CopyShot

Fast OCR in your Mac's menu bar

Select → extract → clipboard. One keystroke (⌘⇧C).
Works on every display, resource friendly, and it’s open source.

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Main Features

Feature	Description
Drag-to-Capture	Any screen area, instantly.
Multi-Monitor	Seamless across all displays.
⌘⇧C (or your own)	Re-bindable global hotkey.
Vision OCR	Accurate & Fast modes, with language correction option.
Image Preprocessing	Grayscale and contrast adjustments for better results.
Settings Interface	Built with SwiftUI for a smooth, native feel.
Notifications	Includes sound, haptics, icons, and a preview you can tweak.
Resource Friendly	Uses minimal CPU and RAM.

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Setting Up and Running from Source

If you'd like to build and run CopyShot yourself on macOS, here's how to get started.

Prerequisites

• macOS
• Xcode (free from the App Store)

Steps

1. Clone the Repo: Open Terminal and run:

   git clone https://github.com/Sayitobar/CopyShot.git
   cd CopyShot
   

2. Open in Xcode: Double-click CopyShot.xcodeproj to open it in Xcode.

3. Build and Run: In Xcode, select the CopyShot target and your desired build scheme (e.g., My Mac). Hit the Run button (play icon) or go to Product > Run. It should build and launch the app.

4. Grant Permissions: The first time you run CopyShot, macOS security features will prevent it from capturing your screen. You will need to manually grant permission. Here is how to locate Screen Recording Permissions manually:

   • Go to System Settings > Privacy & Security > Screen Recording.
   • Find CopyShot in the list of applications and enable the toggle next to it.
   • Quit and reopen CopyShot for the changes to take effect.

5. Making Code Changes: If you'd like to make any change to the code:

   • Save your changes.
   • Quit any running CopyShot instances.
   • Delete te given Screen Recording Permission access to all CopyShot instances.
   • Rerun the app and regrant permissions. (If doesn't work, try Product > Perform Action > Run Without Building)

Once it's set up, CopyShot should run & appear in your menu bar. If you're going through all this, thanks for checking it out, you probably know your way around, so feel free to tweak it.

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Ideas for Future Features (Suggestions Welcome)

Click to expand

Editing Copied Texts

• Introduce a button below the copy notification to apply various text edit tools for quick edits, like removing line breaks, applying UPPERCASE, lowercase, Title Case, Sentence case, tOGGLE, etc.
• Possibly integrate an LLM (or a more powerful OCR like DeepSeek-OCR) with your API key and a custom system prompt for editing the text.

OCR Improvements

• Personal glossary for domain-specific terms.
• Multi-language picker UI.
• OCR history with instant search & re-copy.
• Drag-and-drop image files into the app for OCR.
• Advanced preprocessing: deskew, denoise, adaptive binarization...

Capture Options

• Capture an entire window or app
• Countdown timer for captures.
• Handle scrolling areas for long pages.
• Option to save captures as images (PNG/JPG).
• Option to copy the image itself to the clipboard.

Usability and Accessibility

• Onboarding guide for first-time users.
• Built-in help tips.
• VoiceOver & other accessibility refinements.

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About the Project

CopyShot v1.0.0 was live-coded with Gemini CLI: Every line, refactor, and bug-fix was done with the help of Gemini. This small experiment shows how far AI-assisted software development has come.

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License - see the LICENSE file for details.