SECHAK-AG/capptivo: Give your demos the spotlight they deserve ( Mac/Windows/Linux ).

Give your demos the spotlight they deserve

Capptivo is your free, open-source alternative to Screen Studio and Cursorful. Create stunning screen recordings in seconds, not hours. Smart follow-cursor zoom, click-based auto zooms, editor presets, and on-device captions, your demos practically make themselves.

Capptivo isn't a clone of Screen Studio, it's a tool I built for myself, with every feature designed around my own needs. Now I'm open-sourcing it under the MIT license so anyone can use, improve, and customize it — freely, in any project.

No more paying $29/month for video editing software. I hope you enjoy it, and contributions are always welcome.

Download · Quick start · Features · Architecture · Development · License

https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/246054fe-8604-4ea0-ae7b-701eaafc25bf

Download

Installers are published on the GitHub Releases page (latest).

| Platform | What to grab | | ------------------- | ---------------------------------------------------------- | | macOS Apple Silicon | aarch64 / aarch64-apple-darwin .dmg or .app.tar.gz | | macOS Intel | x64 / x86_64 .dmg or .app.tar.gz | | Windows | .msi or *-setup.exe | | Linux | .deb / .AppImage / .rpm |

macOS builds are currently unsigned. On first launch: right-click → Open, or allow Capptivo under System Settings → Privacy & Security. Grant **Screen Recording** when prompted, then relaunch.

Captions need a system whisper.cpp whisper-cli binary; the app downloads the model weights on first use.

Maintainers: cutting a release

GitHub Actions builds macOS (Intel + Apple Silicon), Windows, and Linux installers — no local Windows/Linux machines needed.

Bump version in package.json, src-tauri/tauri.conf.json, and

src-tauri/Cargo.toml (keep them identical).

Commit and push to main, then tag and push the tag (must match the

version, e.g. 0.1.0 → v0.1.0):

git tag v0.1.0
git push origin main
git push origin v0.1.0

The Release

workflow builds all platforms and opens a draft GitHub Release with the installers attached. Review the draft, then publish it.

You can also run the workflow manually from the Actions tab (workflow_dispatch) without pushing a tag.

Signing: builds are unsigned for now. macOS users may need right-click → Open once. When you have Apple / Windows certificates, add the usual Tauri signing secrets (APPLE_CERTIFICATE, APPLE_CERTIFICATE_PASSWORD, APPLE_SIGNING_IDENTITY, APPLE_ID, APPLE_PASSWORD, APPLE_TEAM_ID, and/or Windows TAURI_SIGNING_*) in the repo Settings → Secrets.

Permissions: if the workflow fails with “Resource not accessible by integration”, set Settings → Actions → General → Workflow permissions to Read and write.

Platforms

Capptivo runs on:

macOS 13.0+
Windows 10 build 1903+ (May 2019 Update)
Linux on modern distros with PipeWire 1.0+ (e.g. Ubuntu 24.04+) — X11 and Wayland

Platform notes:

macOS captures through native ScreenCaptureKit with VideoToolbox hardware

H.264 encoding; system audio comes from a companion SCK stream.

Windows captures through native Windows.Graphics.Capture, with hardware

encoding probed per machine (NVENC / QuickSync / AMF / Media Foundation) and system audio via WASAPI loopback.

Linux captures through xdg-desktop-portal + PipeWire — the screen/window is

picked in the system dialog. System audio comes from the PulseAudio/PipeWire monitor. Cursor replay / follow-zoom use an X11 pointer probe on X11 sessions, and PipeWire cursor Metadata on Wayland when the portal supports it (otherwise the cursor is embedded in the recording and zoom-follow is unavailable). Area selection isn't available yet on Linux — crop in the editor instead.

Quick start

pnpm install
pnpm tauri dev

Requires Rust, Node, and pnpm. FFmpeg is fetched automatically as a per-platform sidecar on first dev/build (scripts/fetch-ffmpeg.mjs), installed as capptivo-ffmpeg / capptivo-ffprobe so Linux packages do not collide with the system ffmpeg package.

macOS: grant Screen Recording in System Settings on first launch, then relaunch. Open the recorder with ⌥⇧R (Alt+Shift+R on Windows/Linux), or click the tray icon.

