Question 1

What is ShotX and what makes it different from other macOS capture utilities?

Accepted Answer

ShotX is a native macOS screenshot, screen recording, and OCR studio built with pure Swift 6 and AppKit. Unlike Electron-based or web-wrapper capture tools, ShotX operates at sub-millisecond native speed, consumes negligible system RAM, and keeps all screen captures and OCR processing strictly local on your Mac.

Question 2

How does ShotX compare to CleanShot X?

Accepted Answer

While CleanShot X relies heavily on proprietary cloud hosting (CleanShot Cloud) with subscription tiers and account logins, ShotX is designed for privacy-first, local-first environments. ShotX has zero cloud dependencies, no user accounts, no subscriptions, and integrates natively with macOS Share Sheet and local directory pipelines while delivering comparable studio-grade dynamic gradients and auto-redaction.

Question 3

How does ShotX compare to Shottr or default macOS Grab?

Accepted Answer

macOS Grab/screencapture is rudimentary with no auto-redaction, no dynamic background generation, and no built-in video trimming. Compared to Shottr, ShotX provides modern Swift 6 concurrency, native 16 signature dynamic multi-radial gradient presets, ScreenCaptureKit-driven 60 FPS recording with system audio, and open URL automation without cloud lock-in.

Question 4

Is ShotX an Electron app or pure native macOS code?

Accepted Answer

ShotX is 100% native Swift 6 and AppKit/SwiftUI. It does not use Electron, Chromium, Node.js, or web views for rendering. This ensures instantaneous startup, minimal battery consumption on MacBook models, and full adherence to macOS Human Interface Guidelines.

Question 5

Does ShotX support Apple Silicon (M1, M2, M3, M4) chips natively?

Accepted Answer

Yes. ShotX is compiled as a Universal 2 binary with full native arm64 optimization for Apple Silicon (M1, M2, M3, M4, Pro, Max, and Ultra) as well as x86_64 Intel Macs. On Apple Silicon, OCR operations leverage the Apple Neural Engine (ANE) for near-instantaneous inference.

Question 6

Can ShotX run completely offline without an internet connection?

Accepted Answer

Yes. ShotX operates 100% offline. Screenshot capturing, image annotation, OCR text extraction, QR barcode decoding, dynamic gradient rendering, and video recording all run locally on your Mac. The application does not require an active internet connection to execute any of its features.

Question 7

What capture modes are supported in ShotX?

Accepted Answer

ShotX supports Area/Region selection (with pixel-accurate coordinates and size loupe), specific Window capture (with optional native drop shadow preservation), Fullscreen capture across all connected monitors, timed delay captures (3s, 5s, 10s), and instant OCR text area selection.

Question 8

Can I capture single windows with or without the native macOS drop shadow?

Accepted Answer

Yes. When capturing a window, you can toggle native macOS window shadow retention in Settings. You can also strip the native shadow and apply a customized studio shadow with configurable radius, opacity, and spread in the ShotX Canvas Editor.

Question 9

How does ShotX handle multi-monitor setups with different Retina display scaling?

Accepted Answer

ShotX queries NSScreen and CoreGraphics display topologies dynamically. When selecting a region across secondary monitors (including external 4K/5K Studio Displays or mixed Retina/non-Retina setups), pixels are captured at the native hardware resolution (1x or 2x backing scale factor) without pixel blurring or scaling artifacts.

Question 10

Can I customize the global shortcut keys for screenshots?

Accepted Answer

Yes. ShotX provides a built-in shortcut recorder in Settings for all actions: Region Capture, Window Capture, Fullscreen, Instant OCR, Color Sampler, and Screen Recording. You can configure them to replace default macOS shortcuts like ⌘⇧4 and ⌘⇧5 without hotkey collision.

Question 11

Can the mouse cursor be included in screenshots and recordings?

Accepted Answer

Yes. The mouse cursor inclusion can be toggled on or off independently for static captures and ScreenCaptureKit video recordings in Settings.

Question 12

What happens if I press a screenshot hotkey while already selecting an area?

