Chaser — Capture more than the screen.

Chaser

5 min read Original article ↗

Context capture for macOS

Capture the screen.
Keep what it means.

One shortcut saves the frontmost window as pixels, interface structure, state, and your note—then delivers more than the screen wherever the destination supports it.

Universal Mac app · macOS 15+ · Local-first

Chaser

CopySelect

All capturesToday

∿

Activity MonitorEnergy · captured just now

Complete

Activity MonitorApplications in last 12 hoursCPUMemoryEnergyDisk⌕

App NameEnergy Impact12 hr PowerApp NapPreventing Sl…

Activity Monitor57.33.90NoNo

ChatGPT33.1708.45NoYes

Finder0.60.17NoNo

Google Chrome0.933.91NoNo

iTerm21.01.74YesNo

Structured evidence85 elements

Selected stateEnergyradio button · checked

Exact visible rowChatGPT33.1 · 708.45 · Sleep Yes

Below the foldXcode0.8 · 0.21 · Nap No

Full clipped labelPreventing SleepUser · full column names

Also exact Stop button · disabled

Annotation

Investigate why ChatGPT is preventing sleep before the next battery session.

✓

CapturedImage + 85 interface elements

A screenshot shows the moment.

Chaser keeps the meaning around it.

01

Complementary capture

The picture and the interface are not the same thing.

A screenshot preserves layout, color, graphs, and everything Accessibility cannot describe. When an app exposes them, the interface map preserves full labels, rows below the fold, disabled state, selection, focus, and links the pixels cannot reveal.

Pixels

Activity MonitorApplications in last 12 hoursCPUMemoryEnergyDisk⌕

App NameEnergy Impact12 hr PowerApp NapPreventing Sl…

Activity Monitor57.33.90NoNo

ChatGPT33.1708.45NoYes

Finder0.60.17NoNo

Google Chrome0.933.91NoNo

iTerm21.01.74YesNo

Graphs and visible rows

+

Structure

Structured evidence85 elements

Selected stateEnergyradio button · checked

Exact visible rowChatGPT33.1 · 708.45 · Sleep Yes

Below the foldXcode0.8 · 0.21 · Nap No

Full clipped labelPreventing SleepUser · full column names

Also exact Stop button · disabled

What it meant

02

A durable artifact

Your context becomes a place you can return to.

Every capture enters a compact local history. Search by application or title, open its folio, add the insight only you know, and carry that annotation with the artifact when you paste it.

See the space each bundle uses, protect keepers with dnd, or manage a selection at once. Keep everything forever or choose a retention period; expired captures move to the recoverable macOS Trash.

∿

Activity MonitorEnergy · Annotated

85

⚙

Privacy & SecuritySystem Settings

68

◉

Project dashboardBrowser

211

YOUR NOTE

Investigate why ChatGPT is preventing sleep before the next battery session.

03

One intentional paste

Give your next conversation the evidence, not a caption.

Chaser delivers the image, then its normalized interface context and your annotation. Supported rich editors receive both from one shortcut; your previous clipboard is restored when Chaser still owns it.

In command-line interfaces, Chaser's shortcut pastes the structured text. Use Copy and the CLI's ordinary paste when that interface supports image input.

Activity MonitorApplications in last 12 hoursCPUMemoryEnergyDisk⌕

App NameEnergy Impact12 hr PowerApp NapPreventing Sl…

Activity Monitor57.33.90NoNo

ChatGPT33.1708.45NoYes

Finder0.60.17NoNo

Google Chrome0.933.91NoNo

iTerm21.01.74YesNo

1 · Image

→

PNG

Chaser capture: Activity Monitor
Energy selected · exact process rows · full clipped labels · off-screen state…

2 · ContextXcode · 0.8 · 0.21 · below fold

Local by default

Your context stays on your Mac until you choose where it goes.

01

No cloud capture service.

Screenshots, interface observations, history, search, and annotations are stored locally. Chaser makes no LLM request.

02

Broad permissions, explained.

Screen Recording and Accessibility are powerful macOS permissions. Onboarding shows why each is needed and opens the correct system controls.

03

Inspect before you send.

A screenshot can still contain private information even when protected Accessibility values are redacted. The folio lets you inspect sensitive captures before pasting them.

A durable local artifact

Trust what was captured.
Keep what it meant.

Each artifact keeps its screenshot, normalized interface context, provenance, and annotation together on your Mac. You can inspect what Chaser saw before anything leaves the library.

See how it works

Questions, answered plainly

Before you give an app access to your screen.

01What does Chaser actually capture?+

A PNG of the frontmost window, a deterministic observation of the interface structure and state exposed by macOS Accessibility, source metadata, and your optional annotation. They remain one local artifact.

02Does Chaser use OCR or send my screen to an AI?+

No. Capture and normalization are local Swift code. Chaser does not call an LLM and does not upload your artifact. The app you paste into may have its own privacy policy.

03Why not paste one ordinary clipboard item?+

Many editors choose either the image or the text representation. Chaser uses one shortcut to deliver the image first and the semantic context immediately after, then restores your clipboard when it can do so safely.

04Does it work in terminal apps?+

Yes. Chaser's paste shortcut sends the structured text to command-line interfaces. After Copy, CLI agents that support image input can receive the screenshot through their ordinary paste command.

05Which permissions does it need?+

Screen Recording captures the selected window. Accessibility reads interface context and targets the guarded paste sequence. Onboarding explains and links to both macOS permission panels.

06Can Chaser clean up old captures?+

Yes, if you opt in. Keep Forever is the default, or choose a retention period in Settings. Chaser shows each bundle's size, supports bulk management, skips anything tagged dnd (do not delete), and moves expired captures to the recoverable macOS Trash rather than permanently deleting them.

07What Macs are supported?+

The universal download supports Apple silicon and Intel Macs running macOS 15 or later.

08Is Chaser open source?+

Yes. Chaser is open source under the MIT License. The Mac app, capture schema, renderer, website, and release tooling are public on GitHub, so you can inspect how a capture is produced, build Chaser yourself, or contribute improvements.

Useful context is one shortcut away

Show it.
Explain it.

Download for Mac

Universal Mac app · macOS 15+