Screenlapse is a native macOS menu-bar app that quietly captures your screen on your schedule and writes every frame to a folder you own. No account, no cloud, no telemetry — nothing leaves your Mac except to the place you choose.
For people who want set-and-forget screen capture that just works — and stays private.
Free for 14 days, then a one-time $19 (launch price). No subscription.
Your captures shouldn't depend on someone else's server staying online — or someone else's business staying solvent.
In December 2025, Rewind — a popular always-on capture app — was acquired by Meta and shut down.
People who had trusted a cloud service with years of their screen history were left scrambling. That's the risk with anything that lives on someone else's servers: it can be bought, paywalled, or simply turned off.
Screenlapse takes the opposite bet. It writes plain image files to a folder you own — your Mac, or your own NAS. There's no server to retire, no account to suspend, no subscription to lapse. If Screenlapse vanished tomorrow, every frame you've captured would still be sitting exactly where you put it.
Standard HEIC, JPEG or PNG you can open anywhere — no proprietary database, no lock-in.
It lands on your Mac and your own NAS share. Your disk, your rules — full stop.
No cloud dependency means there's nothing to switch off. It keeps working, on your terms.
Built to run for weeks without a thought — and to protect your privacy while it does.
Captures land on your Mac first. If the destination drops, frames queue locally and upload automatically when it's back — with smart retry and backoff.
Auto-pauses when a password manager or app you choose is in front. A global pause hotkey is always a keystroke away. It only ever captures the screen — never your mic or camera.
Capture every few seconds or every few minutes — you set the interval. A live countdown shows the next shot, and you can change the pace or pause whenever you like.
Point it at a NAS share or any local folder. Choose HEIC, JPEG or PNG, set a retention limit, and keep a free-disk floor so it never fills your drive.
Lives quietly in the menu bar with your capture count at a glance. Launches at login and updates itself with signed, automatic releases — no babysitting.
Capture every screen at once, just the display you care about, or stitch your whole setup into a single wide panorama frame.
A local buffer means capture never waits on the network — and nothing is ever lost.
Screenlapse snaps your screen — every display, or just the one you choose.
Each frame is written locally first, instantly — capture never blocks on the network.
A background queue ships frames to your destination, draining automatically after any outage.
Open the installer and click Continue → Install. Screenlapse lands in your Applications folder and opens right away — no security warnings to click through.
On first launch, Screenlapse's welcome window asks for Screen Recording. Click Allow, then Open System Settings, and switch Screenlapse on under Privacy & Security → Screen Recording. Quit and reopen Screenlapse once so macOS applies it.
Screenlapse
When macOS asks Screenlapse to “bypass the private window picker”, click Allow. That lets Screenlapse capture your whole screen on schedule, without you choosing a window each time. It's expected — and only Screenlapse is doing it.
Open Settings → Destination and point Screenlapse at your folder — a NAS share like smb://nas.local/Screenshots, or any local folder. Done: it now captures on your schedule and delivers every frame, quietly from the menu bar.
A one-time purchase that keeps getting better. Here's what's next on the roadmap.
Turn a folder of captures into a smooth MP4 timelapse, right from the app.
Skip frames that haven't changed, or when you're away from the keyboard — fewer near-identical shots.
Send captures to S3, Backblaze B2, WebDAV or SFTP — alongside local and NAS.
Define blur zones so sensitive regions of the screen never make it into a saved frame.
Try everything free for 14 days. Keep it with a single payment — no subscription, ever.
one-time · pay once, yours forever
One-time purchase available at launch — start the free trial today.
Screenlapse explains before it ever asks for permission, captures only the screen — never your microphone or camera — and pauses, never saving black frames, if you turn Screen Recording access off. It's a native menu-bar app: no account, no cloud, no telemetry. Nothing leaves your Mac except to the folder you chose.
The things people ask before they download.
smb://nas.local/Screenshots. They're saved as standard HEIC, JPEG or PNG files you can open, move and back up anywhere.Free for 14 days. No account, no cloud, no card to begin.
Then a one-time $19 (launch price). No subscription, yours forever.