Support

Three, and the app walks you through them on first launch: Screen Recording (the footage), Input Monitoring (clicks and typing drive the automatic edit), and Accessibility (so zooms frame the element you clicked). Grant each in System Settings → Privacy & Security. A fourth, Microphone, is optional and only asked for when you turn narration on. The privacy page explains how each one is used.

macOS applies the Screen Recording grant to newly launched apps. Quit and reopen Capta once after granting; the permission screen has a Relaunch button for this.

macOS sometimes adds Capta to the Input Monitoring list without showing a dialog. The button opens System Settings at the right pane; flip the Capta toggle there and the app picks it up within a second or two.

Yes. Capta is free to download and use. There is no account, no trial period, no watermark and no in-app purchase. The download is a 2.5 MB notarized DMG.

No. Capta is built for Apple silicon (M1 and later) and needs macOS 14 or later. It does not run on Intel Macs.

⌥⌘R starts and stops from anywhere. You can also use the menu-bar icon, the capture panel on ⌥⌘5, or the buttons in the app. While recording, a floating Stop pill sits at the bottom of your screen.

Prefer Capta's own Stop over the one inside macOS's screen-sharing pill; the system button ends the stream on macOS's side first and adds an extra step.

In ~/Movies/Capta, one folder per recording, next to each exported MP4. They also show up in Spotlight if you search "capta".

Yes. The preview applies your changes live: switch backgrounds, adjust zoom intensity and pacing, trim on the filmstrip, drag or stretch any zoom, and toggle individual zoom moments off. Export bakes the final file whenever you are happy.

Drop any audio file onto a recording, or pick one of the three built-in tracks or a Creative Commons track from the online search. Capta detects the tempo on-device and nudges cut points onto the beat. Volume, click sounds, and whooshes live in Settings → Sound.

Yes. Turn Mic or Camera on in the capture panel before you start. The camera appears as a corner bubble with a roundness dial, mirror, zoom, lighting and background blur. Narration is transcribed on your Mac into captions, and cuts are steered around your sentences. Pick the devices in Settings.

MP4 or GIF, or straight to the clipboard. Any of 16:9, vertical or square, up to 4K at 60 fps. Share copies the export into your own iCloud Drive and gives you a view-only link.

No. Recording, the automatic zooms and cuts, music sync and export work on any supported Mac. When Apple Intelligence is enabled, Capta can also write titles and social posts, pick the key moment and title chapters. When it is not available, those features use a plain non-AI version or switch off.

No. Recording, analysis, transcription and rendering run on your Mac, and Capta has no account system and no telemetry. The only network activity is one you trigger: Check for Updates fetches a single version file, online music search sends your search words to Openverse, and Share copies a video into your own iCloud Drive. The privacy page lists every one of them.

An orange dot on the Export button means the file on disk predates your latest settings. Export again to refresh it.

Capta relies on each app's accessibility data, and a few apps (some Electron ones in particular) report poor element frames. Capta falls back to cursor-centered zooms there. You can also switch any zoom off in the moments list. Reports of misbehaving apps are welcome at the address below.

macOS 14 or later on an Apple silicon Mac. The app is signed with a Developer ID and notarized by Apple.

Both add automatic zooms and a smoothed cursor to a screen recording. Capta also cuts dead air, speeds up typing, lands cuts on the beat of a music track and captions your narration, all on-device, and it is free with no account. Screen Studio is a paid app with a fuller manual editor. The comparison page covers Screen Studio, Loom and CleanShot X side by side.