Looking for a ShareX alternative on a Mac?
ShareX is Windows only, and the video half of it is capture with no zooms, no camera and no timeline. Prequel records the Mac, places the zooms, frames the camera over a background and exports at 4K and 120 fps, with a link when you want one. $9 a month, or $29 once.
No credit card required
ShareX
The free and open source capture tool for Windows.
- Price
- Free, open source. Windows only
- Free
- All of it, with no account
- Platforms
- Windows
Prequel
Cinematic screen recorder for Mac
- Price
- $9 a month, or $29 once
- Free
- 7-day trial, then paid
- Platforms
- macOS 14+, Apple Silicon
Checked on 22 October 2026 against ShareX, ShareX on GitHub.
What is ShareX, and what is it good at?
ShareX is a free, open-source capture tool for Windows that does more than most paid ones. Region capture, scrolling capture, OCR, a colour picker, screen recording to MP4 or GIF, and then an upload pipeline that will send the result to dozens of destinations and put the link on your clipboard, all driven by hotkeys and workflows you define yourself.
Nobody pays for it, nothing is locked, and for a Windows user who wants to press one key and have a link, it is unbeatable.
Why do people look for a ShareX alternative?
It does not run on macOS. ShareX is Windows only, and there is no port. For anyone switching to a Mac, that is the whole reason this page exists.
The video side is capture, not production. ShareX records what is on screen. There is no zoom on a click, no cursor smoothing, no camera layer, no background and no timeline. A finished demo means an editor afterwards.
Is Prequel a good ShareX alternative?
For the video half, on a Mac, yes.
Prequel records the screen, the camera, the microphone and system audio as separate tracks, then opens the editor with the first pass already made: zooms placed on every click and every burst of typing, tilted, with focus falling away from whatever they are aimed at, the camera framed and cut out of its background, a wallpaper behind the window with padding and a shadow, the cursor smoothed, blurred as it moves and hidden when it idles. Captions are transcribed on your Mac.
Export is one file at up to 4K and 120 frames a second, and a shareable link is one click when you want one. It is $9 a month or $29 once.
What do you give up by switching?
Free and open source, screenshots, OCR, the colour picker and the upload pipeline with its dozens of destinations and its custom workflows. Nothing on a Mac replaces that part of ShareX, and nothing in Prequel tries to.
On macOS, the nearest things to the capture half are CleanShot X and the built-in Screenshot app; Prequel is the video half.
How do the features compare?
| Feature | Prequel | ShareX |
|---|---|---|
| Automatic zoom on clicks | Included | Not included |
| Zoom on what you type | Included | Not included |
| Cursor smoothing and resizing | Included | Not included |
| Camera overlay, shaped and placed after | Included | Not included |
| Backgrounds, padding and shadow | Included | Not included |
| Layouts for the screen and camera | Fourteen, per clip | Not included |
| Camera cut out of its background | Included | Not included |
| Perspective tilt and focus falloff on zooms | Included | Not included |
| Captions transcribed on your Mac | Included | Not included |
| Timeline editing | Included | Not included |
| Separate audio tracks | Included | Not included |
| System audio without a virtual driver | Included | Included |
| Reframe to vertical without cropping | Included | Not included |
| Magnifying-glass loupe over the work | Included | Not included |
| Colour looks and filters | Included | Not included |
| Microphone noise reduction | Included | Not included |
| Import a video you already have | Included | Not included |
| Records and exports without uploading | Included | Local, until a workflow uploads it |
| Shareable links | Included | To dozens of destinations you choose |
| Team workspace | Included | Not included |
| Records an iPhone or iPad | Not included | Not included |
| Maximum export | 4K, 120 fps | Whatever you configure, MP4 or GIF |
| Download size | 104 MB | Windows only |
| Platforms | macOS 14+, Apple Silicon | Windows |
| Licence | $9/month or $29 once, 7-day trial | Free, GPLv3 |
What ShareX is good at
One hotkey from a capture to a link, an upload pipeline with dozens of destinations, workflows you define yourself, and not a penny to anyone.
What does each one cost?
ShareX
- ShareX$0 free software, GPLv3
Prequel
- Lifetime$29 once
- Pro$9 a month
Checked on 22 October 2026 against ShareX, ShareX on GitHub.
- Record your screen and cameraPick a display, a window or an area you drag out, with your camera, microphone and system audio each on their own track.
- Zooms and layout are applied automaticallyPrequel reads where you clicked and typed, then places the zooms, frames your camera and sets a background behind it.
