Rust.

Download

Download Skritch 0.1.0 for macOS

• macOS 13.3 or later. One universal DMG for Apple silicon and Intel.
• About 55 MB to download. FFmpeg and FFprobe are included; no separate installation is needed.
• Developer ID signed. Not yet notarized; see the first-launch instructions below.
• Free and MIT licensed. No account or cloud service required.
• The source supports Windows, but a packaged Windows release is not available yet.

Release notes · SHA-256 checksums · Third-party sources

What it does

Feature	What you can do
Screen capture	Snap a region, a window or the full display; reuse the last area; use a countdown for menus and other transient content.
Annotation	Add arrows, text, shapes, pen strokes, highlights, stamps and pixelation. Move, resize and edit them with Undo/Redo.
Image layers	Add several images to one canvas, rearrange them, and move them forward, backward, to the top or to the back.
Image and canvas crop	Crop a selected image independently, crop the entire canvas and its image layers, extend the canvas, or scale the document.
Drag Me	Choose PNG, JPG, TIFF, PDF, BMP or GIF and drag a real file directly into Finder, the Desktop or another app.
Useful filenames	Start with the local capture timestamp and source window title. Click the footer filename to rename it.
Editable work	Save .skritch image projects or .skritchv video projects. Smaller PNG exports also carry editable document metadata.
Quick video edits	Trim and reorder clips, step through frames, add timeline markers, export video, or open a single frame in the annotation editor.
Mac integration	Native menus and shortcuts, multiple document windows, menu-bar capture, Finder Open With, Dock file drops and system printing.

Skritch is an independent project inspired by Skitch. It is not affiliated with Skitch or Evernote, and does not include Evernote integration.

Install on macOS

1. Download the DMG from this repository's Releases.
2. Open it and drag Skritch.app into Applications. Quit an older copy before replacing it.
3. Launch Skritch from Applications, rather than running the executable inside the bundle or build folder.
4. This early release is signed but not notarized. If macOS blocks the first launch, follow Apple's instructions for opening an app from an identified developer: open System Settings → Privacy & Security, review the app, and use Open Anyway if you choose to proceed.
5. When prompted, allow Screen Recording for Skritch in System Settings → Privacy & Security. Quit and reopen the app if macOS requests it.

Closing the editor window keeps Skritch available in the menu bar. Use Skritch → Quit Skritch (or ⌘Q) when an actual restart is needed.

Screen Recording is already enabled, but capture is blocked

Older development builds were ad-hoc signed. Their identity changed between builds, which can invalidate a Screen Recording grant while the Settings switch still appears enabled.

For the one-time move to the Developer ID build:

1. Save your work and quit every running copy of Skritch.
2. Install the new app in Applications.
3. In Screen Recording settings, remove the old Skritch entry, then add and enable /Applications/Skritch.app again.
4. Launch the installed app; quit and reopen once more if macOS asks.

New local release builds use the same Developer ID. This stabilizes the app identity across updates; macOS still controls whether permission is granted. The app checks permission for each capture. Repeated denied attempts show a Settings message instead of reopening the blocking explanation.

Verify the download

Download SHA256SUMS.txt alongside the DMG, then compare:

shasum -a 256 Skritch_0.1.0_universal.dmg

You can also inspect the installed app's signature:

codesign --verify --deep --strict /Applications/Skritch.app
codesign -dv /Applications/Skritch.app 2>&1

The published Mac app is signed by Developer ID Application: Kaigani Turner (3RYX74KM8T).

A quick tour

Capture and annotate

Click the main Screen Snap button to run the current action. Its separate arrow opens the action picker; selecting an item changes the action without immediately capturing. The selection persists between launches. Native Capture menu commands also provide previous-area and timed/menu captures.

Enable Preferences → Advanced options after capture to fine-tune a region or window selection before taking it. Drag the area to move it, drag any corner to resize, or enter exact pixel dimensions. The link button locks the aspect ratio. The timer button toggles a five-second countdown; the full-screen button selects the entire current display. Click Capture (or press Enter outside a field/button) to confirm, or Escape to cancel. Arrow keys move a focused selection or corner one pixel; Shift + arrow moves ten. Dimensions use screenshot pixels, including on Retina displays. With the preference off, releasing a region selection or clicking a window captures immediately.

