SnapBar

What it does

SnapBar lives in the menu bar. One click captures the full display, a selected region, or a window — built on Apple's modern ScreenCaptureKit framework. Each capture pops up a quick preview — save it, copy it, or jump into the editor, where shapes, stamps, and annotations are placed with full undo/redo. Work saves as a project file, so a survey can be reopened and revised as the job evolves.

Highlights

• Industry-specific stamp library — over forty hand-drawn device glyphs across six categories: General, Security, Access, Cameras, Fire, and IT/Network — plus, on macOS, a seventh Electrical/Circuit category of sixteen schematic symbols (relays, switches, resistors, capacitors, diodes, transistors, ground, battery, and more).
• Real trade vocabulary — door contacts, motion detectors, glass breaks, keypads, maglocks, REX, biometric readers, turnstiles, dome/PTZ/bullet/thermal cameras, pull stations, FACPs, racks, switches, WAPs, and more.
• Modern capture engine — ScreenCaptureKit-based full-display, region, and window capture; region selection spans every connected display.
• Full annotation toolkit — pen, highlighter, lines and arrows with endpoint snapping, shapes (double-click a rectangle's edge to turn it into a free-form polygon, or any line, arrow, or polygon edge to add a vertex; drag a vertex onto its neighbor to remove it), text, blur redaction, crop, canvas expansion, and pasted-in images as movable objects — every annotation stays movable, resizable, and freely rotatable until you choose to flatten it into the image — plus auto-numbering device badges that re-flow when a stamp is removed. On macOS the whole canvas can also be rotated or straightened to square up a crooked capture, and selected objects copy and paste between drawings.
• PDF floor-plan workflow — open a plan set directly, choose the sheet from a thumbnail page picker, annotate it (pages render at 2× for crisp text), and export the finished markup back out as a PDF. Existing images — a site photo, an exported drawing — open in the editor the same way, from the menu, the Recent list, or Open With in Finder/Explorer.
• Flexible export — finished markups save as PNG or PDF on both platforms (macOS adds JPEG and a 100/75/50/25% output-size choice), or copy the flattened image straight to the clipboard.
• Organized output — captures and projects save to a designated SnapBar folder chosen on first run, which also drives the Recent list in the tray/menu-bar menu.
• Editable project files — annotations stay live objects, not baked pixels, until export. The .snapproj format is byte-compatible across platforms: save on a Mac, open on Windows, and back. Double-clicking a project opens it in the editor on either platform, and unsaved work prompts before a window closes.
• Fully native on both platforms — Swift/AppKit on macOS, C#/WPF on .NET 8 for Windows. No Electron, no web wrapper; a shared cross-platform core holds the annotation model, geometry, and file format, verified by an xunit test suite.
• Windows-native ergonomics — system tray icon and global hotkeys (PrintScreen for region, Shift+PrintScreen for window, Ctrl+PrintScreen for full screen), shipped as a proper MSI installer with a Start-menu shortcut, .snapproj double-click association, launch-at-startup, and in-place upgrades.

Installing on macOS

SnapshotBar for macOS is distributed exclusively through the Mac App Store — one-click install, automatic updates, and no security prompts.

• 1. Install — open the Mac App Store listing and click Get. SnapshotBar appears in your Applications folder and in the menu bar when launched.
• 2. Grant screen access — on first capture, macOS asks for Screen Recording permission. Allow it in System Settings → Privacy & Security → Screen Recording, then relaunch SnapshotBar. Window capture works without it via the system picker; full-screen and region capture need it.

