Productivity
Instant Shot
A menu bar screenshot tool: drag a rectangle and it opens in Preview.
- Category
- Productivity
- Requires
- macOS 13+
- Size
- 0.3 MB
- Price
- Free
Preview
About Instant Shot
A menu bar screenshot tool: drag a rectangle and it opens in Preview.
What it does
- One click to start. Click the camera icon in the menu bar and a faint dark layer covers every display, with a crosshair cursor.
- Drag to capture. Drag a rectangle and let go. The picture is saved as a PNG in your Pictures folder, named like "Screenshot 2026-10-06 at 09.30.12", and opens in Preview.
- Esc cancels. Press Escape to back out without taking anything.
Notes
The whole app is one 139-line Swift file with no Dock icon. It uses macOS's own screencapture tool, so macOS may ask for Screen Recording permission the first time. It was built from one short prompt through silicondevkit.com in about 74 seconds, and it is the page's template: use it to add a keyboard shortcut, copy to clipboard instead of opening Preview, or a delay timer.
Information
- Developer
- SiliconDevKit (generated by AI from a prompt)
- Category
- Productivity
- Compatibility
- macOS 13 or later, Apple silicon. Apple silicon Macs only (M1 or later), not Intel
- Size
- 0.3 MB (.dmg)
- Latest version
- 1.0
- Price
- Free
- Signing
- Ad-hoc signed, not notarized
The prompt behind it
This app was generated from the prompt below. Paste it into SiliconDevKit to build your own version, then change it however you like.
build an ultra simple minimal "instant screenshot" app that has a menu bar icon that when clicked changes cursor to "screenshot" mode, so user can click and drag a rectangle and on release the screenshot opens in "Preview" as a saved file
What it cost
Every AI run that made this demo, one per line. Model: Claude Sonnet 5.5. Tokens are shown as (in / out). “In” counts everything the model read, including text it had already seen in the session at a reduced price.
| Initial prompt(101k in / 5k out) | $0.1181 | |
| = | Total(101k in / 5k out) | $0.1181 |
About $0.12 in total. AI usage only: hosting and the Mac that compiled it are not included.
Version tree
Every change to this app is a new version. Use any build as a template to start your own copy from it; forks that their makers shared appear as branches.
Version 1.0Oct 6, 2026
build an ultra simple minimal "instant screenshot" app that has a menu bar icon that when clicked changes cursor to "screenshot" mode, so user can click and drag a rectangle and on release the screenshot opens in "Preview" as a saved file
Menu bar app: click the icon, drag a rectangle, and the screenshot opens in Preview.
Opening it for the first time
- Open the .dmg and drag Instant Shot onto the Applications folder.
- Open it from Applications. macOS may say it can’t check the app for malicious software. Click Done.
- Open System Settings → Privacy & Security and click Open Anyway. This is needed once. Why this happens. To share an app without the warning, see how to notarize it.
