LidShot

A small macOS menu bar app that keeps a MacBook awake with the lid closed, takes screenshots you can annotate, copies text from anything on screen, and translates right inside input fields. Everything runs on the Mac.

The interface is in Russian.

Install

You need a Mac with Apple Silicon (M1 or newer), macOS 13 Ventura or later, and Homebrew.

brew install --cask extrik808/tap/lidshot

Then open LidShot from Applications. A camera icon appears in the menu bar.

Update:

brew upgrade --cask lidshot

Uninstall:

brew uninstall --cask lidshot

If you turned on the password-free toggle (see below), remove it from the app menu before uninstalling. You can also delete it yourself later with sudo rm /etc/sudoers.d/lidshot.

Why Homebrew removes the quarantine flag

LidShot is not signed with an Apple Developer ID and is not notarized by Apple. A copy downloaded in a browser would be blocked with "Apple could not verify LidShot". The cask removes the download quarantine flag after installing, so the app opens normally. If you install from the zip on the Releases page instead, run:

xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine /Applications/LidShot.app

First launch

1. Screen Recording. The first screenshot asks for this permission. Turn LidShot on in System Settings → Privacy & Security → Screen & System Audio Recording, then quit and reopen LidShot. If LidShot is not listed, click + and pick /Applications/LidShot.app.
2. Accessibility. Translating inside input fields needs it, both the button and ⌥⇧E. Turn LidShot on in System Settings → Privacy & Security → Accessibility.
3. Launch at login is in the menu: «Запускать при входе».

Closed-lid mode

Menu: «Не спать с закрытой крышкой», or press ⌥⇧L.

• While it is on, the Mac does not sleep when you close the lid. The menu bar icon turns into a cup.
• «Не спать в течение» turns the mode on for 30 minutes up to 8 hours.
• «Выключать при заряде 10%» turns the mode off when the battery runs low.
• Quitting the app turns the mode off.

Under the hood it runs pmset -a disablesleep 1, which needs administrator rights. By default macOS asks for your password each time. «Включить переключение без пароля…» asks for it once and installs /etc/sudoers.d/lidshot. That file lets your user run only pmset -a disablesleep 0 and pmset -a disablesleep 1 without a password. Timers and the battery auto-off need this, because nobody can type a password while the lid is closed.

If Wi-Fi or a VPN drops with the lid closed, turn off Low Power Mode (System Settings → Battery). The Wi-Fi antennas sit in the display hinge, so a closed lid also weakens the signal.

Screenshots

Press ⌥⇧4 and drag over an area. Press Space while selecting to capture a window instead. The editor opens with:

Tool	Key	Tool	Key
Select & move	V	Highlighter	H
Arrow	A	Text	T
Line	L	Step number	N
Rectangle	R	Pixelate (hide data)	B
Ellipse	O	Blur (hide data)	U
Pen	P	Crop	C

• Shift snaps lines to 45° and draws squares and circles.
• With Select & move, drag over an empty part of the image to mark an area. A «Перевести» button appears next to it and translates the text inside that area.
• Picking a colour or width restyles the selected shape. Double-click text to edit it, and Delete removes a shape.
• Return copies the image and closes the editor. ⌘C copies, ⌘S saves to a file, and ⌘Z / ⇧⌘Z undo and redo.
• The link button uploads the image to litterbox.catbox.moe and copies the URL. You choose how long the link lives: 1 hour, 12 hours, 24 hours or 3 days. The upload is anonymous but public: anyone with the link can open the image until it expires. Pixelate private details first.

Text from images

LidShot can pull text out of any picture: a screenshot, a photo someone posted in Slack, a scanned document. Recognition runs on the Mac with Apple's Vision framework. Nothing is uploaded. It reads Russian and English.

• Hold ⌥⌘ anywhere: the screen freezes for a moment, and you can select text with the mouse right where it is, in Slack, a video, a picture or a PDF. Release the keys and the selection is copied. Esc cancels. Change the keys in «Горячие клавиши…», or turn the feature off with the menu item «Выделять текст удержанием».
• «Распознать текст из буфера»: copy an image first (for example, right-click a photo in Slack → Copy image), then pick this menu item. The text replaces the image in the clipboard.
• «Открыть картинку…» opens an image file in the editor.
• In the editor, the text button (or X) lets you select text on the image with the mouse, as in Preview. ⌘C copies the selection, the «Перевести» button next to it translates it (macOS 14 or later), and Esc goes back to drawing. The document button (or ⇧⌘C) copies all the text on the image.