Select a tool from the left rail, then draw on the canvas. Use V to select and adjust objects. Open or drop another image and choose Add to Canvas to keep it alongside the existing content.

Work with layers and crops

With multiple images, Crop starts on the selected image (or the topmost available image). Click another image to switch targets. Click the gray area outside the canvas to crop the canvas itself. The toolbar identifies whether you are cropping an Image or the Canvas.

Applying a canvas crop trims the image layers' bounds and source regions, including locked/hidden images. Fully excluded images are removed. There are no selection handles hanging outside the new canvas. Undo restores the canvas and layers together. Growing the canvas later does not reveal the trimmed regions. Image crops preserve the original asset bytes within the editable document.

Use Image → Move to Top / Move Forward / Move Backward / Move to Back for stacking order. Multiple selections keep their relative order. Flip/Rotate transforms the selected image; with no image selected, it transforms a flattened canvas. Undo restores the previous editable layers.

Name, save and drag

Captures default to ddmmyy:hhmmss_Window title, for example 290926:091530_Offscript — Homepage. Region captures use the window under the selection center; unavailable titles fall back to Screenshot. The timestamp is fixed at capture time.

Click the filename in the footer to edit it. Enter or clicking away applies the change; Escape cancels. Saving and dragging use the same name plus the selected format's extension. Renaming a saved image prompts for a new save location instead of overwriting the old name.

Select an export format beside Drag Me, then drag the control into Finder or another app. Each drag gets its own temporary file, so later exports do not overwrite earlier attachments. macOS accepts a literal colon in POSIX filenames but Finder displays it as /; Windows and browser drag filenames replace it with _.

Keep an editable copy

• .skritch stores the image document and original assets as a project.
• PNG can embed editable document data when total source assets are under 24 MiB. Above that limit, reopening the PNG uses its flattened pixels. Use a project file when preserving layers matters.
• JPG, TIFF, PDF, BMP and GIF are flattened exports. PDF is an export format; PDF import is not implemented.
• .skritchv stores video edits and references to source media. Keep the original video files available.

Edit a little video

Open a video, trim or reorder timeline clips, step through frames, and add markers. Send a frame to image mode for annotation, then return to the timeline. Export through the video export dialog. Playback uses proxies when needed; export renders from the original media. Available encoders depend on the platform; the Mac release includes VideoToolbox and LGPL software components.

Handy shortcuts

Action	macOS
Region capture	Control + Shift + 5
Previous capture area	Control + Option + Shift + 5
Timed region capture	Control + Shift + 6
Full display capture	Control + Shift + 7
Window capture	Control + Shift + 8
Open / Save / Export	⌘O / ⌘S / ⌘E
Undo / Redo	⌘Z / ⇧⌘Z
Move forward / backward	⌘] / ⌘[
Move to top / back	⇧⌘] / ⇧⌘[
Select / Arrow / Text / Shape	V / A / T / S
Pen / Highlight / Stamp / Pixelate / Crop	P / H / K / B / C
Apply / Cancel crop	Enter / Escape
Fit / Actual size	⌘0 / ⌘1

Native menus show their shortcuts. Global capture shortcuts may conflict with other apps.

Privacy and storage

Images and video are processed locally. There is no sign-in, analytics service or automatic upload. Screen Recording permission is used for user-triggered captures. Captures and drag exports create local temporary files, with cleanup policies in the native backend. Recover Last Capture is available for ten minutes. The public website has no analytics or third-party scripts; GitHub hosts its pages and download files.

Develop

Prerequisites: Node.js 22, pnpm 10, a current Rust stable toolchain, and the native Tauri prerequisites. On macOS install Xcode Command Line Tools. Windows requires the MSVC build tools and WebView2. FFmpeg and FFprobe must be available as sidecars or on PATH for video development and native video tests.

git clone https://github.com/kaigani/skritch.git
cd skritch
pnpm install --frozen-lockfile
pnpm dev               # browser UI with mocked capture/clipboard/drag IPC
pnpm tauri dev         # real desktop app

The browser preview exercises the UI; it is not the native screenshot application. Browser drag export is limited to supported browser formats, and OS capture/printing/clipboard need the desktop build.

