Troubleshooting

If you hit something not in here, email [email protected] — I read every message.

Issues are grouped by where they show up. Most have a 1-line fix.

Capture issues

"Nothing happens when I press `⌘⇧2`"

In order of likelihood:

Screen Recording permission missing. Open System Settings → Privacy & Security → Screen Recording and toggle DrawShot on. Quit + relaunch.
Accessibility permission missing (only matters for the global hotkey). System Settings → Privacy & Security → Accessibility → toggle DrawShot.
Hotkey conflict with another app (Raycast, Alfred, Rectangle, Magnet — many remap ⌘⇧2). Open Preferences → Hotkeys in DrawShot, look for a red conflict indicator, and remap.
DrawShot isn't running. Check for the D mark icon in your menu bar.

"The capture cursor appears but my screen is frozen"

This is a macOS quirk that happens when a fullscreen app (Zoom, Keynote, video player) is in presentation mode. Workaround: exit fullscreen, then capture. macOS doesn't let any app capture over a fullscreen presentation by design.

"My second monitor doesn't capture"

Make sure the monitor is mirrored or arranged correctly in System Settings → Displays. DrawShot supports any number of displays, but if macOS doesn't see it, neither does DrawShot.

If you have a Sidecar iPad as a second display, capture works only on the Mac-native displays — Sidecar runs on a separate framebuffer that's read-only to third-party apps.

Annotation issues

"My arrows look pixelated"

The annotation canvas renders at the source resolution of your capture. Retina captures (5K, 6K) render crisp; if your capture is from a non-Retina external display at 1080p, the strokes will look chunkier when zoomed in.

Workaround: capture from your Retina display when crispness matters.

"Text tool background pill is the wrong color"

The pill auto-contrasts: white text on saturated colors (red, orange, green, cyan, indigo), black text on yellow. If you want a fixed black-on-white pill, go to Preferences → Style → Text → Background → White.

"Step marker numbers got out of order"

Right-click any step marker and select Renumber starting here — the sequence rebuilds in screen order.

If you moved a step and the others didn't follow: that's intentional. Each step keeps its number. Use renumber to fix.

"Undo doesn't undo my last action"

Known edge case: if you switch tools between annotations (e.g. arrow → text → arrow), ⌘Z undoes the most recent annotation, not the most recent tool change. Tool switches aren't undoable — by design, since they don't change the canvas.

Save / clipboard issues

"I pressed `⌘C` and Slack pastes a broken image"

Two known causes:

Slack desktop client cache bug. Restart Slack. (Yes, really. It happens on Slack 4.x with images larger than ~2MB.)
You captured before annotations finished rendering. Wait ~200ms after the canvas opens before pressing ⌘C — annotations need to flatten first. The button in the canvas toolbar has a small ✓ indicator when ready.

"`⌘S` saves the file but doesn't copy to clipboard"

Check Preferences → Save → "Also copy to clipboard on Save" — this is on by default. If it's off, only ⌘C copies.

"Saved files have the wrong filename"

Default format: Screenshot 2026-05-15 at 10.42.png (matches macOS native conventions). Customize in Preferences → Save → Filename template. Variables available:

{date} — 2026-05-15
{time} — 10-42-07
{timestamp} — Unix seconds
{counter} — auto-incrementing per session

"Where did my save go?"

Default: ~/Pictures/DrawShot/. Change in Preferences → Save → Location.

If you set a custom folder that's since been deleted or unmounted (external drive), DrawShot falls back to ~/Pictures/DrawShot/ silently rather than failing the save.

Performance issues

"The annotation canvas takes 1–2 seconds to open"

Captures larger than ~25MP (e.g. 6K display full-screen) take ~300ms to load on M1, ~700ms on Intel. If yours is slower:

Quit other apps using your GPU (Final Cut, Da Vinci, large Chrome windows with WebGL).
Preferences → Performance → Canvas rendering → Optimize for low-end hardware — uses half-res preview while editing, full-res only on save.

"DrawShot is using a lot of memory"

DrawShot keeps the last 8 toasts in RAM as decoded bitmaps for instant reopen. At a typical 4MP capture, that's ~100MB. Closing the app releases all of it.

If you want lower memory pressure: Preferences → Performance → Toast cache size → 3 keeps only the 3 most recent in memory; older toasts reload from disk on click (200–400ms slower).

"Battery drain on MacBook Air M2"

Unlikely to be DrawShot — the app idles at near-zero CPU. If you see it spiking in Activity Monitor, please email me the Sample Process output (Activity Monitor → DrawShot → ⌘⇧S → Sample Process).

Permissions issues

"I clicked Open in the Gatekeeper prompt and the app won't launch"

The first launch after install can take 10–15 seconds while macOS verifies the notarization. If it's still stuck:

Right-click DrawShot.app in Applications → Open → confirm.
Or run in Terminal: xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine /Applications/DrawShot.app then double-click.

"Screen Recording toggle keeps resetting after restart"

Sometimes happens on macOS Sonoma. Workaround: drag DrawShot out of Applications, drag it back in, then re-grant the permission. Fresh ACL fixes it.

"macOS says 'DrawShot is damaged and can't be opened'"

You downloaded the .dmg over a flaky network and the file is corrupt. Re-download from drawshot.dev and check the SHA-256 matches the value shown on the download page.

Update issues

"It says a new version is available but the download fails"

Manually download the latest .dmg from drawshot.dev and replace the version in /Applications/. Your preferences and toast stack are preserved.

"I don't want update prompts at all"

Preferences → Privacy → Check for updates → Never. The app will stay on whatever version you have until you update manually.

Still stuck?

Email [email protected] with:

macOS version (Apple menu → About This Mac)
DrawShot version (Preferences → About)
What you did, what you expected, what happened
Console.app output filtered for "DrawShot" if you can grab it

I reply within 48 hours.

drawshot.dev · v1.0 · macOS 13+ · free