Limelight
What is Screen Ink?
Screen ink is the temporary digital ink you lay over your display, drawing freehand lines on top of live content to highlight and explain.
Screen ink refers to the marks themselves when you draw over your screen, the digital equivalent of pen strokes laid on top of your apps. It lives in an overlay layer above your content, so the ink is visible to viewers without changing anything underneath. The term emphasizes the live, hand-drawn nature of the marks.
Unlike ink in a drawing app that is saved into a file, screen ink is usually transient. You apply it to make a point during a demo or lecture and then clear it. This keeps the screen clean and lets you move from one detail to the next without leftover clutter. It is meant for emphasis, not documentation.
Limelight is a macOS menu-bar app that puts screen ink over any app. Press a hotkey and draw freehand wherever you need, then wipe it with ⌃⌥C. The live ink is never saved on its own, but because Limelight records your screen itself, your ink is baked into the finished, cinematic video it exports.
Why Limelight
- ▸Digital pen strokes drawn in an overlay above your apps
- ▸Visible to viewers without altering the content beneath
- ▸Usually temporary, cleared once a point is made
- ▸Limelight lays freehand screen ink over any macOS app, wiped with ⌃⌥C
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FAQ
- Is screen ink saved as a file?
- The live ink is temporary and clears with ⌃⌥C. But Limelight records your screen itself, so the ink is captured in the finished, cinematic video it exports — all on your Mac, with nothing uploaded.
- Does screen ink work over any app?
- With an overlay like Limelight, yes. The ink sits above whatever you are showing, so it works across browsers, editors, and video.