Accepted Answer

ShotX includes a built-in re-entrancy guard in its CaptureCoordinator. Pressing a second shortcut while an interactive selection is active is safely ignored, preventing frozen overlay panes or orphaned processes.

Question 13

How does Instant Vision OCR work in ShotX?

Accepted Answer

ShotX uses Apple’s native VNRecognizeTextRequest from the Vision framework. When you trigger OCR (or press the OCR shortcut), you select a screen area; the image data is passed directly to the local Neural Engine pipeline, recognizing text in milliseconds and copying it directly to your system clipboard.

Question 14

What languages does ShotX OCR support?

Accepted Answer

ShotX supports all major global language scripts recognized by the Apple Vision framework, including Latin-based scripts (English, French, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Vietnamese with complex diacritics), East Asian scripts (Japanese, Chinese Simplified & Traditional, Korean), Cyrillic, and Arabic scripts with automatic language and orientation detection.

Question 15

Can ShotX read QR codes and 2D barcodes from my screen?

Accepted Answer

Yes. When an OCR selection contains a QR code, Aztec code, or barcode, VNDetectBarcodesRequest automatically detects the symbol payload. The decoded URL or string payload takes precedence and is immediately copied to your clipboard.

Question 16

Does OCR preserve line breaks, indentation, and code formatting?

Accepted Answer

Yes. ShotX’s text reconstruction algorithm groups recognized bounding boxes by baseline and vertical spacing, preserving paragraph breaks, code indentation, and tabular spacing instead of collapsing text into an unreadable single line.

Question 17

Does ShotX have a built-in screen color sampler?

Accepted Answer

Yes. Triggering the Color Sampler allows you to inspect any pixel on your display with a magnified loupe. Clicking copies the calibrated sRGB Hex code (e.g. #00E575) directly to your clipboard in uppercase format.

Question 18

What are the 16 Signature Dynamic Gradients in ShotX?

Accepted Answer

They are 16 mathematically tuned background presets reverse-engineered directly from ShotX’s CoreGraphics and Metal shaders. They feature multi-point radial meshes, orbital glows, noise textures, and calibrated luminance curves (such as Stelixx Core, Midnight, ShotX Aura, Microdots, Cyberpunk, and Holographic) designed to make UI screenshots stand out on social media and technical docs.

Question 19

Can I propose or request a custom gradient palette for ShotX?

Accepted Answer

Yes. In the Studio Canvas palette selector, option #17 allows users to submit a custom colorway or brand concept. This routes directly to the Stelixx Labs Contact Desk where our graphics engineers review candidate palettes for inclusion in upcoming releases.

Question 20

Can I adjust canvas padding, aspect ratios, and corner rounding?

Accepted Answer

Yes. ShotX provides full canvas layout controls: padding from 0px to 128px, corner rounding from 0px to 48px, 9-point anchor alignment (center, top, corners), and standard aspect ratio locks including 1:1 (Square), 4:3, 16:9 (Presentation), and Twitter/LinkedIn social card presets.

Question 21

Can I use custom wallpaper or image backgrounds instead of gradients?

Accepted Answer

Yes. In addition to dynamic gradients and solid color fills, you can load any local PNG, JPEG, or HEIC image as the canvas backdrop, complete with adjustable Gaussian blur and overlay opacity.

Question 22

Can I export screenshots with a transparent background?

Accepted Answer

Yes. Selecting Transparent mode in the canvas editor renders the screenshot with an alpha channel, retaining custom rounded corners and outer drop shadows seamlessly for integration into slide decks or Figma.

Question 23

Does ShotX track user activity or collect screen contents?

Accepted Answer

No. ShotX does not track personal identities, monetize user activity, or upload screen contents. Your capture pixels, OCR texts, and audio streams remain exclusively on your device. ShotX contains no third-party advertising or behavioral tracking SDKs. Standard anonymous crash reports provided through macOS may be used strictly to diagnose crashes and improve application stability.

Question 24

What sensitive data types does Auto-Redact detect automatically?

