New: ask your screenshots, on your Mac

Screenshots that glow,
then quietly fade.

Paperlight hangs every capture in a strip just under the menu bar. Drag one out to use it. Your Desktop stays clean.

Buy for Mac · $14.99 One-time · every feature

macOS 14 Sonoma or later · Apple silicon and Intel

How Paperlight works

Every screenshot lands on your Desktop.

A pile of files named “Screenshot”, and never the one you need.

Paperlight hangs them under the menu bar.

Each new capture flies up and lights. No window, no library to tidy.

The light tells you how old it is.

The newest glows warm, older ones dim, pinned ones never go out.

Drag one out. It arrives ready.

A click copies it. A drag drops it into any app, sized and cleaned for where it lands.

And your Desktop stays clean.

The strip tucks away under the menu bar until you reach for it.

Try it here

Go on, take one.

Psst… hover the menu bar

  • Floating lanterns
  • Paste at cursor
  • Ask your screenshots
  • Translate in place
  • Lantern river
  • Smart actions
  • Privacy veil
  • Touch ID lock
  • Beauty room
  • Spotlight search
  • Continuity Camera
  • Voice notes
  • Paste queue
  • Watch a region
  • Shared strips
  • Automatic rules
  • One-tap bug reports
  • Ruler and color picker
  • Images to tables
  • Brand kit
  • Metadata scrub
  • Focus filter
  • Clusters
  • Light again later

The light

No dates, no labels. Just light.

New captures glow warm, older ones dim, pinned ones never go out.

Just taken
In use
Getting old
About to go out
Pinned

Floating lanterns

Keep it in sight.

Press F and a capture lifts off the strip into a pane of glass that floats over every app and Space, even full screen. Pinch to resize, scroll to fade it, hold ⌥ to click right through.

  • ⌘Hold to measure in real pixels
  • ⌃Hold for a loupe, HEX, OKLCH and contrast checks
  • ↑Drag it up to the menu bar and it hangs back on its hook

Paste at cursor

Your last five, right where you type.

⌃⌥P fans your five newest captures into an arc above the pointer. Press a number and it is on the clipboard, ready for ⌘V. No trip to the menu bar.

  • 1–5Pick by number, arrows or a click
  • ⌘VPaste queue: select several, and each ⌘V pastes the next one

Ask your screenshots

End it with a question mark. Get an answer.

Type a question in search and Paperlight reads every capture to find it: the code from last night, the total on that receipt. Text recognition, meaning and dates are all worked out on your Mac.

  • ✦On-device titles and descriptions with Apple Intelligence
  • ⌕Captures show up in Spotlight, too

Translate in place

Read any screen in your language.

Press T and each line of the capture is painted over in your language, in the same place, on the same background. Hold Space to peek at the original. Apple’s on-device translation, no copy and paste.

  • ⌗Copy a table straight into Numbers, Excel or Sheets
  • { }Copy code with its indentation rebuilt

Lantern river

Nothing goes out for good.

In Hội An, lanterns are set afloat on the Hoài river. When captures leave the basket, they drift down the river instead of into the Trash: an archive without limits, still searchable, a click away from lighting up again.

Privacy

What is yours stays yours.

Paperlight sits right under your menu bar, so it knows how to look away. The moment you share your screen, every capture goes misty. Rest the pointer on one to see it.

  • ◐Privacy veil, with a 150 ms hover to peek
  • ▣Auto-veil when sharing or mirroring
  • ⚿Private lanterns and a Touch ID lock
  • ⌫Wipe everything with ⌃⌥⌘⌫, undo for 5 seconds
  • ⌖Location and camera details stripped when you share
  • ⛨Keys and passwords hidden before they reach a chat or an AI
Every connection the app can make →

Beauty room

From screenshot to showpiece.

Backgrounds, padding, corners, shadow and a window frame, previewed live in the editor. See four variations at once, or just describe the look you want.

  • ▦Gradients, padding, shadow and a macOS window
  • ✦Mesh, scenes, browser frames, social sizes, variations
  • ◫Sensitive text found and covered for you

And a lot more

Small things that save a lot of steps.

Right format, wherever it lands

Chat apps get a light copy without location data, AI assistants get the size they read best, design tools get the original.

Clusters

A burst of captures from one app becomes a single neat stack.

Smart actions

Codes, QR payments, dates and addresses turn into one-click actions.

Voice notes

Hold V to say what a capture is about. Transcribed on your Mac.

Watch a region

Keep a live window on part of your screen and get a nudge when a word shows up or anything changes.

Images to tables

Paste a screenshot of a table into a spreadsheet, cells intact.

Automatic rules

Sort, pin, tag or expire captures by app, text or kind.

Shared strips

A strip for the whole team, through your own iCloud.

One-tap bug reports

Steps, captions, changed areas circled, exported as Markdown or PDF.

Back to where you took it

Remembers the tab, window or document and takes you back.

Lights up the notch

On a MacBook with a notch, new captures can fly into it instead.

Light again later

Snooze a capture until this evening, Monday, or when an app opens.

iPhone, iPad and Continuity Camera

Take a photo or scan a page on your iPhone and it flies onto the strip. Pins sync to the free Paperlight app on iPhone and iPad.

Safe to present

Hidden from screen sharing, quiet in your Presenting focus.

Pricing

One price. Everything, for good.

Paperlight

$14.99 one-time

  • The strip, the light, drag and drop, pins, basket and text history
  • Search, ask and translate the text in images, on your Mac
  • The lantern river, smart actions, rules, voice notes
  • Editor, scrolling capture, shelf, several strips, iCloud sync
  • The full beauty room, brand kit and variations
  • Privacy veil, private lanterns, Touch ID lock, wipe
  • Every future update, included
  • One key for up to 5 Macs. The iPhone and iPad app is free
Buy Paperlight

Not for you? Full refund within 14 days, no questions asked. Refund policy

Paid securely through Lemon Squeezy. Already bought? Download the latest version · Lost your key?

Questions

Where do my screenshots go?

Where macOS already puts them. Turn on Inbox mode and Paperlight keeps them in its own folder instead of the Desktop; turn it off and your original settings come back.

Which permissions does it need?

None to get started. Paperlight watches the files macOS writes. A few features ask the first time you use them, and only then: Screen Recording for scrolling capture and watched regions, Accessibility for auto-paste, Microphone for voice notes.

Does the AI send my screenshots anywhere?

No. Titles, descriptions, questions, translation and transcription all run on your Mac, with Apple Intelligence when it is available. Without it, Paperlight still names captures from the text it reads.

What happens when a capture fades out?

It goes to the basket for a week (or a day, or a month) and comes back with one click. After that it drifts down the lantern river, or moves to the Trash if you prefer. Never straight to oblivion.

Does anything leave my Mac?

No images, ever, unless you share a strip through your own iCloud. The only other network calls are update checks and a one-time license activation, and the privacy report lists each one. Read the privacy page.

Is it a subscription?

No. Pay once and you have every feature and every future update. One key works on up to 5 of your Macs.

Is there a free trial?

No. Watch it work on this page, and if Paperlight turns out not to be for you, ask for a refund within 14 days. No questions asked.

I lost my license key.

It is in your receipt e-mail. You can also look it up on Lemon Squeezy’s My Orders with the e-mail you bought with.

Will there be a Windows version?

Yes, it is in the works. Mac comes first.

A clean Desktop, a little light.

Buy for Mac · $14.99

Pay once, keep every update. 14-day refund, no questions asked.