Orb for Mac
Show it. Say it.
Pass it on.
The menu bar recorder that turns a quick walkthrough into context your AI can act on.
Free · Requires macOS 26 or later on Apple silicon
ExperimentalInteractive mode: your real-time thought partner.
A short animated walkthrough of interactive mode. Someone presses Shift-Command-2 and starts describing a bug: an Export CSV button that does nothing. Orb’s voice assistant listens, asks whether it fails for every date range, then looks at the screen and draws boxes around the date filter and the export button when asked where to start. On stop, both sides of the conversation are saved in the handoff for a coding agent.
1Your real-time thought partner
Explaining a problem to an AI shouldn’t take ten screenshots and three paragraphs. Press a shortcut, talk through what you see, and Orb hands over the video, your words, and a timeline of the apps you moved through.
How it works
Press. Talk. Paste.
From “let me show you” to an assistant that has the whole picture.
1Show it
Press ⌘⇧1 from any app.
Orb records the display you choose, cursor and all. A small floating bar keeps time and stays out of the video. Restart or discard a take without leaving a mess behind.
2Say it
Talk it through, the way you would with a teammate.
Your narration is transcribed on your Mac with Apple’s speech models, and every sentence is lined up with the moment you said it.
- 00:02So I’m on the invoices page, and I need last month’s export.
- 00:06When I click Export CSV… nothing. No download, no error.
- 00:11It started after we changed this date filter yesterday.
- 00:17Can you check what the filter does to the export request?
3Pass it on
Hand off everything in one click.
Copy a handoff with the summary, timestamped narration, key frames, and the apps you moved through. Or copy an agent prompt that points your coding agent straight at the files.
Paste it into
- ChatGPT
- Claude
- Claude Code
- Cursor
- or any other assistant
Clicking Export CSV on the Invoices page gives no download and no error. The narrator links it to yesterday’s date filter change and asks for the export request to be checked.
Interactive modeExperimental
Your interactive thought partner.
Record with a voice assistant in the loop. Instead of talking to yourself, you talk it through with something that listens, sees your screen, answers, and draws on your screen to show you what it means.
How interactive mode works
Talk, and it talks back
It listens while you record, asks when something is unclear, and tells you what it thinks when you ask. Interrupt it whenever you like.
It follows your screen
It notices when the screen changes or you switch apps, and takes a closer look when you ask about something in front of you.
It’s all in the recording
Both sides of the conversation are saved with the video and the handoff, so your AI gets the thinking as well as the problem.
It points at what it means
Ask “where’s the error?” or “which button?” and it answers out loud while marking the spot on your screen. Up to three marks at a time, each with a short label if it helps.
A box
Around a button, a panel, or anything with edges.
An arrow
For small targets: an icon, a badge, one cell in a table.
A highlight
Over a line of text or code, like a marker pen.
Marks show on your screen and in the video, and are saved with the recording, so your AI sees what was pointed at too. They fade after a few seconds, or as soon as the screen changes. You can switch pointing off in Settings.
Good to know. Interactive mode is experimental and still being tuned. It’s optional, and it uses OpenAI with your own API key, which you add in Settings. While it’s on, your voice and screenshots of the display you’re recording are sent to OpenAI. Regular recordings still send nothing.
For agents
Your agent can look for itself.
Give your agent the context it needs. Click Copy agent prompt, paste it into your coding agent, and it can go through the recording on its own.
The export button is broken. I recorded it, take a look.
Orb recording · 0:48
- Read the summary48 seconds of you talking it through
- Searched what you said for “export”2 moments · 0:06 and 0:12
- Looked at the screen at 0:06Export CSV, just after you click it
I can see it. At 0:06 you click Export CSV and nothing downloads. At 0:11 you point at the Last 30 days filter and say it started after yesterday’s change. I’ll start with what the export request sends when that filter is set.
It hears what you said
Every sentence, with the moment you said it.
It sees what you saw
It can look at your screen at any second of the recording.
It stays on your Mac
Your agent reads the recording from your disk. None of it is uploaded.
Private by default
Your recordings stay on your Mac.
Just files
A session is a folder. Take it anywhere.
Attach the video, paste the handoff, or export the whole thing as a ZIP. It works with any assistant that can read a file, and there’s nothing proprietary to get your work back out of.
~/Movies/Orb/6F2A9C4E…/
- video.mp4H.264 screen recording, with your narration
- transcript.txtTimestamped narration
- summary.mdA short brief, with its sources stated
- handoff.mdSummary, narration, frame links, and app timeline
- session.jsonEverything above, structured for tools
- frames/Timestamped stills and their screen text
Show your AI what you mean.
One shortcut to record. One click to hand off. Free, and private by default.
Requires macOS 26 or later on Apple silicon. Summaries need Apple Intelligence turned on.