Accepted Answer

ShotX’s on-device SensitiveDataDetector scans text layers using conservative regular expressions and algorithmic checks to identify: valid email addresses, phone numbers (9+ digits), credit/debit card numbers verified via the Luhn algorithm, valid IPv4 network addresses, and sensitive API secrets/tokens (OpenAI sk- keys, GitHub tokens ghp_, AWS AKIA keys, and Bearer authorization tokens).

Question 25

Are auto-redacted areas permanently destructive or editable in the editor?

Accepted Answer

Within the ShotX Editor, redaction zones are created as editable vector layers—you can resize, move, or delete them before exporting. However, once you export the final raster image (PNG, JPEG, HEIC), the redaction is flattened destructively into the bitmap pixels, ensuring no underlying data can ever be recovered.

Question 26

Does ShotX strip EXIF and GPS location metadata from exported images?

Accepted Answer

Yes. When exporting via the ShotX Canvas Editor, the rasterizer encodes freshly generated image frames that do not forward source camera EXIF, GPS location coordinates, or device serial metadata, preventing accidental leaks when posting online.

Question 27

Why does ShotX use the Luhn algorithm for payment card redaction?

Accepted Answer

The Luhn checksum test prevents false positives on harmless numeric sequences (such as order numbers or tracking codes) while ensuring legitimate Visa, Mastercard, Amex, and payment card numbers are reliably masked with a pixelated redaction box.

Question 28

What annotation tools are available in the ShotX Editor?

Accepted Answer

The editor includes: Selection/Move (V), Rectangle (R), Filled Rectangle (F), Ellipse (O), Straight Line (L), Curved Arrow (A), Freehand Pencil (D), Rich Text with fonts (T), Auto-incrementing Numbered Badges (N), Highlighter (H), Gaussian Blur (B), Pixelation Grid (P), Spotlight Dimming (G), and Non-destructive Crop (C).

Question 29

How does the Spotlight annotation tool work?

Accepted Answer

The Spotlight tool dims the entire screenshot with an adjustable dark overlay while keeping your selected focus area bright and crisp. It is ideal for guiding a reader’s eye directly to a specific UI button, menu item, or log entry.

Question 30

What is the difference between the Blur tool and the Pixelate tool?

Accepted Answer

The Blur tool applies a smooth Gaussian filter to soften non-sensitive aesthetic elements. The Pixelate tool subdivides pixels into coarse mosaic tiles, which is the recommended method for obscuring text and passwords because it eliminates edge gradient recovery.

Question 31

How many levels of Undo and Redo does ShotX support?

Accepted Answer

ShotX supports 100 levels of snapshot undo/redo (⌘Z and ⇧⌘Z). Every geometric transform, color adjustment, and annotation change is recorded in an in-memory undo manager.

Question 32

How do numbered step badges work for tutorials and documentation?

Accepted Answer

Selecting the Numbered Badge tool (N) automatically places circular sequential badges (1, 2, 3...) with each click. If you delete badge 2, the remaining badges automatically renumber, streamlining the creation of software walkthroughs.

Question 33

Is cropping in the editor non-destructive?

Accepted Answer

Yes. When you crop a screenshot in the editor, the outer pixels are hidden rather than discarded. You can readjust or reset the crop boundaries at any time before exporting.

Question 34

How does ShotX achieve low CPU and memory usage during screen recording?

Accepted Answer

ShotX leverages Apple’s high-performance ScreenCaptureKit framework introduced in macOS Ventura/Sonoma. ScreenCaptureKit renders directly from the GPU framebuffer via Metal without copying uncompressed frames to user memory, allowing silky 60 FPS recording with negligible CPU overhead.

Question 35

What frame rates and video quality settings are supported?

Accepted Answer

You can choose between 24 FPS (cinematic/compact), 30 FPS (balanced standard), or 60 FPS (high-motion UI smoothness). Video bitrate can be set to Compact, Balanced, or High adaptive H.264/HEVC encoding.

Question 36

Can ShotX record internal system audio without third-party audio drivers?