Installing on Windows

The Windows build ships as a standard MSI installer — no .NET runtime required. Until the Microsoft Store release ships, Windows will show a SmartScreen warning when you run it, because the installer isn't yet code-signed. Here's the process:

• 1. Run the installer — download and double-click SnapBar-1.0.19-x64.msi. If a blue "Windows protected your PC" SmartScreen dialog appears, click More info, then Run anyway (only needed once), and approve the administrator prompt. SnapBar installs to Program Files with a Start-menu shortcut.
• 2. Launch it — start SnapBar from the Start menu. It lives in the system tray (bottom-right, near the clock) and starts automatically at login from then on; you can turn that off in Task Manager → Startup apps.
• 3. Capture — use the tray menu or the hotkeys: PrintScreen for a region, Shift+PrintScreen for a window, Ctrl+PrintScreen for the full screen. Double-clicking any .snapproj file opens it straight in the editor.
• 4. If PrintScreen doesn't respond — Windows' built-in Snipping Tool may own that key. Turn off Settings → Accessibility → Keyboard → "Use the Print screen key to open screen capture", or just use the tray menu.
• Upgrades & uninstall — installing a newer MSI upgrades in place; uninstall anytime from Windows Settings → Apps.

The Mac App Store version already skips all of this; once the Microsoft Store release ships, Windows installs will be one click with automatic updates too.

Tech stack

Release history

SnapBar ships in step on both platforms. Windows launched first and moved through 1.0.0–1.0.7 on its own during the port; from 1.0.8 onward macOS and Windows share one version number and release together. The downloads above are always the current version.

• 1.0.19 · Sep 2026 — Vertex cleanup: drag any extra vertex on a line, arrow, polygon, or converted rectangle onto its neighbor to delete it; the snap ring highlights the target. (both)
• 1.0.18 · Aug 2026 — The preview and editor windows now reliably bring the app to the front and take focus when opened from the menu bar or tray. (both)
• 1.0.17 · Aug 2026 — Rotate Image: turn the whole canvas 90°/180° or straighten it with a ±45° slider, annotations included, fully undoable. (macOS)
• 1.0.16 · Aug 2026 — Electrical/Circuit stamp category (16 schematic symbols), copy/paste of selected objects between drawings, 90° and 1° rotate controls, and a responsive toolbar. (macOS)
• 1.0.15 · Aug 2026 — Double-click a .snapproj, image, or PDF in Finder (or drop it on the app icon) to open it straight in the editor. (macOS)
• 1.0.14 · Aug 2026 — Single-instance guard on macOS, and unsaved-changes prompts on both platforms when closing an editor or quitting with unsaved work. (both)
• 1.0.13 · Aug 2026 — Renamed to SnapshotBar in every user-facing place: menus, window titles, installer, and Start-menu/App Store names. File formats and download filenames unchanged. (both)
• 1.0.12 · Aug 2026 — Mac App Store sandbox readiness: the save folder persists as a security-scoped bookmark so Recent files keep working across launches. (macOS)
• 1.0.11 · Aug 2026 — Multi-page PDFs open with a thumbnail page picker to choose which sheet to annotate. (both platforms)
• 1.0.10 · Aug 2026 — PDF import and export: open a floor-plan or site-drawing PDF as an editable image, and save annotated output back out as a one-page PDF. (both)
• 1.0.9 · Aug 2026 — Designated save folder (chosen on first run): save dialogs default there and the Recent list reflects its contents, with Open / Change Save Folder commands. (both)
• 1.0.8 · Aug 2026 — First unified release: visible running version in the editor status bar and tray menu, plus a Recent files menu. (both)
• 1.0.7 · Aug 2026 — Editor zoom made absolute — 100% now means one image pixel per physical display pixel, DPI-correct on Retina and high-DPI monitors. (both)
• 1.0.1–1.0.6 · Aug 2026 — Windows polish sprint: proper app and tray icons, faster launch, one-pass MSI upgrades, fit-to-window and toolbar-overflow fixes, and responsive toolbar clusters that condense when the window is small. (Windows)
• 1.0.0 · Aug 2026 — First Windows release: complete C#/WPF port — tray app, global hotkeys, all three capture modes, the full annotation editor with the device-stamp library, and .snapproj files byte-compatible with macOS. (Windows)
• Foundational macOS work — the original menu-bar app (capture → preview → editor with the security-drawing stamp library), migrated to ScreenCaptureKit with a sandboxed App Store target ahead of the Mac App Store release. (macOS)