Orbit

A free, open-source macOS screen recorder, screenshot tool and video editor: a free alternative to Screen Studio and CleanShot X. Orbit records your screen together with your cursor, clicks and keystrokes, then turns the take into a polished video with automatic zooms, a smooth cursor and a styled background. It lives in the menu bar.

Orbit is a fork of BetterCapture, built with ScreenCaptureKit, AVFoundation and SwiftUI.

Install

Requires macOS 15.2 or later on Apple silicon. Intel Macs aren't supported.

Orbit isn't notarized by Apple yet, so macOS blocks the first launch. You only do this once.

1. Download the DMG from the latest release and open it.
2. Drag Orbit onto Applications.
3. Open Orbit from Applications. macOS says it can't verify the app: click Done, not Move to Trash.
4. Open System Settings → Privacy & Security, scroll down to Security, and click Open Anyway next to "Orbit" was blocked. Enter your password, then click Open Anyway again.
5. Orbit appears in the menu bar. Allow Screen Recording when asked, then quit and reopen it. Microphone and camera ask when you first turn them on.

Prefer Terminal? After step 2, run this instead of steps 3–4:

xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine /Applications/Orbit.app && open /Applications/Orbit.app

Updates arrive automatically through the app's built-in updater (Settings → General → Check for Updates…).

Features

Working now

• Screen recording: a screen, a window or an area, with system audio, microphone and camera, a 3/5/10 s countdown, and pause/resume. HEVC, H.264 or ProRes, HDR and alpha.
• Capture toolbar: one floating bar for screenshots and recordings, with window thumbnails to pick from, a live timer, pause and stop.
• Screenshots: capture a screen, window or area, with the screen frozen while you select. Each shot opens a Quick Access card: copy, save, recognize text (OCR), pin it on screen, or drag it into any app.
• Screenshot history: every shot is kept for a week, a month or three months, and the newest ones open from the notch.
• Input telemetry (optional): cursor positions, clicks, scrolls, keystrokes (key codes only, never typed text) and cursor shapes, saved next to each recording.
• Video editor: trim, split and cut, and set volume per audio track. Automatic zooms on clicks, typing and where the cursor rests, plus manual zooms on their own lane. The recorded cursor is redrawn smoothed, sharp when zoomed, and can hide when idle. Click highlights and a keystroke overlay. Undo and redo throughout.
• Canvas and export: 16:9, 9:16, 1:1 and 4:3 canvases, gradient, colour, picture or transparent backgrounds, padding, rounded corners and shadow. Export HEVC, H.264, ProRes 422 or ProRes 4444 (keeps transparency) at the size and frame rate you pick, then share.
• Web recordings: script hovers, clicks, typing, scrolling and zooms on a live web page, preview it, and render a frame-perfect video into the editor.
• AI agents: Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, Gemini CLI, OpenCode and others can inspect, browse and record web pages through Orbit's local MCP server, or chat with you about the page from the Web Recording window.
• Library: every recording, export and screenshot, grouped by date, with search.

In progress

• Audio: switching microphones mid-recording, input gain and level meters.
• Remembering the last selected window or area between recordings.
• Web recordings: spotlight, captions, narration, browser frame, speed changes and 9:16 output.
• Editor: motion blur, click sounds, voice enhancement, transcripts and captions (SRT/VTT), removing silences, speed per part, blur and pixelate masks, crop, GIF export.
• Screenshots: annotation, backgrounds, scrolling capture.
• Camera as its own editable track.

Keyboard shortcuts

Global

These work from any app and can be changed in Settings → Shortcuts.

Action	Shortcut
Capture area / window / screen	⌘1 / ⌘2 / ⌘3
Select recording content / area	⌘4 / ⌘5
Start/stop recording	⌘6
Pause/resume recording	⌘7
Open screenshot / recording toolbar	⇧⌘1 / ⇧⌘2
Cancel the countdown	Esc

Capture toolbar

Action	Key
Screen / window / area	1 / 2 / 3
System audio / microphone / camera	A / M / C
Capture or record	↩
Settings	⌘,
Close	Esc

Quick Access card

Action	Shortcut
Copy	⌘C
Save	⌘S

Video editor

Action	Shortcut
Play/pause	Space
Previous/next frame	← / →
Split at the playhead	S
Add a zoom	Z
Delete the selection	⌫
Undo / redo	⌘Z / ⇧⌘Z

Automation

URL	Action
reco://toggle	Start or stop recording, without a countdown
reco://toggle-copy	The same, and copy the file when it is saved
reco://pause	Pause or resume
reco://cancel	Stop recording and throw the take away
reco://restart	Throw the take away and record the same selection again, without a countdown
reco://capture-area, capture-previous-area, capture-window, capture-screen	Take a screenshot; add ?then=copy, save or pin to do that instead of opening its card
reco://edit-last	Open the last recording in the editor

Development & contribution

Open Reco.xcodeproj in Xcode 26. Sign local builds with your own Apple Development certificate: an ad-hoc signed build makes macOS ask for Screen Recording again after every rebuild.

xcodebuild -scheme Reco -configuration Debug \
  -destination 'platform=macOS,arch=arm64' \
  -derivedDataPath /tmp/bc-build/dd \
  CODE_SIGN_IDENTITY="Apple Development" DEVELOPMENT_TEAM="YOUR_TEAM_ID" \
  CODE_SIGN_STYLE=Manual PROVISIONING_PROFILE_SPECIFIER="" build

Replace build with test to run the test suite. Every push to main is built, tested and released to users, so read docs/RELEASE.md first.

Contributions are welcome:

• Bugs: open an issue with steps to reproduce, your macOS version and your Mac.
• Features: start a discussion before opening a pull request.
• Pull requests: branch from main, follow AGENTS.md, add tests for new logic, and keep SwiftLint clean.

See CONTRIBUTING.md for details and CLAUDE.md for the architecture and build notes.

License

MIT. Orbit builds on BetterCapture by Joshua Sattler and its contributors.