Tiny Clips Refractored LLC

capture gif productivity screen-recorder screenshot

Use this command to install Tiny Clips:

winget install --id=Refractored.TinyClips -e

Tiny Clips is a lightweight system-tray app for quickly capturing screenshots, screen recordings (MP4), and animated GIFs. Pick a region or the full screen, use global hotkeys, and save straight to your Pictures/Videos folders.

Tiny Clips

A lightweight menu-bar (macOS) and system-tray (Windows) app for capturing screenshots (PNG), video (MP4), and animated GIFs of a selected screen region — on macOS and Windows.

tiny-clips-promo (1)

Features

Screenshot — Select a region, screen, or window and capture a PNG screenshot
Video Recording — Record to MP4 with hardware-accelerated H.264 encoding
GIF Recording — Record a screen region as an animated GIF
Capture Picker — Choose Region, Screen, or Window before any capture
Editor & Trimmers — Post-capture screenshot editor plus video and GIF trimmers
Menu Bar / Tray App — Lives in the macOS menu bar or Windows system tray with no Dock/taskbar icon
Region Selection — Drag to select any portion of any screen
Global Hotkeys — Quick capture from anywhere
Configurable — Save location, clipboard, reveal-in-Finder/Explorer, GIF quality, trimmer toggles, and more

> macOS uses Sparkle for auto-updates; Windows distributes via winget (winget upgrade) and the Microsoft Store.

macOS

Requirements

macOS 15.0 (Sequoia) or later
Xcode 16.0 or later (to build from source)

Installation

Homebrew

brew tap jamesmontemagno/tiny-clips
brew install --cask tiny-clips

Download

Download the latest release from the Releases page.

Build from Source

Clone the repository:

git clone https://github.com/jamesmontemagno/tiny-clips.git
cd tiny-clips

Open in Xcode:
```
open mac/TinyClips.xcodeproj
```
Add the Sparkle package dependency (see Sparkle Setup)
Build and run (⌘R)

Permissions

TinyClips requires Screen Recording permission. On first launch, macOS will prompt you to grant access. After granting, restart the app.

Keyboard Shortcuts

Action	Shortcut
Screenshot	⌃⌥⌘5
Record Video	⌃⌥⌘6
Record GIF	⌃⌥⌘7
Picker: Region / Screen / Window	R / S / W
Picker: Cancel	Esc
Stop Recording	⌘.
Settings	⌘,

Windows

A native WinUI 3 / Windows App SDK port lives under /windows.

Requirements

Windows 11 22H2 (build 22621) or later
.NET 10 SDK and Windows SDK 10.0.26100 (to build from source)

Installation

winget — Tiny Clips is published in the winget community repository, so you can install it from any Windows 11 terminal:

winget install Refractored.TinyClips

Keep it up to date with:

winget upgrade Refractored.TinyClips

A Microsoft Store listing (with optional Pro add-ons) is planned.

Build from Source

WinUI 3 requires an explicit platform (x64 or ARM64; AnyCPU is not supported).

dotnet restore windows/TinyClips.Windows.slnx
dotnet run --project windows/src/TinyClips.App/TinyClips.App.csproj -c Debug -p:Platform=x64

See the Windows README for full build, layout, and CI details.

Keyboard Shortcuts

Action	Shortcut
Screenshot	Ctrl+Shift+5
Record Video	Ctrl+Shift+6
Record GIF	Ctrl+Shift+7
Picker: Region / Screen / Window	R / S / W
Picker: Cancel	Esc
Stop Recording	Ctrl+Shift+S

Usage

Click the Tiny Clips icon in the menu bar (macOS) or system tray (Windows)
Choose Screenshot, Record Video, or Record GIF
Choose Region, Screen, or Window in the capture picker (with an optional countdown)
For region recordings, confirm audio/mic options in the floating Record panel
Click the floating Stop button when done (or use the stop shortcut)

Settings

Option	Description
Save Directory	Where captures are saved (default: Pictures/TinyClips)
Copy to Clipboard	Auto-copy captures to clipboard
Reveal in Finder / Explorer	Reveal the saved file after capture
GIF Frame Rate	5–30 fps (default: 10)
GIF Max Width	320–1920 px (default: 640)
Video Frame Rate	24, 30, or 60 fps
Open Trimmer	Show trim editor after recording

Sparkle Setup (macOS)

Sparkle must be added manually via Xcode:

Open mac/TinyClips.xcodeproj in Xcode
Go to File → Add Package Dependencies...
Enter URL: https://github.com/sparkle-project/Sparkle
Select version rule: Up to Next Major Version from 2.8.1
Add the Sparkle framework to the TinyClips target

See docs/sparkle-setup.md for full setup including key generation.

App Store / Store Variants

macOS: to ship both a direct (Sparkle, non-sandbox) build and a Mac App Store (sandboxed, no Sparkle) build from one codebase, see docs/app-store-variant-setup.md.
Windows: the WinUI 3 app targets a free winget/direct build now and a Microsoft Store listing later; see /plans/windows-winui3-port-plan.md.

Architecture

macOS

ScreenCaptureKit (SCStream / SCScreenshotManager)
       │
       ├── ScreenshotCapture → CGImageDestination → PNG
       ├── VideoRecorder → AVAssetWriter → MP4
       └── GifWriter → CGImageDestination → GIF

Windows

Windows.Graphics.Capture (Direct3D11CaptureFramePool)
       │
       ├── ScreenshotService → BitmapEncoder → PNG/JPEG
       ├── VideoRecordingService → Media Foundation → H.264 MP4
       └── GifRecordingService → BitmapEncoder → GIF

See CONTRIBUTING.md and the Windows README for component-level detail.

License

MIT License. See LICENSE for details.

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Please feel free to submit a Pull Request.

Found a bug or have a feature request? Open an issue.