Screen capture for the Mac: images, recordings, and GIFs. Part of Domus.
A lantern is the glazed structure on a roof that lets light into the rooms below, and the magic lantern was the first device to throw pictures onto a wall. Lantern does both for your screen: it lets you take what is on it, then shows it the way you want it shown.
Press ⌥⌘S (changeable in Settings) and a capture bar appears at the bottom of the screen. Pick an image or a recording of the whole display, a single window, or an area you drag out, then click Capture or Record. A recording is stopped from the menu bar or with the same shortcut.
Every capture opens in a small editor first. Choose a size (100, 75, 50, or 25 percent, or a custom width), a frame rate for video, and the format: PNG for images, MP4 or GIF for recordings. Trim a recording with the player's own trim bar. Save writes to the Desktop (or the folder you pick, or asks each time) and copies an image to the clipboard as well; Copy puts the result on the clipboard without saving.
Captures go through ScreenCaptureKit, so Lantern needs the Screen Recording permission. macOS applies it at launch, which is why a fresh grant asks for a relaunch. GIFs are encoded by the system with a palette per frame and loop forever; because GIF timing is counted in hundredths of a second, GIFs play at up to 30 frames per second.
./Scripts/dev.sh # rebuild-and-relaunch loop
./Scripts/test.sh # unit tests
./Scripts/bundle.sh # assemble build/Lantern.appScreen Recording is granted per signature, so test the capture flow with a bundled build. Requires macOS 26 or later.
MIT, see LICENSE. Bundled third-party software and its licenses are listed in THIRD-PARTY-NOTICES.md.