Skitch is gone. This is it again. Press a hotkey, drag over anything on screen, slap the iconic tapered arrow on it, blur the secrets, and paste it into Slack — in about three seconds. Free, open source, native on both platforms, and nothing ever leaves your computer.
Windows: one portable .exe, no installer, no admin · Mac: signed & notarized universal app
- The Skitch flow, intact. Hotkey → drag → you're in the editor. No save dialogs, no library, no file hunting. Every capture is already on your clipboard.
- The arrow. The fat-to-fine tapered arrow Skitch made famous, plus filled, open, concave and double-headed styles.
- Redact properly. Pixelate, blur, solid block or stripes — flattened into the pixels on export, so nobody can peel the redaction off your file.
- Private by design. No account, no cloud, no upload links, no telemetry, no network calls. Your screenshots never get a public URL.
- Actually native. WPF on Windows, Swift + AppKit + ScreenCaptureKit on the Mac. No Electron, no web view, no subscription.
⭐ If Sitch fills your Skitch-shaped hole, star the repo. Stars are how other people searching for a Skitch replacement find it.
No. Evernote discontinued Skitch for Windows (along with iOS and Android) in January 2016. Skitch for Mac is still listed on the App Store but hasn't been updated since 2020 and ships as an Intel-only app, so Apple Silicon Macs run it through Rosetta 2 — which Apple is phasing out after macOS 27.
If you landed here searching for "Skitch for Windows download", "Skitch alternative for Mac" or "Evernote Skitch replacement" — Sitch is a clean-room rebuild of that tool, native on both platforms, with the same one-hotkey snap-and-mark-up workflow.
- One hotkey for everything —
Ctrl+Alt+4on Windows,⌘⌥4on Mac (configurable). Drag for a region, click for a window, or pick a whole display from the tray / menu bar. - Recapture the last region with one keystroke — perfect for before/after shots.
- Quick capture to clipboard — skip the editor entirely and just paste.
- Freeze-frame picker with a live pixel-size readout and keyboard nudging (arrow keys move,
Shift+arrows resize,Enterconfirms). - Correct on multi-monitor, mixed-DPI and Retina setups — captures true physical pixels.
- Clean window capture, even when the window is partly covered.
- Capture timer (3 / 5 / 10 s) for menus and hover states.
- Optional watcher that opens the editor after a system screenshot (
Win+PrtScn, or⌘⇧3/⌘⇧4/⌘⇧5).
| Arrow | tapered (Skitch-style), filled, open, concave; single or double-headed |
| Text | any system font, bold/italic, re-editable later |
| Shapes | rectangle, ellipse, line, freehand pen, highlighter |
| Obscure | pixelate, blur, solid block, stripes |
| Spotlight | dims everything except the thing you're pointing at |
| Stamps | ✓ ✕ ★ ● and auto-numbered steps 1 · 2 · 3 for tutorials |
| Stickers & images | emoji stickers, image overlays (logos, callouts) |
| Crop | non-destructive, with aspect-ratio presets and a rule-of-thirds grid |
Every mark stays an editable object until export: move it, restyle it, or delete it later. Full undo/redo, rotate/flip (annotations follow), and dark, light or system theme.
- PNG, JPEG, PDF, TIFF export
- Copy at full resolution — high-DPI shots paste pixel-perfect
- Drag the image out of the editor straight into Slack, Teams, Mail, Jira, a browser tab…
- Native share sheet on both platforms
- Never saves silently — you always choose where files go
⬇️ Download Sitch for Windows
— a single portable ~86 MB .exe with the .NET runtime built in. Run it and it lives in your
system tray. That's the whole install; delete the file to uninstall. No admin rights needed.
The build isn't code-signed yet, so Windows SmartScreen may warn on first run: choose More info → Run anyway, or build it from source.
⬇️ Download Sitch for Mac — open the disk image and drag Sitch to Applications. It's a universal app, signed and notarized by Apple, so it opens without Gatekeeper warnings. Sitch lives in your menu bar; on first launch it walks you through granting Screen Recording permission, which macOS requires for every screenshot app. A plain .zip is also available.
All versions and release notes: Releases.
| Action | Windows | Mac |
|---|---|---|
| Capture (drag = region, click = window) | Ctrl+Alt+4 |
⌘⌥4 |
| Recapture last region | Ctrl+Alt+Shift+4 |
⌘⌥⇧4 |
| Quick capture to clipboard (skip the editor) | Ctrl+Alt+Shift+C |
⌃⌥⌘4 |
| Keyboard capture in the overlay | arrows move · Shift+arrows resize · Enter confirms |
arrows move · ⇧+arrows resize · ⌥ for 10-pt steps · Return confirms |
| Undo / Redo | Ctrl+Z / Ctrl+Y |
⌘Z / ⌘⇧Z |
| Copy flattened image | Ctrl+C / Ctrl+Shift+C |
⌘C |
| Save | Ctrl+S |
⌘S |
| Zoom | Ctrl + / − / 0, Ctrl+wheel |
⌘= / ⌘− / ⌘0, ⌘9 to fit |
| Crop: apply / cancel | Enter / Esc |
Return / Esc |
| Straight lines / squares while drawing | hold Shift |
hold ⇧ |
All three capture hotkeys are configurable in Settings ▸ Capture. Windows: left-click the tray icon to capture; right-click for window, full-screen per display, quick capture, the timer and Settings. Mac: click the menu-bar icon.
