MP4H.264 · HEVC · sound
Fits a chat upload
A quality slider, a size of full, half or a fixed width, and the only format that keeps sound.
Show,
don’t tell.
Tinycap is a tiny menu-bar app for macOS. Record a window, a screen, a dragged area or an iPhone or iPad on a cable, with system audio and your mic if you like, to a small MP4, WebM or GIF, or grab a screenshot and mark it up. Then drop the file straight into a pull request.
brew install --cask soleo/tap/tinycap- 5.7 MB download
- No account
- No telemetry
- Apple silicon + Intel
0:12
named after Kap + LICEcap
Recording
Small files, three ways out.
Pick the format the next step needs. Before you export, Tinycap encodes a short sample of the clip and estimates the file size, so you know it will attach before you wait.
WebMVP9
Plays right on the web
Keeps the recording’s real frame timing, tagged so browsers show the right colors.
GIF5–30 fps · 32–256 colors
Inlines in a pull request
Presets, ordered dithering, and “Fit under N MB”, which steps the settings down until the file fits.
Pick, record, trim, attach.
- 01PickA window, a screen or a dragged area, from the menu or a global shortcut. Window recordings follow the window when it moves.
- 02RecordAn optional 3-2-1 countdown, yellow click highlights, and system audio and microphone for walkthroughs. The menu-bar icon shows elapsed time; click it to stop.
- 03TrimA preview opens when you stop. Drag the handles, or press I and O at the playhead.
- 04ExportMP4, WebM or GIF, with the size estimated from a sample before you commit to the whole thing.
New in v0.7 iPhone & iPad
Your phone, on the same tools.
Record or screenshot an iPhone or iPad connected by cable. If the device rotates mid-recording, the clip keeps its first orientation. The first time, macOS asks for Camera access, because it lists connected devices as cameras.
Plug in, tap Trust
Connect an iPhone or iPad by cable and unlock it. Record and Screenshot items for it appear in the menu, and go away when you unplug it.
A live device window
The device’s screen opens in a window with Record, Stop and Screenshot. The menu-bar timer and the stop shortcut work too.
Full resolution
Captures are at the device’s own resolution and go through the same trim, export and screenshot editor as Mac captures.
A preview preset
One checkbox exports the size App Store Connect accepts for the device, at 30 fps with sound, and warns if the clip isn’t 15–30 seconds. It works for a Simulator window too.
Sound
Now with sound, when you want it.
Sound is off until you turn it on, so silent clips and their file sizes don’t change. Turn it on and the preview plays with sound; untick either source to leave it out.
System audio
Everything your Mac plays, in window, area and screen recordings. Tinycap’s own sounds are left out.
Microphone
Talk over your recording. Pick any input: built-in, USB, an audio interface or Bluetooth.
No speaker echo
The mic goes through the same echo cancellation as FaceTime. Turn it off for a studio mic or headphones.
Plays everywhere
Mixed into one track for Chrome, Slack and GitHub, or separate tracks for a video editor. WebM and GIF stay silent.
Screenshots
Mark it up. Pixelate the secret.
Full Retina captures from the same overlays. A floating thumbnail waits in the corner: click it to edit, drag it into any app, or leave it and it is saved.
- Bendable arrows
- Rectangles
- Ellipses
- Text
- Pen
- Highlighter
- Self-renumbering badges
- Crop
- Pixelate
Pixelated means gone. The export replaces those pixels, so nothing can be recovered from the file. Copy with ⌘C or save with ⌘S as PNG or JPEG, with no location or device metadata.
Under the hood
A GIF encoder written for screen recordings.
The obvious choice, gifski, is AGPL, which fits neither an MIT project nor the App Store. So Tinycap ships its own, built on one observation: a screen recording is mostly still, with small regions of change.
- 01One palette per clipBuilt by median cut from frames across the kept range, so colors don’t flicker between frames.
- 02Only what changedAfter the first frame, each frame stores just the box that changed. Unchanged pixels are transparent.
- 03Still frames mergeFrames where nothing changed become one longer frame.
- 04Dithering that holds stillOrdered dithering stays put between frames instead of shimmering.
Privacy
Local, quiet, easy to remove.
No account, no telemetryIts only network request is a daily update check, and you can turn that off.
SandboxedThe camera only for a connected iPhone or iPad, which macOS lists as a camera; never your Mac’s own. The microphone only when you turn it on, and macOS asks first for both. File access only to your Movies folder and folders you pick.
Signed and notarizedRuns on Apple silicon and Intel, and updates itself.
Clean filesScreenshots carry no location or device metadata.
Menu bar onlyNo Dock icon, no daemons, no kernel extensions. Drag it to the Trash and it is gone.
Open sourceMIT licensed. Read every line on GitHub.
An App Store build, with no updater and no network access at all, is in App Review.
why I built it
“I wanted the one tool that is native, small, makes small files, and whose source I could read.”
Kap is lovely but no longer maintained. LICEcap is tiny and reliable, but only makes GIFs. Tinycap is named after both, and built in Claude Code sessions as an experiment in shipping a first native app.
Read the story: Two Tools for the Human in the Loop →- First commit to v0.4
- 2 days
- Commits
- 19
- Lines of Swift, with tests
- ~11k
- Model time, both days
- < $80
Get Tinycap.
Free and open source. Requires macOS 15 or later.
Download the DMG · 5.7 MB
brew install --cask soleo/tap/tinycapWhat’s new in v0.7.0 · Product Hunt · Hacker News · Tinycap site
Tinycap is free. If it saves you time, buy me a coffee.
Also from me: bogyman, a CLI that tells you which of your coding agents is waiting on you.