Accepted Answer

Yes. Thanks to ScreenCaptureKit’s native audio stream capture, ShotX captures macOS system audio and app sounds directly without requiring complex third-party kernel extensions or virtual audio drivers like BlackHole or Loopback.

Question 37

Is the floating recording HUD visible in the final recorded video?

Accepted Answer

No. The floating HUD (which displays recording time, pause/resume, and stop controls) is marked with an exclusion flag in ScreenCaptureKit, ensuring it never appears in your recorded video output.

Question 38

Can I trim the start and end of my screen recording inside ShotX?

Accepted Answer

Yes. When recording finishes, the video editor automatically opens with an AVPlayer timeline where you can drag the in-point and out-point handles to trim unwanted setup or closing seconds, preview the selection, and export a network-optimized MP4 file.

Question 39

What is the "Pin to Screen" feature and how do I use it?

Accepted Answer

Pin to Screen creates a floating, borderless, always-on-top window of any screenshot. It remains visible across all macOS Spaces and full-screen apps, acting as a live reference while you code, write, or design. Pressing Esc or ⌘W closes the focused pin.

Question 40

Can I resize or reposition pinned screenshots using gestures?

Accepted Answer

Yes. You can drag the pinned window anywhere on your screens, use pinch-to-zoom or scroll gestures to scale the image dynamically, and lock its position and scale from the right-click context menu.

Question 41

How does the Quick Access floating card work after capturing?

Accepted Answer

After a capture, a thumbnail card appears in your chosen screen corner. You can drag-and-drop the image straight into Slack, Discord, or an email, copy it, save it, double-click to open the full editor, or share it via the macOS Share Sheet. The auto-dismiss timeout can be configured from 0 to 30 seconds (0 keeps it persistent).

Question 42

Can I drag images directly from the Quick Access card into other applications?

Accepted Answer

Yes. The Quick Access overlay implements standard macOS NSDraggingSource protocols, allowing seamless drag-and-drop into Adobe Photoshop, Figma, Slack, GitHub issues, Apple Notes, and the Finder.

Question 43

What is Smart Scrolling Stitch and how does it work?

Accepted Answer

Smart Scrolling Stitch enables capturing long web pages, code files, or chat threads that exceed your screen height. You capture consecutive viewport screenshots, and ShotX’s computer vision algorithm scans sampled pixel rows to detect repeated overlapping content and seamlessly merge them into a single continuous image.

Question 44

What are the best practices for achieving perfect scrolling stitches?

Accepted Answer

1. Keep each viewport screenshot at the exact same width.
2. Ensure a 15–30% visible overlap between consecutive captures.
3. Avoid hovering over animated gifs or dynamic banners that change between shots.
4. Select the chunks in top-to-bottom order and choose Smart Scrolling Stitch.

Question 45

Can I combine multiple independent images side-by-side or stacked vertically?

Accepted Answer

Yes. The Image Combine tool lets you select two or more captures and choose either Horizontal Combine (side-by-side comparison) or Vertical Combine (sequential stack) with uniform spacing and auto-alignment.

Question 46

What happens if a webpage has fixed navigation bars or video during stitching?

Accepted Answer

ShotX calculates an overlap confidence score. If sticky headers or animations prevent a confident pixel match, ShotX never fabricates or distorts pixels—it alerts you and offers a clean vertical append fallback.

Question 47

Does ShotX support a custom URL scheme for automation?

Accepted Answer

Yes. ShotX registers the shotx:// URL scheme with commands including:
- shotx://capture?mode=region
- shotx://capture?mode=window
- shotx://capture?mode=fullscreen
- shotx://record
- shotx://ocr
- shotx://color
- shotx://history
- shotx://settings
- shotx://combine

Question 48

Can I integrate ShotX with Raycast, Alfred, or Apple Shortcuts?

Accepted Answer

Yes. You can trigger any ShotX capture or OCR action via Raycast quick links, Alfred workflows, or macOS Shortcuts using the open command, for example: open "shotx://capture?mode=region" or open "shotx://ocr".

Question 49

How do I trigger ShotX captures programmatically from Terminal or AppleScript?

