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
• Install
• Development
• Contributing
• License

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

1. Download the latest ScreenChest-<version>-arm64.dmg from Releases (or from screenchest.com).
2. 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.

Path	What it is
Sources/ScreenChest	The macOS app
Tests/ScreenChestTests	Unit tests, and an integration test that exports through the real compositor
Resources	Info.plist, entitlements and the app icon
scripts	Build, install, watch, signing and release scripts
www	screenchest.com, on Cloudflare Workers

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.