ScreenChest
Your screen, your face, your voice, in one take.
ScreenChest zooms in on your clicks, so viewers always see what you're doing.
A lightweight native Mac app with a built-in editor.
Download for macOS · Website · Releases · Report a bug · Request a feature
Contents
Features
Automatic zooms
ScreenChest adds zooms by following your clicks and cursor, so the important
moments stand out. It gets you most of the way, and you finish the rest: drag,
resize, or add zooms right on the timeline.
Record a display, or just one window
Camera, microphone and system audio record alongside it, lined up to the same
frame.
Use any connected camera or microphone
Pick from every camera and microphone your Mac can see: the built-in ones, a
Studio Display, a USB mic, or your iPhone through Continuity Camera.
Put yourself in the corner
Add your camera as a bubble and pick its corner, size and shape. Mirror it so
you look the way you expect to.
All your recordings in one place
Every take lands in one library, with thumbnails, search and the edits you made
to each. Pick one up right where you left it.
And the rest
- Frame it nicely — Set your recording on a wallpaper or gradient, with
padding, rounded corners and a shadow.
- Audio — Balance your microphone against system audio before you export.
- Plain files on your Mac — Each recording is a package in your Movies
folder, edits included.
- Native to the Mac — Built with SwiftUI for macOS 26 and later.
Install
- Download the latest
ScreenChest-<version>-arm64.dmg from
Releases
(or from screenchest.com).
- Open the disk image and drag ScreenChest into Applications.
Requirements: an Apple silicon Mac on macOS 26 or later.
Every release is signed with a Developer ID and notarized by Apple. ScreenChest
keeps itself up to date: new versions are offered in-app as they ship.
On first launch, allow Screen & System Audio Recording in System Settings.
ScreenChest asks for Camera and Microphone only when you turn them on.
Development
ScreenChest is a Swift package: a SwiftUI/AppKit app built on ScreenCaptureKit,
AVFoundation and Core Image. Preview and export share one renderer, so what you
see in the editor is what you get in the file.
Sources/ScreenChest/
App/ SwiftUI app, recorder window, floating recording panel
Capture/ ScreenCaptureKit stream, camera/mic session, asset writer, mouse tracker
Project/ Project model, package storage, auto-zoom, zoom track
Rendering/ Render plan, Core Image frame renderer, AVVideoCompositing, composition builder
Editor/ Editor model, player, timeline, inspector, exporter
Prerequisites
- macOS 26 with Xcode 26 (Swift 6.2)
- For the website: Node.js (current LTS) and pnpm (
corepack enable)
Run it locally
make run
| Command | Does |
|---|
make run | Build build/ScreenChest.app and open it |
scripts/watch.sh | Rebuild and relaunch the app on every save |
make install | Build and install into /Applications |
swift test | Unit tests and the export integration test |
scripts/create-signing-identity.sh | A local signing identity, so macOS keeps its grants |
pnpm --dir www dev | The screenchest.com site |
macOS ties the Screen Recording grant to the app's code signature, and an
ad-hoc signed build gets a new one every time. Run
scripts/create-signing-identity.sh once and every build after it is signed
with the same identity, so the grant sticks.
Each recording is a package in ~/Movies/ScreenChest/<name>.screenchest
holding screen.mov, camera.mov (if enabled), mouse.json and
project.json (your edits, autosaved).
Releasing
Releases are built, signed, notarized and published by GitHub Actions when a
version bump lands on main — see RELEASING.md.
Contributing
Bug reports, ideas and pull requests are all welcome. Read
CONTRIBUTING.md to get started, and please follow the
Code of Conduct. Security issues go through
SECURITY.md, not public issues.
License
ScreenChest is released under the MIT License.