Build the universal Mac app

For quick local development, Homebrew FFmpeg can be staged as sidecars. Such builds may include GPL components and are not the binaries used for the public release:

brew install ffmpeg
scripts/dev-ffmpeg-sidecars.sh

For release sidecars, build the pinned LGPL FFmpeg/FFprobe, libvpx and Opus sources:

brew install nasm pkg-config
scripts/build-ffmpeg-macos.sh
rustup target add aarch64-apple-darwin x86_64-apple-darwin
PATH="$HOME/.cargo/bin:$PATH" pnpm build:mac

The Rustup toolchain must precede Homebrew Rust for cross-compilation. Output is under apps/desktop/src-tauri/target/universal-apple-darwin/release/bundle/.

The default local signing identity is the project's Developer ID certificate. Other developers can set APPLE_SIGNING_IDENTITY to their own certificate. Setting it to - creates an ad-hoc development build, whose privacy grants may not survive a rebuild. The optional CI templates explicitly use this ad-hoc override; they are not the Developer ID release download. No signing keys are stored in this repository.

build:mac uses CI-mode DMG packaging to avoid Finder automation. Notarization is not configured yet. Bundled license notices live in apps/desktop/src-tauri/resources/licenses/; the release includes corresponding FFmpeg, libvpx and Opus sources plus the build script.

Test

pnpm typecheck
pnpm lint
pnpm test
pnpm --filter @skritch/desktop exec playwright install chromium webkit
pnpm test:e2e
cd apps/desktop/src-tauri
cargo test --release --lib

Unit tests cover document operations, image crops, history, filenames, PNG metadata and video EDLs. Playwright covers editor workflows with mocked IPC in Chromium and WebKit. Rust tests exercise capture geometry, window-hide settling, image conversion and real FFmpeg video processing. Native Finder drag/drop, OS permission migration and system print dialogs also require manual testing. See the QA checklist.

Website and previews

The public site is a dependency-free static page in site/, published from the gh-pages branch using GitHub Pages. Optional Actions workflows are in ci/. Preview locally:

python3 -m http.server 4173 --directory site

With pnpm dev running, regenerate the original artwork/editor screenshots:

node apps/desktop/tests/visual/site-preview.mjs

Local QA screenshots in docs/review/ are ignored; only the curated sample screenshots in site/assets/ are published. Update versioned release links in the site and README when publishing another release. Upload the DMG, checksum file and corresponding third-party source archive together. After committing website changes, publish them with git subtree push --prefix site origin gh-pages.

Project layout

apps/desktop/src/             React + TypeScript application
  model/                      document model, commands, history and video EDL
  canvas/                     layered Canvas2D renderer and annotation tools
  export/                     formats, editable PNG metadata and project serialization
  video/                      player, timeline and video export UI
  ipc/                        typed native bridge and browser mock
apps/desktop/src-tauri/       Rust capture, native menus, clipboard, tray and FFmpeg pipeline
scripts/                     sidecar builds and license-notice collection
site/                        public GitHub Pages download site
docs/                        IPC reference and QA checklist

Contributing and support

Bug reports and focused pull requests are welcome. Include your OS version, app version, reproduction steps and expected behavior. Remove private information from logs and screenshots. Run the relevant checks above before opening a PR. Keep platform-specific integration behind the native bridge, preserve Undo/Redo for document changes, and keep the screenshot workflow compact.

This is an early public release. Current limits include no notarization, no packaged Windows download, no PDF import, and no cloud sync. The implementation history is in DECISIONS.md; older entries describe earlier milestones and may be superseded by the current README.

License and acknowledgments

Skritch is MIT licensed, copyright © 2026 Kaigani Turner. Third-party software retains its own licenses; see THIRD_PARTY.md and the bundled notices. The app uses code from FFmpeg under LGPL-2.1-or-later; its corresponding source is included in the release source archive.

With appreciation for the simple, useful spirit of Skitch. Skitch and Evernote are trademarks of their respective owners; this project is independent.