Fast to capture. Fast to explain.
RasterNest freezes your screen the moment you press the shortcut, so menus and hover states stay put while you frame the shot.
Capture
- All-in-one selection. Windows highlight as you hover. Click one, drag an area, or press Space for the whole display.
- Pixel magnifier. A 15 × 15 px loupe and live size readout for exact edges.
- Clean window shots. Windows are captured whole, even when other windows cover part of them.
- Screen recording. Record an area, window or screen to MP4 with system audio, microphone and on-screen shortcuts, trim it, and export a GIF sized for docs and chat.
- Scrolling capture. Pick the part that scrolls and scroll. Sticky headers appear once, and the whole page becomes one tall image.
- Delay timer and OCR. Capture after 3, 5 or 10 seconds, or turn any region into copyable text.
- Retina-sharp. Saved at full resolution with 144 dpi metadata, so images paste at the right size.
Refine
- Styles that stick. Each tool remembers its color, width and shadow between captures.
- Share in one move. ⌘C to copy, drag the image into Slack or a doc, or ⌘E to export PNG or JPEG.
- Built for documentation. One editor window with your recent captures alongside. Jump back to any of them, and edits save automatically, with an up-to-date PNG beside each one.
- Frames and PDF guides. Add padding, a background, rounded corners and a shadow in one click, then combine captures into a PDF, one per page.
Install RasterNest
Pick whichever suits you. Every option installs the same build from the latest GitHub release.
Download the DMG
Open it and drag RasterNest to Applications. It lives in your menu bar.
Install with Homebrew
Installs the app and adds rnest to your PATH. brew trust is a one-time step Homebrew 7 requires for third-party taps.
$ brew trust amineer/tap && brew install --cask amineer/tap/rasternestrnest for Linux
Uses grim, gnome-screenshot, spectacle, maim or scrot, whichever you have installed.
$ brew trust amineer/tap && brew install amineer/tap/rnestScript your screenshots with rnest
The same capture engine, ready for shell scripts, Raycast, Alfred and CI. Write files, pipe PNGs to stdout, or copy straight to the clipboard.
Screen Recording permission. macOS asks the first time you capture. Allow it in System Settings › Privacy & Security › Screen & System Audio Recording. For rnest, the permission belongs to your terminal app.
Automation links. open rasternest://capture, rasternest://fullscreen and rasternest://text trigger the app from anywhere.
# drag out an area, save it to ~/Pictures/RasterNest $ rnest capture --region ~/Pictures/RasterNest/RasterNest 2026-11-12 at 09.41.27.png # click a window and copy it to the clipboard $ rnest capture --window -c # whole display after a 3 second delay $ rnest capture --fullscreen --delay 3 -o shot.png # read the text in an image $ rnest ocr screenshot.png # flatten an editable document $ rnest export notes.rasternest --format png # turn a recording into a GIF $ rnest export demo.mp4 --format gif --width 640 # list windows, then capture one by id $ rnest windows $ rnest capture --window-id 841