Self-hosted screenshot sharing for Mac

Most screenshot tools want you to share through their cloud. If you already run a server, you can skip that entirely: CapturePush is a free macOS menu bar app that captures a screenshot, uploads it to your own machine over SFTP, and copies a link on your own domain to the clipboard.

What You Need

• A server you can reach with SSH — a VPS, a home server, or shared hosting with SFTP access
• A web server (Apache, nginx, Caddy, anything) serving one directory on that machine
• An SSH key for the account that will receive the uploads

Setting It Up

Open Preferences → Upload, choose the SSH backend, and fill in:

• Host and Port — your server's hostname or IP address and SSH port
• Username — the account that owns the upload directory
• Remote path — the directory your web server serves, such as /home/user/uploads/
• Web base URL — the public address of that directory, such as https://i.example.com
• SSH key — use your default SSH keys, or point to a specific key file

Press Test Connection to confirm the credentials work before you rely on it.

What Happens When You Capture

1. You take a screenshot, a scrolling capture, or a GIF or MP4 recording.
2. CapturePush uploads the file to the remote path using the SFTP client that ships with macOS.
3. A link built from your web base URL — for example https://i.example.com/CapturePush_2026-03-23_06-24-11_6401.png — lands on your clipboard.

Details That Matter on a Real Server

• Works with locked-down accounts: uploads use SFTP only, so an SFTP-only account with no shell access is enough.
• Readable by your web server: if a file would arrive with owner-only permissions, CapturePush makes it readable during the same connection so the link does not return a 403.
• Clean URLs: whitespace in filenames is replaced with underscores, so links never break when pasted.
• Key-based authentication: CapturePush uses your SSH keys and does not store a server password.
• Any file, not just screenshots: Upload File... in the menu sends any file to the same directory and returns a link.

Why Self-Host Your Screenshots

Links live on a domain you own and keep working for as long as you keep the files. Nothing expires because a plan lapsed, nobody else can read or analyse what you shared, and deleting a screenshot is as simple as deleting a file. The only cost is the server you already have.

No server? CapturePush can also upload to S3, Cloudflare R2 or Backblaze B2. Coming from Windows? See how it compares as a ShareX alternative for Mac.