Limelight

What is Screen Annotation?

Screen annotation is the act of drawing, highlighting, or marking directly over whatever is on your screen so viewers can see exactly what you are pointing at.

Screen annotation means adding visual marks on top of your existing screen content rather than editing the content itself. The marks sit in a transparent layer over your apps, so a presenter can circle a button, underline a line of text, or sketch an arrow while talking through it. It is a communication tool, not an editing tool.

It differs from image markup, where you annotate a static screenshot, and from a whiteboard, which is a blank canvas. Screen annotation happens live over your real, running interface. Some tools save the marks; many, especially presentation-focused ones, treat them as temporary ink that you clear when you move on.

Limelight is a macOS menu-bar overlay that handles the live, freehand side of screen annotation. You press a global hotkey to draw freehand over any app and clear the screen with another, with nothing recorded or saved. It runs on top of QuickTime, OBS, Zoom, or Google Meet, so your annotations show up in recordings and calls without changing the underlying app.

Why Limelight

  • ▸Marks are drawn on a transparent layer over real apps, not on a static image
  • ▸Used to direct attention during demos, lectures, and screen recordings
  • ▸Can be temporary live ink or, in some tools, saved markup
  • ▸Limelight does freehand annotation over any app via a global hotkey, cleared with ⌃⌥C
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FAQ

Is screen annotation the same as a screenshot markup?
No. Screenshot markup annotates a frozen image. Screen annotation draws over your live, running screen as you present or record.
Does Limelight save my screen annotations?
No. Limelight ink is live and temporary. You draw freehand over any app and clear it with ⌃⌥C. Nothing is recorded or uploaded.

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