Press Shift+Cmd+C. Cue Canvas captures the display your pointer is on,
with anything you’ve drawn baked into the picture, and puts it on your
clipboard and in a folder on disk at the same time.
What it’s for
The moment you circle something on a call and say “like this” is worth keeping. The person you’re explaining it to can paste it into Slack, an email, or a ticket instead of you re-explaining it later in writing. Nothing else about Cue Canvas needs to change first: whatever is currently drawn on the display gets captured exactly as it looks.
Where it goes
- Your clipboard, immediately. Paste it anywhere that accepts an image.
~/Pictures/Cue Canvas, as a file named with the date and time it was taken. Both happen on every capture; there’s no setting to turn one off.
What you need to grant
Screenshotting needs Screen Recording, the same permission the magnifier lens and full-screen zoom need.
If you have not granted it, Cue Canvas tells you so instead of silently doing nothing. Open System Settings → Privacy & Security → Screen & System Audio Recording, switch Cue Canvas on, then quit Cue Canvas and open it again. macOS does not apply the permission to an app that was already running.
What’s in the picture, and what isn’t
Your strokes are in it, at the position they’re actually drawn. The small floating toolbar (the control panel) is never in it, on purpose. A screenshot of your explanation shouldn’t also show the buttons you used to draw it.
Customizing where files are saved
Open Settings (Cmd+,) and choose Capture.
| Control | What it does | Default |
|---|---|---|
| Destination folder | Where screenshots are saved. Leave it empty for the default | ~/Pictures/Cue Canvas |
| History count | How many recent captures the menu bar keeps. See “Recent captures” below | 10 |
Both apply to the next screenshot you take.
If Shift+Cmd+C does nothing
- Nothing happens at all. Check the Screen Recording permission above, then quit and reopen Cue Canvas.
Shift+Cmd+Cdoes nothing and the permission is granted. Another app may already own that shortcut. Cue Canvas says so in its menu bar item. Look for “shortcut(s) taken by other apps”.
Capture just a region
Press Shift+Cmd+R, then drag out the area you want. Release to capture
only that. Same destinations (clipboard and ~/Pictures/Cue Canvas) as a
full screenshot, just cropped to what you dragged.
Changing your mind
Press Shift+Cmd+R again before you drag, and it turns back off, nothing
is captured. Once you start dragging, releasing the mouse always captures
whatever rectangle you drew; there’s no separate cancel gesture mid-drag.
What you need to grant
The same as a full screenshot: Screen Recording, and nothing else. See “What you need to grant” above.
If Shift+Cmd+R does nothing
- Nothing happens at all. Check the Screen Recording permission above, then quit and reopen Cue Canvas.
- The permission is granted and it still does nothing. Another app may already own that shortcut. Check the menu bar item the same way as for a full screenshot.
Recent captures
Click the Cue Canvas icon in the menu bar. Every screenshot and region capture you’ve taken this session is listed under Recent Captures, most recent first.
Reopening one
Click its entry. It opens in whatever app you normally view PNGs with, the same as double-clicking it in Finder.
Dragging one into Slack, Teams, or an email
Click and hold an entry, then drag it out of the menu and drop it onto the other app’s window. It drops as a real file, exactly like dragging an attachment out of Finder or Mail. Dragging closes the menu the moment the drag starts, the same way it does anywhere else in macOS.
How many are kept
The last 10 by default. The oldest is dropped from the list the moment
an 11th is taken. Change it with historyCount in the settings file (see
“Customizing where files are saved” above); anywhere from 1 to 50 is
allowed. This only controls the list in the menu. Every capture is still
saved to destinationFolder regardless of what falls off the list.
Clearing it
Open the menu and click Clear Capture History. This only empties the list. It does not delete any files from disk.
What it does not do
- Survive a relaunch. The list starts empty every time Cue Canvas opens; only the files on disk are permanent. This is by design, not a bug to be filed: the menu is a shortcut to what you just took, and your screenshots are already saved where you told them to go.
- A keyboard shortcut. There’s no hotkey to open the list, cycle through it, or clear it. It’s a menu-bar feature, the same way Finder’s own “Recent Items” is.
How you know it worked
A shutter sound plays and the screen flashes, the same way macOS’s own screenshot does. For a region capture the flash is the region you selected, so it confirms what was taken and not only that something was.
If you take a region screenshot (Shift+Cmd+R) the overlay tells you it is
waiting: a hint appears reading Drag to select a region, and the pointer
becomes a crosshair. Nothing is captured until you drag out a rectangle. Press
Shift+Cmd+R again to cancel without capturing.