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General
6 questionsCapnot is a one-time purchase. There is one plan with every Caption, Annotation, and Pointer tool—no subscription or feature-gated Pro tier.
Capnot requires macOS 13 Ventura or later. It runs on both Apple Silicon and Intel Macs.
Payment is processed by Polar. Any refund request is handled according to Polar's refund policy.
Yes. Capnot has a 7-day free trial with no card required—download it, use every Caption, Annotation, and Pointer tool, then buy a $12.99 one-time license whenever you're ready.
No. Capnot is an overlay tool — it puts captions and annotations on your screen, but does not record anything. Use your own recorder (QuickTime, OBS, Loom, etc.) to capture the result.
Yes. Capnot overlays your entire display, so anything visible on screen — including a shared screen — will show your captions and annotations in the recording.
Caption
5 questionsCapnot uses Apple's on-device Speech Recognition API. Press your hotkey and it starts transcribing your speech in real time, displaying it as an overlay directly on your screen.
No. Everything is processed on-device using Apple's built-in API. No audio is ever sent to any server — ours or anyone else's.
Any language Apple's Speech Recognition supports on your Mac. Add languages in System Settings → General → Language & Region, then select them in Capnot's Caption settings.
Yes. Open Settings → Caption tab. You can adjust font family, size, text color, background color, corner radius, opacity, and gradient borders.
Use display recording, not window recording. Capnot overlays are separate system-level windows — window recording only captures one app's pixels.
- QuickTime: New Screen Recording → select your full display
- OBS: Add source → Display Capture (not Window Capture)
- Loom: Record Desktop, not Application Window
Annotation
2 questionsFreehand drawing canvas, arrows and shapes. All accessible from the menu bar or via hotkey (⌃D).
No — annotations are live overlays. When you dismiss them, they're gone. Use your screen recorder to capture the session if you need a permanent record.
Pointer
7 questionsSpotlight (⌃S), Laser Pointer (⌃L), Cursor Highlighter (⌃H), and Magnifier (⌃M). Each is independent — activate any one without touching the others.
Dims your entire screen except the area around your cursor, with feathered edges. Your audience focuses on exactly what you're pointing at.
A glowing dot with a fading trail that follows your cursor. Adjustable color, dot size, trail duration, and glow intensity. Great for live demos and presentations.
Draws a customizable ring around your cursor so viewers always know where to look. Adjust color, size, shape (ring, squircle, filled circle), and opacity.
A floating circular lens that zooms into any area of your screen and follows your cursor automatically. Requires the Screen Recording permission.
Yes — everything is adjustable in Settings → Pointer tab. Spotlight size and dim opacity, laser trail duration and glow, highlighter ring shape and color, magnifier zoom level and border.
Yes, as long as you record the full display (not a single window). See the Caption section for recorder-specific instructions.
Misc
6 questions- Accessibility — required for global hotkeys and cursor tracking. Prompted on first launch.
- Screen Recording — required for Magnifier only. The app disables that feature if not granted.
- Microphone + Speech Recognition — only for Live Captions. Requested when you first tap the mic button.
Everything else works with no special permissions.
No analytics, no telemetry, no tracking of any kind. What you do in Capnot stays on your Mac.
Yes — every hotkey is rebindable. Open Settings → General tab to reassign any shortcut.
Yes. Overlays appear on whichever display your cursor is on.
Yes. All panels — captions, annotations, pointer tools — follow you across Spaces automatically and re-order when you switch.
Locally in macOS Keychain. It's only transmitted to Polar.sh during activation and periodic validation.
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