draw over the screen

updated 1 Oct 2026

Draw straight on the screen during a call, a recording or a review: a pencil, a wide marker that leaves the text under it readable, arrows, shapes and numbered steps. Ink that fades on its own disappears a couple of seconds after you lift the pointer, so nothing has to be cleaned up mid-sentence. The loupe and the blur work on the live screen too: magnify a detail so everyone on the call sees it, or cover a name that should not have been there.

One switch hands the clicks back to the apps underneath while the marks stay on screen, so you can keep working with your notes in front of you. Save or copy captures the screen together with the drawing. The marks are visible to other people when you share the whole screen; a single shared window is composited by macOS alone and no layer can join it.

• tools – pencil, fading ink, marker, arrow, line, box, oval, numbered steps, captions, the loupe, the blur and an eraser, each on its own letter. crop is the one that stays out: there is no file here to cut. the loupe and the blur read the live screen underneath.
• fading ink – a stroke that goes out about two seconds after the pointer lifts, for pointing at something rather than marking it.
• the two modes – picking a tool takes the screen: a yellow border runs round it. the arrow at the head of the row hands the screen back, so the apps underneath can be clicked and scrolled while the marks stay where they are. ⌃⌥P does both from the keyboard.
• the panel – dragged anywhere and left there; it takes clicks in either mode and holds undo, redo, clear, copy, save and the way out.
• save and copy – the screen together with the drawing on it; the panel steps out of the shot first.
• in a call – the layer is deliberately NOT hidden from screen capture, which is the whole point. it reaches other people only when the WHOLE screen is shared: sharing one window composites that window alone.
• screen recording – macOS asks for it once: saving and copying take what is underneath, and the loupe and the blur read it live while either one is in use.
• draw while held – hold fn ⌃ and draw straight on the screen, let go and it fades. the keys, the colour and the width are in the settings.