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Install

Homebrew or direct download, first-run setup, permissions, updating, and uninstalling.

cap requires macOS 26 or later. It runs on both Apple silicon and Intel Macs — the released binary is universal.

Homebrew

brew install jamiedavenport/tap/cap

The cask installs cap.app into /Applications and symlinks the cap CLI from inside the bundle onto your PATH.

Direct download

Download the notarized .dmg from GitHub releases and drag cap.app to Applications. The CLI then lives at /Applications/cap.app/Contents/MacOS/cap; add it to your PATH or alias it yourself.

Build from source

Requires macOS 26 and Xcode 26.3.

git clone https://github.com/jamiedavenport/cap
cd cap
./Scripts/bootstrap.sh
swift build

Scripts/package-app.sh produces a complete cap.app and .dmg locally with an ad-hoc signature.

First run

Launching cap for the first time opens a short onboarding window:

  1. Hotkeys. Shows the two defaults — ⌃⌥C to capture, ⌥⇧Space to search — and lets you rebind either. It warns if a chosen combination collides with a macOS system shortcut.
  2. Accessibility access. cap reads the text you have selected through the Accessibility API, and uses the same API to refuse capture inside password fields. Granting is optional: if you decline, capture falls back to the clipboard only.
  3. Browser access. For each supported browser you have running, macOS asks once for permission to read the front tab’s address. Onboarding triggers these prompts up front so they don’t interrupt your first real capture.
  4. Try it. A guided first capture and first search.

cap also installs its background enrichment agent during first launch — see below. You can re-check every permission later with cap doctor.

The background agent

cap-agent runs as a launchd LaunchAgent labelled dev.jxd.cap.agent (~/Library/LaunchAgents/dev.jxd.cap.agent.plist). launchd starts it at login and restarts it if it stops. It processes the enrichment queue — page fetches and image OCR — so captures made from the CLI or scripts get enriched even when the app is closed.

Check on it with cap status; repair or reinstall it with cap doctor. Remove it with cap doctor --uninstall-agent.

Updating

The app checks GitHub Releases for a newer version at most once a week (you can turn this off in Settings). When one exists, an Update available item appears in the menu; clicking it copies the upgrade command:

brew upgrade jamiedavenport/tap/cap

Uninstalling

With Homebrew:

brew uninstall cap          # quits the app, removes the agent and the bundle
brew uninstall --zap cap    # also deletes your captures and the launchd plist

Installed from the .dmg? Run cap doctor --uninstall-agent, quit cap from the menu bar, then delete /Applications/cap.app. Your data stays in ~/Library/Application Support/cap/ until you delete that folder too.

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