Free
Desktop stays clean
Cmd-Shift-3 / 4 / 5 file saves go to ~/Scratchbox/Inbox. Turn it off and the old location comes back.
Scratchbox
Scratchbox
Screenshots, window grabs, and voice-over recordings land in one box — not on the Desktop. Built for people who review work in pictures and video. Keep what matters. Let the rest expire.
Lives in the menu bar. No Dock icon. Desktop stays empty.
Mac app
Scratchbox lives in the menu bar. Screenshots land in Inbox instead of Desktop. Keep what matters. Let the rest expire.
Cmd-Shift-3 / 4 / 5 file saves go to ~/Scratchbox/Inbox. Turn it off and the old location comes back.
Promote a file to Kept and it never expires. Delete sends it to Trash — never a silent unlink.
Screenshots last 48 hours. Other files last 7 days. Expired sits 24 hours for undo, then Trash.
From the cube
Visible, region, window, full page, and record — with the Mac shutter sound and a thumbnail in the corner, like Cmd-Shift-4. Record your screen, talk over it, send the clip.
The display you are looking at.
Drag a rectangle. Same shutter as Cmd-Shift-4.
Click the window. Chrome and all.
Scrolls and stitches one tall image.
Display or a window, optional mic. Pro.
How it works
~/Scratchbox/{Inbox, Kept, Expired} is Finder. Not a vault. Open it anytime.
Pro expiry moves to Expired for a day, then system Trash. Undo resets the clock.
Watch Downloads only moves new, finished files. No symlink. No replacing the folder.
No account. No upload. Quit restores the screenshot path when you ask it to.
The short ones are here. For anything else, ask below.
A menu-bar inbox for screenshots, recordings, and throwaway files. Nothing stays unless you keep it. No Dock icon.
Into the Scratchbox folder you pick. Inbox, Kept, and Expired are normal folders. Files stay on this Mac.
Not until you set it once. The App Store will not let the app move that shortcut. An empty inbox shows the three clicks.
$24.99 once, in the Mac App Store. The 14-day trial starts in the app. If it ends, expiry pauses and files stay.
Auto-expiry, a day in Expired before Trash, Watch Downloads, and screen recording with an optional microphone.
Mac App Store. Menu bar only. macOS 14+.