- Edit, export and shareMove a zoom, trim a clip or fix a caption, then export one MP4 at up to 4K or send a link that plays anywhere.
Zoom and pan
Zooms that follow the action
Prequel automatically zooms in when you click or type, then softens the rest of the window so viewers know where to look. Every zoom is added to the timeline, so you can move, retime or delete it at any time.
Layouts
Switch layouts clip by clip
Choose from fourteen layouts for the same take: camera in the corner, beside the screen, split with it or hidden entirely. Use one layout for the whole video, or change it clip by clip.
Subtitles
Subtitles you can edit like text
Prequel transcribes every word on your Mac when the editor opens. Fix captions by typing in the transcript, choose a subtitle style or delete a sentence to remove it from the video.
Thisisthecheckoutweshippedlastweek
Thisisthecheckoutweshippedlastweek
Thisisthecheckoutweshippedlastweek
Thisisthecheckoutweshippedlastweek
Thisisthecheckoutweshippedlastweek
Thisisthecheckoutweshippedlastweek
Thanks so much for jumping on this call
Iwanttoshowyousomethingcool
[pause here]
we’ve been building for the past few months
Teleprompter
A teleprompter that follows your voice
Prequel hangs your script from the notch, just under the camera, and follows your voice — the word you're saying lights up as you say it. Wander off script and it waits for you; skip ahead or fall behind and it catches up within a couple of words.
Apple Silicon · macOS 14+
Native
Built for your Mac
Prequel is a native app for Apple Silicon. It records with the system’s own capture, encodes on the video hardware and draws every frame in Metal. Your recordings stay on your disk.
The editor
Everything you would have done by hand
It opens by itself when you stop recording, on the take you just made. Nothing to import, nothing to line up.
Guide attention automatically
Prequel zooms into the part of the screen that matters: the cursor, a region you draw, or whatever you are typing into. Set the level, the speed and how much the rest of the frame blurs.
Look present without taking over the video
Your camera stays framed and out of the way: circle, squircle, rounded, wide or portrait, in any corner and any size. It is never burned into the recording, so none of it is decided while you record.
Make recordings look designed
Add a background, padding and a shadow without editing any of it by hand. Your own wallpaper by default, seven bundled presets, gradients and solids.
Cut the parts nobody needs to see
Trim the pauses yourself, slice by slice, with a waveform under every clip. Layout, background and audio can all change mid-take.
Keep the pointer out of the way
Fifteen pointer styles, resized so the cursor survives a zoom. Smoothed while it travels, and hidden after a few seconds of stillness.
Export the frame you approved
The preview and the exporter draw the same plan, so the file matches what you signed off in the editor.
Quality
Videos stay sharp at 4K
Capture and export run on your Mac's own media engine. 1080p at 60 fps records without dropping frames, and 4K is a setting you pick.
- Resolution
- Up to 4K
- Frame rate
- Up to 120 fps
- Codecs
- H.264 · HEVC
- Encoding
- Hardware, VideoToolbox
- Compositing
- Metal
- Output
- Constant frame rate MP4
Formats
Export in any frame
Turn one recording into different formats without manually reframing every element. Switch from landscape to vertical and the layout stays intact.
- Landscape 16:9
- 4K
- Vertical 9:16
- Square 1:1
- Portrait 4:5
- YouTube
- Shorts
- TikTok
- Reels
- X
Record demos worth sharing
Free for 7 days. No watermark on anything you export.
No credit card required
Curious about the internals? Read the blog
FAQ
Zooms, exports and the rest
Is there a ShareX for Mac?
No. ShareX is Windows only and there is no port. On a Mac the capture half is covered by CleanShot X or the built-in Screenshot app, and for recording a demo Prequel records screen, camera, microphone and system audio as separate tracks and finishes the video automatically.
Is there a free ShareX alternative for Mac?
The Screenshot app is already installed and records the screen, and OBS Studio is free and open source if you need more control. Prequel is $9 a month or $29 once after a seven-day trial, and what it sells is the finished video: zooms on clicks and typing, a framed camera, a background and a cleaned-up cursor.
Does Prequel upload my recordings anywhere?
Only if you ask it to. Recording, editing and export happen on your Mac and never need the network, and captions are transcribed on device. Sharing a link is a separate action rather than the price of pressing record.
Is Prequel a good ShareX alternative?
For the recording half on a Mac, yes. For screenshots, OCR, the colour picker and the custom upload workflows, nothing replaces ShareX and Prequel does not try: it records a display, a window or a region and makes a finished video out of it.