Translation

LidShot translates with Apple's built-in translator (macOS 15 or later). It runs on the Mac, needs no account or key, and works offline once the language packs are downloaded. The first translation for a language pair asks to download its pack. Russian text is translated into English. Anything else is translated into your system language, so English becomes Russian. Short Latin-script text, such as a single word, counts as English.

In input fields

• Translate button: like DeepL, a small round button appears in the corner of the input field you are typing in, once it has some text. Click it, and the text is replaced with its translation. If part of the text is selected, only that part is translated. Right-click the button to hide it in that app. The menu item «Кнопка перевода в полях ввода» turns it off, or back on for every app. It works in Slack, Mail, Telegram, Safari and Chromium browsers (Chrome, Arc, Brave, Edge, Yandex, Opera, Vivaldi). It never appears in password fields, address bars, terminals or code editors.
• ⌥⇧E («Перевести текст в поле ввода») does the same from the keyboard.
• Both need the Accessibility permission, because LidShot presses ⌘A, ⌘C and ⌘V for you. Your clipboard is restored afterwards. In code editors that copy the whole line when nothing is selected, select the text first.
• English style («Стиль английского»): with Apple Intelligence turned on (macOS 26 or later), English translations are rewritten to sound natural, either casual for chats or business for email. Without Apple Intelligence you get the plain translator output. The submenu shows whether the model is ready.

Reading

• Selection button: select text with the mouse anywhere (drag, or double- or triple-click), and a small round button appears next to the cursor. Click it, and the translation window opens with the selected text. It works in browsers, PDFs, Slack, Telegram, Mail and other apps that let you select text. In input fields the input button above is used instead. The button disappears when you click elsewhere, type, scroll, or after a few seconds. Right-click it to hide it in that app. The menu item «Кнопка перевода выделенного текста» turns it off, or back on for every app. It needs the Accessibility permission.
• Double ⌘C: copy text twice quickly in any app, and a translation window opens next to the cursor. If you copied an image (for example, a photo in Slack), LidShot reads the text on it first.
• ⌥⇧T («Перевести текст с экрана»): drag over an area, and its text is recognised and translated.
• While holding ⌥⌘ to select text on screen, also press ⇧: the selection is translated instead of copied.
• In the screenshot editor, the speech-bubble button translates all text on the image.
• In the translation window, pick another target language from the list, or swap the two with the arrows button. ⌘↩ copies the translation and closes the window.

Shortcuts

Action	Default
Screenshot of an area	⌥⇧4
Closed-lid mode on/off	⌥⇧L
Select text anywhere on screen (hold)	⌥⌘
Translate the selection while holding	⇧
Translate text in the input field	⌥⇧E
Translate text from an area of the screen	⌥⇧T
Translate what you copied	⌘C twice

Every shortcut can be changed or turned off in «Горячие клавиши…». That includes the hold combination for text selection: click its field, hold any two or more of ⌘ ⌥ ⌃ ⇧, and let go. Double ⌘C can be turned off there too, or in the menu.

Build from source

Requires the Xcode Command Line Tools (xcode-select --install).

git clone https://github.com/Extrik808/LidShot.git
cd LidShot
./build.sh            # builds build/LidShot.app
./build.sh --install  # copies it to /Applications and launches it

build.sh signs the app with a local certificate named «LidShot Local Signing» if your keychain has one (Tools/setup-signing.sh creates it). Otherwise it falls back to an ad-hoc signature. With an ad-hoc signature, macOS treats every rebuild as a new app and asks for the Screen Recording permission again.

Releasing a new version (maintainer)

Tools/release.sh 1.0.1

The script:

1. Writes the version into Info.plist, commits it, and tags v1.0.1.
2. Builds and zips the app.
3. Pushes the commit and tag, then creates a GitHub release with the zip attached.
4. Updates Casks/lidshot.rb in Extrik808/homebrew-tap with the new version and SHA-256.

It needs a clean working tree and GitHub credentials. It reads GH_TOKEN from the environment, or from the git credential for github.com.