Screen Annotations review
A whiteboard-focused Mac and iPad app with live drawing, screenshot annotation, and presentations.
Reviewed by iTechGuides Editors · Editorial team · Updated Oct 2026
Screen Annotations is a native Mac app for drawing over other apps, capturing screen regions, windows, or the full screen, and annotating captures in a dedicated editor. Its broader focus is reusable whiteboards, diagrams, and presentations, with an iPad whiteboard app for Apple Pencil. It suits solo users and small teams on Mac and iPad who explain ideas live, teach, demonstrate software, or present visual material; it is less suited to people seeking a screenshot-only workflow.
Live drawing covers pen, highlighter, arrows, shapes, text, formulas, images, eraser, and laser pointer tools. For more prepared material, boards can be organized in tabs, imported from saved board files, and laid out with alignment, spacing, distribution, and graph-aware tools. Manual or automatic snapshots provide a way to restore earlier board states. Scene-based presentations add animated transitions, so the app spans live markup and reusable visual explanations rather than concentrating narrowly on capture and sharing.
The Mac and iPad apps are covered by one purchase, according to the product site, and the product is paid with no free plan. Boards can sync between Mac and iPad through iCloud; exports include transparent PNG and the app's .screenannotation format. A local MCP integration supports AI-assisted drawing and board management with Claude Code, Claude Desktop, Cursor, and Codex. The app runs locally without an account, and email is the listed support channel. Choose it if live screen annotation is only one part of a Mac-and-iPad whiteboard and presentation workflow. If your priority is a focused screenshot capture and sharing tool, its broader board and presentation features may be more than you need.
Screen Annotations pros and cons
- Where it wins
- Draw over the desktop with pens, shapes, text, and a laser pointer
- Organize reusable boards with diagram layout tools and snapshots
- Present scenes with animated transitions and sync boards through iCloud
- Where it doesn't
- Screenshot capture and annotation share space with a broader whiteboard focus
- The app is paid and has no free plan
- Runs on macOS and iOS, limiting fit for other platforms
Screen Annotations fact sheet, pricing and score →
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