Features

Recording

Menubar recorder with global hotkey (⌥⇧R)
Capture display, window, or custom area (with live frame guide)
Face-cam overlay while recording
Microphone capture (device picker)
System audio capture
Language switch (English / Français / Español / Italiano / Deutsch / Português / Русский / 日本語 / 한국어 / 中文 / العربية)
Countdown before start
Pause / resume
On-screen annotations while recording
Native pipeline per OS (ScreenCaptureKit / Windows.Graphics.Capture / PipeWire) → hardware H.264 → crash-safe fragmented MP4
60 Hz cursor + click track saved with the project (cursor.json)

!Capptivo recording bar !Capptivo annotation bar

Annotations

Draw on top of the screen while recording — floating toolbar, click-through when idle.

Select tool (pass clicks through to the desktop)
Pen and highlighter
Eraser
Shapes: rectangle, ellipse, line, arrow
Text
Color palette + custom picker
Brush size
Undo / redo / clear all
Draggable toolbar; Escape peels panels then closes

!On-screen annotations while recording

Zoom & motion

Zoom fragments on the timeline (add with Z or Add fragment)
Auto-suggest zooms from clicks when you open a fresh recording (or Add fragment → Suggest zooms)
Follow-cursor zoom (pans with the pointer)
Fixed zoom regions (drag / resize the frame)
Scope: recording only or full scene (background included)
Scale, pan smoothness, ease in / ease out
Shrink background padding during zoom
Shrink face-cam during zoom (size at peak zoom)
Automatic motion between fragments

!Follow-cursor zoom and motion

Cursor

Show / hide composited cursor
Styles: macOS, Tahoe, Tahoe inverted, Minimal
Cursor size
Motion blur
Click bounce + bounce speed
Cursor sway

!Cursor style and motion

Look & composition

Backgrounds: image presets, gradients, solid colors, or upload your own
Custom gradient angle / colors
Named editor presets — save / apply look, face cam, cursor, captions, and export settings
Screen content crop (hide chrome / clutter)
Video padding
Recording corner radius
Recording shadow
Background blur
Background darkness

!Backgrounds, padding, and composition

Face cam

Round or rectangular PiP
Mirror webcam
Corner position + margin from the frame edge
Size / width / height
Roundness (rectangular)
Shadow intensity
Crop face cam
Layout that stays in sync with zoom (optional shrink during zoom)

Captions

On-device speech-to-text (Whisper via whisper.cpp)
Downloadable model, no cloud required
Generate, style, and burn captions into preview + export

!Captions demo

Timeline

Scrub and play the composition
Zoom fragments (add, suggest from clicks, select, resize, split, delete)
Trim gaps (add with T)
Undo / redo
Timeline zoom (auto / manual)
Reset fragments

Export

Formats: MP4, WebM, GIF
Resolution presets (low → original)
Encoding quality / GIF color quality
Frame rate (24 / 30 / 60)
Optional voice enhancement (podcast)
Progress UI, save dialog, notification + reveal in Finder / Explorer / file manager

!Export demo

Local-first

Projects stored in the OS app-data directory (Application Support / AppData / XDG)
In-app recordings library
Rename projects
No account required to record or edit
UI languages: English, Français, Español, Italiano, Deutsch, Português, Русский, 日本語, 한국어, 中文, العربية

Architecture

Capture  →  bounded frame channel  →  FFmpeg / VideoToolbox  →  screen.mp4
Cursor   →  cursor.json
UI       →  typed IPC projection of Rust state
Editor   →  media:// (HTTP Range) + canvas compositor → export

Rust owns capture, encoding, and storage. The React shell is presentation only — domain modules never import tauri::*.

src-tauri/src/
├── recorder/     # CaptureBackend → encoder (no Tauri)
├── cursor/       # 60 Hz pointer tracker (CoreGraphics / Win32 / X11)
├── project/      # local store + schema
├── commands/     # thin IPC adapters
└── …             # tray, windows, media protocol

Development

pnpm tauri dev                 # app + Vite
cd src-tauri && cargo test --no-default-features
cargo check --no-default-features

License

Capptivo Desktop is released under the MIT License (MIT). You are free to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and sell copies of the software, provided the copyright notice and permission notice are included in all copies or substantial portions of it.

The software is provided "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, express or implied. See LICENSE for the full text.

Bundled and downloaded third-party components (notably the FFmpeg sidecars, which are GPL-licensed) have their own licenses and are not covered by Capptivo's MIT license — see THIRD_PARTY_NOTICES.md for what that means if you redistribute builds.

By contributing, you agree that your contributions are licensed under the same terms (MIT).