Afterward

Afterward is a simple instant replay app for macOS. It runs in the menu bar and keeps a rolling screen recording so you can save the last few seconds or minutes after something happens.

I made it after the clipping app I used stopped supporting macOS. The other apps I tried weren't really what I wanted, so I built a small native alternative.

This is a hobby project and is still pretty early.

Features

• Record a display or a specific window
• Include system-wide computer audio and an optional selectable, muteable microphone with boost and a live level meter
• Save the previous 15 seconds, 30 seconds, 1 minute, 2 minutes, or 5 minutes
• Use a global keyboard shortcut to save clips
• Optionally hide a window in the recording when it isn't in focus
• Save clips locally as H.264 MP4 files
• Trim and crop the last saved clip in a lightweight native editor

Clips are saved to ~/Movies/Afterward.

Requirements

• macOS 13 Ventura or newer
• Apple Silicon Mac for the current prebuilt version

Installing the unsigned build

The current build is not signed with an Apple Developer certificate, so macOS will show a warning when you first open it.

1. Unzip Afterward-(version)-macOS.zip.
2. Move Afterward.app into your Applications folder.
3. Right-click the app and choose Open.
4. If macOS still blocks it, go to System Settings → Privacy & Security and click Open Anyway.
5. Allow Screen Recording access when prompted. If you enable the microphone, also allow Microphone access.
6. Quit and reopen Afterward after granting permission.

Using it

1. Open Afterward and click its icon in the menu bar.
2. Choose a display or window.
3. Choose the clip length.
4. Leave the replay buffer running.
5. Use the hotkey after something happens that you want to save.

The default hotkey is Control + Option + C. You can change or disable it in the menu.

Privacy

Everything is recorded and processed locally. Afterward does not require an account or upload clips anywhere.

The replay buffer is stored in short temporary video segments. Old segments are deleted as they leave the buffer, and the remaining ones are removed when you quit the app through its menu.

When recording a specific window, you can enable Hide when app is out of focus. This replaces the recording with an "Out of Focus" screen whenever the selected window is not the frontmost window.

Running from source

You'll need Xcode 15 or newer.

swift run Afterward

You can also open Package.swift in Xcode and run the Afterward scheme.

Building the app

./scripts/build-app.sh

This creates:

dist/Afterward.app
dist/Afterward-(version)-macOS.zip

The generated app uses an ad-hoc signature. It is not notarized.

Built with

• Swift
• SwiftUI
• ScreenCaptureKit
• AVFoundation
• Core Graphics
• Carbon global hotkeys

Status

The basic replay buffer works, but the app hasn't been tested on many different Macs yet. There will probably be bugs.