Kap

Kap was the friendly macOS screen recorder: open source, small, drag a frame around the region you want and export a GIF or an MP4 in a couple of clicks. Built with web technology, MIT licensed, and a pleasure to use when it was current.

That last clause is doing a lot of work. The most recent release shipped in October 2022, and one of its notes was fixing a crash on the macOS 13 beta. The last commit of any kind landed in late 2024. For an Electron app on macOS, a platform that reworks screen capture permissions and APIs on a regular schedule, that is a long stretch with nobody at the wheel.

It still installs and still works for plenty of people, so this is not a claim that it is broken. It is a claim that nobody is on the other end when it does break. Anyone already using it happily: carry on. Anyone choosing a recorder today: CapSoftware/Cap for share links, webadderallorg/Recordly for polished product demos, or obsproject/obs-studio if you want the one that will still be maintained in five years.

The catch is the whole review. Kap is good software that stopped getting attention, and open source hands you the source code, not somebody's time. Anything in your daily workflow needs a maintainer behind it, and right now this does not have one.