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
capptivo-demo.mp4
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.
GitHub Actions builds macOS (Intel + Apple Silicon), Windows, and Linux installers — no local Windows/Linux machines needed.
- Bump
versioninpackage.json,src-tauri/tauri.conf.json, andsrc-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.
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.
pnpm install
pnpm tauri devRequires 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.
- 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)
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
- 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
- Show / hide composited cursor
- Styles: macOS, Tahoe, Tahoe inverted, Minimal
- Cursor size
- Motion blur
- Click bounce + bounce speed
- Cursor sway
- 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
- 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)
- On-device speech-to-text (Whisper via whisper.cpp)
- Downloadable model, no cloud required
- Generate, style, and burn captions into preview + export
- 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
- 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
- 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
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
pnpm tauri dev # app + Vite
cd src-tauri && cargo test --no-default-features
cargo check --no-default-featuresCopyright (c) 2026 idboussadel
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).