Bokashi

A privacy-aware screenshot tool for macOS.

Bokashi (ぼかし) is the Japanese word for blur or obscure. Not to be confused with the composting method of the same name 🌱.

Status: v0.3.0 — adds on-device sensitive-info detection (one-click and click-to-mask) on top of the v0.2.0 mosaic flow.

Sensitive-info detection

One click on Detect (or the auto-mask toggle) finds and masks personal information in a screenshot, entirely on device. Japanese text is a first-class target: names, phone numbers and addresses written the way Japanese documents actually write them.

Before	After

Names, the phone number, the email, the postal code and address, the AWS secret (the key name stays readable) and John Smith are masked. The commit hash, version, port, IP address, order number, timestamp and role words below the divider are left alone — masking those would ruin the screenshot.

Text detection is powered by privmask: NSDataDetector and patterns for the deterministic kinds, and Apple Intelligence for Japanese personal names on eligible Macs. With the privmask CLI installed (brew install snaka/tap/privmask), Bokashi also uses its Japanese name model, so names are found without Apple Intelligence too.

Why another screenshot tool?

Existing OSS macOS screenshot tools either feel dated, are non-native (Electron / Qt), or lack thoughtful annotation and privacy features. Bokashi aims to be:

• Native macOS — Swift, SwiftUI / AppKit, ScreenCaptureKit. No Electron.
• Annotation-first — arrows, boxes, ellipses, lines, undo/redo. Designed to feel right.
• Privacy-aware — captures stay in memory; closing the editor copies them to your clipboard. Bokashi never writes a screenshot to disk unless you explicitly ask, except for images sent in via the Share menu, which wait in an App Group container until Bokashi next launches and imports them. Manual mosaic masking now, and automatic detection of sensitive information (with Japanese-language support) on the roadmap.
• Open source — MIT licensed. Hackable, contribution-friendly.

Features

Feature	Status
Menubar app + global hotkeys	✅
Share menu integration	✅
Full-screen / window / region capture	✅
Editor with clipboard-first save flow	✅
Annotation tools (arrow / box / ellipse / line)	✅
Color & stroke-width pickers, undo / redo	✅
Manual mosaic masking	✅
On-device sensitive-info detection (email / phone / postal code / address / name / My Number / API keys and secrets, plus faces/avatars; Japanese names via Apple Intelligence on eligible Macs)	✅
Click-to-mask any OCR'd text region	✅
Auto-mask sensitive info (menubar toggle)	✅
Developer ID signed + notarized releases	✅
Homebrew Cask install (snaka/tap/bokashi)	✅
Auto-update via Sparkle	Planned (later)

Enabling the Share menu entry. macOS does not turn third-party share extensions on automatically. After installing Bokashi, tick it once under System Settings → General → Login Items & Extensions → Sharing. It then appears in the Share menu of any app that shares images.

See docs/ROADMAP.md for the full plan and CHANGELOG.md for release history.

Install

Homebrew (recommended)

brew install --cask snaka/tap/bokashi

This pulls the latest signed and notarized .dmg from Releases via the snaka/homebrew-tap tap.

Manual download

Download the latest Bokashi-X.Y.Z.dmg from Releases, open it, and drag Bokashi.app into /Applications.

On first capture, macOS will ask for Screen Recording permission; grant it and re-launch Bokashi if prompted.

Build from source

Bokashi uses XcodeGen to generate the Xcode project from project.yml.

brew install xcodegen
git clone https://github.com/snaka/Bokashi.git
cd Bokashi
xcodegen
open Bokashi.xcodeproj

Or build from the command line:

xcodegen
xcodebuild -project Bokashi.xcodeproj -scheme Bokashi -configuration Debug build

The core logic lives as a local Swift package at Packages/BokashiCore/ and can be tested independently:

swift test --package-path Packages/BokashiCore

Requirements

• macOS 26 (Tahoe) or later
• Xcode 26 or later (for building from source)

License

MIT