| Skitch (Evernote) | Sitch | |
|---|---|---|
| Windows | ❌ discontinued January 2016 | ✅ Windows 10 & 11 |
| Mac | ✅ macOS 15+, native Apple Silicon + Intel | |
| Tapered arrow | ✅ | ✅ plus 3 more styles and double-headed |
| Pixelate | ✅ | ✅ plus blur, solid block, stripes |
| Spotlight, stickers, numbered steps | ❌ | ✅ |
| Account | Evernote-oriented | None, ever |
| Price / license | free, closed source | free, MIT open source |
Looking for a Snagit alternative, ShareX for Mac, CleanShot X for Windows, or a Lightshot alternative that doesn't upload your screenshots? Here's how they compare (prices as of 2026):
| Windows | Mac | Price | Open source | Uploads to a cloud | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sitch | ✅ | ✅ | Free | ✅ MIT | Never |
| Snagit | ✅ | ✅ | ~$39 / year subscription | ❌ | optional |
| CleanShot X | ❌ | ✅ | paid licence | ❌ | optional |
| ShareX | ✅ | ❌ | free | ✅ GPL | optional |
| Greenshot | ✅ | paid App Store app | free on Windows | ✅ GPL | optional |
| Lightshot | ✅ | ✅ | free | ❌ | public prnt.sc links |
| Snipping Tool / Markup | Windows only | Mac only | built in | ❌ | no |
Sitch isn't trying to be a screen recorder or a cloud-sharing service. It does one thing — fast, private screenshot annotation — and does it identically on both platforms.
What happened to Skitch? Evernote bought Skitch in 2011, ended the Windows, iOS and Android versions in January 2016, and stopped updating the Mac version in 2020. It never got a native Apple Silicon build.
Is Sitch really free? What's the catch? No catch. It's MIT-licensed open source: no account, no subscription, no "pro" tier, no ads, no tracking.
How do I add an arrow to a screenshot on Windows or Mac?
Press Ctrl+Alt+4 (Windows) or ⌘⌥4 (Mac), drag over the area, and the editor opens with the
Arrow tool ready. Drag from the tail to the tip. Press Ctrl+C / ⌘C to copy the result.
How do I blur or hide passwords and personal info in a screenshot? Use the Obscure tool. For real secrets prefer solid block or stripes — blur and pixelation are filters and can sometimes be partially reversed. Sitch flattens redactions into the pixels when you export, so nothing can be "un-hidden" from the saved file.
Does Sitch upload my screenshots anywhere? No. Sitch makes no network connections at all. Captures stay in memory and on your clipboard until you save or share them.
Which versions of Windows and macOS are supported? Windows 10 version 1903 or later and all Windows 11 releases (x64). macOS 15 Sequoia or later, on both Apple Silicon and Intel Macs.
Why does the Mac version ask for Screen Recording permission? macOS requires it for any app that reads the screen, including every screenshot tool. Sitch uses it only to capture what you select.
Does it handle multiple monitors and display scaling? Yes — capture grabs true physical pixels on mixed-DPI Windows setups and Retina Macs alike.
Can I change the capture hotkey? Yes — Settings ▸ Capture, click the shortcut field, and press any combination.
Is this the same project as WinSitch? Yes. Sitch was called WinSitch while it was Windows-only; it was renamed when the Mac app shipped in v0.2.0. Existing settings migrate automatically.
 Mac editor — tapered arrow, highlighter, pixelate |
 Windows editor, dark theme — tapered arrow, highlighter, pixelate, stamps |
 Light theme |
 Region capture — frozen screen, live size readout |
 Non-destructive crop — presets, exact size, thirds grid |
 Settings — every capture hotkey is configurable |
Windows — Windows 10 1903+ or Windows 11 (x64). No runtime, no installer, no admin rights.
Mac — macOS 15 Sequoia or later, Apple Silicon or Intel. Screen Recording permission (requested on first launch).
Windows — requires the .NET 10 SDK. No other dependencies.
git clone https://github.com/phalladar/sitch
cd sitch
dotnet publish windows/Sitch/Sitch.csproj -c Release -r win-x64 -o publish
# → publish/Sitch.exe (self-contained single file)Mac — requires Xcode 16 or later (or its command-line tools). No third-party dependencies.
git clone https://github.com/phalladar/sitch
cd sitch/mac
swift test # core unit tests
./scripts/build-app.sh # → .build/Sitch.app (ad-hoc signed)- Windows: emoji stickers render monochrome on some systems (WPF color-font limitation)
- Windows: the binary is unsigned, so SmartScreen shows a first-run warning
- Mac: a region capture stays on the display where the drag started
- HDR displays are captured in SDR (tone-mapped capture is on the roadmap)
Two native apps in one repo, built to one spec and released together: WPF on .NET 10 for
Windows (windows/), Swift and AppKit with ScreenCaptureKit for the Mac (mac/). Both use
freeze-frame capture with one overlay window per display, in a physical-pixel coordinate space
— the approach that avoids the classic mixed-DPI capture bugs. The pristine capture is
immutable: every annotation, including blur and pixelate, is a vector object rendered
non-destructively and flattened only at export, with effects applied before shapes so
redactions never smear your arrows. Details in docs/ARCHITECTURE.md.
Clean-room implementation; design lessons drawn from the classic Skitch, its modern macOS remake iSkitch, and the open-source annotation-tool ecosystem.
Bug reports and feature requests are welcome in Issues. If Sitch is useful to you, the most helpful things you can do are ⭐ star the repo and tell the next person who asks "what replaced Skitch?"
Sitch — free, open-source screenshot annotation for Windows and Mac. The Skitch replacement: capture, annotate, share. Formerly WinSitch. MIT © 2026 Josh Auriemma