NewKap

Community-driven Kap fork focused on reliability and community maintenance

An open-source screen recorder built with web technology

---

Quick Install

brew tap MuntasirMalek/newkap
brew install --cask newkap

Automatically installs the right version for your Mac (Intel or Apple Silicon).

Uninstall (clean, removes all app data)

brew uninstall --zap --cask newkap

Quick Record Shortcut (Karabiner Elements)

If you use Karabiner Elements, you can add a Hyper+R (Hyper Meaning - https://github.com/MuntasirMalek/setup/blob/main/karabiner.json) shortcut to instantly record your entire screen:

Add this rule to your karabiner.json under complex_modifications > rules:

{
  "description": "Hyper+R: Record (if closed) / Quit (if open)",
  "manipulators": [
    {
      "from": {
        "key_code": "r",
        "modifiers": {
          "mandatory": ["left_shift", "left_command", "left_control", "left_option"]
        }
      },
      "to": [
        {
          "shell_command": "if pgrep -x NewKap > /dev/null; then osascript -e 'quit app \"NewKap\"'; else open 'kap://record'; fi"
        }
      ],
      "type": "basic"
    }
  ]
}

How it works:

• App closed → Opens NewKap and instantly starts full-screen recording (no cropper UI)
• App open → Quits NewKap (stops recording and opens editor if recording was active)

Tip: NewKap also supports deep links: kap://record (start recording) and kap://stop (stop recording). You can use these from any automation tool.

---

Why NewKap?

Kap is an amazing open-source screen recorder, but it has not been actively maintained since 2022. The last release (v3.6.0) has critical bugs on macOS Sonoma and Sequoia, with 30+ open issues and 13 unmerged PRs sitting in the original repo.

NewKap is a community-driven continuation, like Neovim is to Vim. Our goals:

• Fix what is broken: macOS Sonoma/Sequoia compatibility, recording failures, app hangs
• Community-owned: no single point of failure; the community drives development
• Democratic governance: contributors vote on changes via GitHub Discussions
• Regular releases: if it is fixed, ship it

What is Fixed (v4.0.0)

Issue	Fix
Could not start recording within 5 seconds	Increased timeout to 30s with automatic retry
App will not quit / hangs on close	Proper async cleanup with 5s force-quit fallback
App startup is slow / hangs	Non-blocking plugin upgrade and update checks
Screen capture permission crash on Sonoma	Safe-load fallback for native permission module
System Preferences links broken	Updated to System Settings for Sonoma/Sequoia
Audio device crashes	Device caching with graceful error fallback
Unhandled promise rejections	Expanded error handling throughout the app
Recording history cleanup crash	Safe per-file deletion with existence checks

Install

Download the latest .dmg from Releases:

• Intel Mac: NewKap-4.0.12-x64.dmg
• Apple Silicon (M1/M2/M3): NewKap-4.0.12-arm64.dmg

First Launch (unsigned build)

Since NewKap is not yet notarized with Apple, macOS may show an "app is damaged" warning or block the app on first launch. To fix this, run the following after dragging NewKap to your Applications folder:

xattr -cr /Applications/NewKap.app

Then:

1. Right-click the app and select Open (not double-click)
2. Click Open in the security dialog
3. Grant Screen Recording permission in System Settings → Privacy & Security → Screen Recording

Build from Source

Clone and install:

git clone https://github.com/MuntasirMalek/NewKap.git
cd NewKap
yarn install --ignore-engines

Development:

unset ELECTRON_RUN_AS_NODE
yarn start

Build distributable:

NODE_OPTIONS="--openssl-legacy-provider" CSC_IDENTITY_AUTO_DISCOVERY=false yarn dist

Note: If running from VS Code terminal, you must unset ELECTRON_RUN_AS_NODE first.

Community Governance

NewKap is community-governed. Here is how it works:

Contributing Changes

1. Fork the repo, create a branch, make your changes
2. Open a Pull Request with a clear description
3. The community reviews and votes via thumbs-up/thumbs-down reactions on the PR
4. PRs with 3+ approvals and no blocking issues get merged

Proposing Features

1. Open a Discussion in the Ideas category
2. The community votes with reactions
3. Ideas with strong support get added to the roadmap

Becoming a Maintainer

Active contributors who have had 3+ PRs merged can request maintainer access. Maintainers can:

• Merge approved PRs
• Create releases
• Triage issues

See CONTRIBUTING.md for full details.

Roadmap

• Upgrade to modern Electron (28+)
• Native Apple Silicon optimization
• macOS Sequoia full compatibility
• Plugin system modernization
• Improved export formats
• ProRes recording support

Credits

NewKap is built on the incredible work of the Kap team at Wulkano. We are grateful for the foundation they created.

License

MIT