Accepted Answer

From Terminal or shell scripts, run:
`open "shotx://capture?mode=region"`

In AppleScript:
`do shell script "open 'shotx://capture?mode=region'"`

Question 50

Can I pin or open an existing image file using the URL scheme?

Accepted Answer

Yes. You can open any readable local image directly into the editor or pin it to your screen using:
`shotx://edit?filepath=/path/to/image.png`
`shotx://pin?filepath=/path/to/image.png`

Question 51

Where are captured files and history metadata stored on my Mac?

Accepted Answer

All history captures and their atomic index are stored in your local user directory at:
`~/Library/Application Support/ShotX/`
Exports you explicitly save are placed in your chosen default destination (e.g. ~/Desktop or ~/Downloads).

Question 52

What is the atomic index.json and how does crash recovery work?

Accepted Answer

ShotX maintains a lightweight `index.json` using atomic write-and-replace semantics so power cuts or crashes never corrupt your history database. Furthermore, on launch, ShotX reconciles the index against actual files on disk, automatically recovering any unindexed orphan screenshots.

Question 53

How does the 500-item automatic history budget work?

Accepted Answer

To prevent disk space runaway, ShotX enforces an automatic 500-item rolling budget for non-favorite captures. Items marked as Favorites are strictly exempt and will never be pruned automatically.

Question 54

Does ShotX ever overwrite existing files with the same name?

Accepted Answer

Never. ShotX’s export pipeline checks for filename collisions. If `Screenshot-2026.png` exists, new captures are safely incremented to `-2`, `-3`, etc., guaranteeing zero accidental data loss.

Question 55

Can I disable the local history store entirely for maximum confidentiality?

Accepted Answer

Yes. In Settings → History, you can toggle history recording off. In this mode, captures are passed directly to the clipboard or editor and temporary buffer files are erased immediately upon closing.

Question 56

How do I grant Screen Recording permissions on macOS?

Accepted Answer

1. Open macOS System Settings.
2. Navigate to Privacy & Security → Screen & System Audio Recording.
3. Find ShotX in the list and toggle the switch to ON.
4. If prompted by macOS, quit and relaunch ShotX to activate the permission.

Question 57

Why does ShotX ask for Accessibility permissions?

Accepted Answer

Accessibility permission is required by macOS for registering system-wide global hotkeys (like overriding ⌘⇧4) and detecting active window bounds when taking Window Captures. ShotX does not use Accessibility to inspect user keystrokes or password fields.

Question 58

What should I do if global hotkeys stop responding after a macOS update?

Accepted Answer

macOS occasionally invalidates security tokens after OS updates. To resolve this: open System Settings → Privacy & Security → Accessibility, remove ShotX using the minus (-) button, re-add ShotX, and restart the app.

Question 59

Why is my screen recording capturing a black or blank screen?

Accepted Answer

This occurs when Screen Recording permission is missing or stale. Open System Settings → Privacy & Security → Screen & System Audio Recording, toggle ShotX off and on again, and relaunch the application.

Question 60

What is the minimum macOS version required to run ShotX?

Accepted Answer

ShotX requires macOS 14.0 (Sonoma) or newer, and is fully compatible with macOS 15.0+ (Sequoia). This requirement ensures full access to the latest Swift 6 concurrency runtime and modern ScreenCaptureKit APIs.

Question 61

Is ShotX sandboxed and safe to run on enterprise Macs?

Accepted Answer

Yes. ShotX conforms strictly to Apple App Store review guidelines and macOS App Sandbox specifications. It operates without kernel extensions, requires no administrator root privileges, and adheres to strict user-selected file access boundaries.

Question 62

How do I cleanly uninstall ShotX and delete all local data?

Accepted Answer

1. Drag ShotX from your Applications folder to the Trash.
2. (Optional) To remove all local capture history and settings, delete the folder `~/Library/Application Support/ShotX` and preferences plist at `~/Library/Preferences/com.stelixxlabs.shotx.plist`.

ShotX Frequently Asked Questions