Frequently asked questions

Any Mac on macOS 14 (Sonoma) or later, Apple silicon or Intel. Shotcake uses ScreenCaptureKit, the modern capture API Apple introduced in macOS 14, which is why older systems are not supported.

No. Shotcake is a one-time purchase on the Mac App Store. There are no in-app purchases, no subscription tiers, no ads and no account to create.

The built-in tool (⌘⇧5) captures and saves. Shotcake picks up where that stops: a full annotation editor with arrows, shapes, text and numbered steps, blur and pixelate redaction, background and padding presets, on-device text recognition, a searchable capture library, a pinned-on-top reference window, an on-screen ruler and a color picker.

macOS only applies that permission when the app restarts. Open System Settings → Privacy & Security → Screen Recording, turn on Shotcake, then quit Shotcake and open it again. The permission does nothing until you do.

Settings → Export → Save to decides the folder. If it is set to “Ask every time”, Shotcake shows a save panel on every capture. Everything you capture also lands in the capture library, which lives inside Shotcake's own container and keeps your annotations editable.

Not unless you choose to share one. Capturing, annotating, exporting and text recognition all happen locally. The only thing that ever uploads is an image you explicitly send through the Share Link feature.

Seven days. Shared images are uploaded anonymously — no account, name or email is attached — and are permanently deleted after that. Anyone holding the link can open it while it lives, so share links deliberately.

Yes. Annotations are objects, not baked-in pixels. Open the capture from the library and every arrow, label and blur region is still selectable, movable and deletable.

PNG, JPEG, HEIC, TIFF and PDF, at 0.5×, 1× or 2× scale, with custom filename templates and an option to copy to the clipboard automatically.

Every capture mode has a global shortcut and all of them are rebindable in Settings → Hotkeys. If macOS or another app already owns a combination, the conflict is reported right under the list so you can pick a different one.