Version 1.0

Install and use Screengrep.

Requirements

Apple Silicon Mac
macOS 26 or later
Screen Recording permission for screen capture
Microphone permission when microphone capture is enabled
Accessibility permission only for the optional AX Helper

Install

Download the signed and notarized Screengrep DMG.
Open the DMG and drag Screengrep to /Applications.
Open Screengrep and review every capture signal before starting recording.
Install the bundled AX Helper only if you want structured text from the focused window.

Capture controls

The capture popover reports whether each enabled signal is live, quiet, off, stale, or unavailable. Permission and retry actions are shown when macOS or a recorder needs attention.

Capture Settings is the authoritative place to enable signals, exclude apps, choose a performance profile, configure local transcription, and control managed-media retention. Turning a signal off while recording stops that collector.

Screens and search

Open Screengrep from the Dock or menu bar. Screens is the primary timeline. Search can return OCR, transcript, clipboard, structured UI, and other locally indexed evidence.

Results can be incomplete when a signal was disabled, permission was unavailable, the Mac was locked, or retention removed raw media. Screengrep surfaces those coverage limits rather than treating them as zero activity.

MCP server

The direct DMG embeds a read-only local MCP executable. Configure a compatible client to launch /Applications/Screengrep.app/Contents/Helpers/sg-mcp.

Most clients take that as a command. In claude_desktop_config.json, or the equivalent for your client:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "screengrep": {
      "command": "/Applications/Screengrep.app/Contents/Helpers/sg-mcp"
    }
  }
}

The Mac App Store version works differently. A sandboxed app cannot expose an executable for another app to launch — a binary started by your MCP client would run under that client's sandbox and could never read Screengrep's data. It serves the same tools over authenticated loopback HTTP instead. Settings › MCP shows the address and a token that is regenerated every time the app launches, with a copy button for each.

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "screengrep": {
      "url": "http://127.0.0.1:PORT/mcp",
      "headers": { "Authorization": "Bearer TOKEN" }
    }
  }
}

The server accepts connections from your Mac only, requires that token on every request, and refuses anything arriving with a browser Origin header — no web page has any business reading your screen history. Because the token changes on each launch, a client configured with an old one needs the new value.

MCP can search local history and answer evidence, coverage, workday, meeting, media, and context questions. The client receiving those answers may have its own network behavior.

Uninstall and local data

Pause and quit Screengrep and the AX Helper, then remove both apps from /Applications.

App removal does not silently erase history. To remove all local data, delete ~/Library/Application Support/Screengrep/ after both processes have stopped.