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Menu bar and settings

Understand Capd's menu, preferences, local storage, permissions, and diagnostics.

Capd lives in the menu bar. It has no Dock icon or always-open library window; capture happens in the current app and search appears only when requested.

The menu provides quick access to search, settings, update notices, failed page extractions, and quit. The normal bookmark icon becomes slashed when Capd needs attention, such as after lost Accessibility access or a startup problem.

The menu-bar icon is also a drop target for links, text, images, and files. On a MacBook with a display notch, the capture HUD offers a larger notch-shaped drop target as you drag toward it.

Settings

  • Hotkeys changes capture (⌃⌥C), note (⌃⌥N), and search (⌥⇧Space).
  • Fetch page content for link captures disables Capd’s own article fetches. Content read directly from an open browser tab is unaffected.
  • Check weekly for a new version disables the GitHub Releases check.
  • Auto-tag captures on device disables automatic topic tagging. Capd explains when Apple Intelligence is unavailable.

There is no configuration file. CAPD_DIR is the only environment variable; it changes the shared storage root for the app, helper, and CLI.

Where your data lives

The default storage root is ~/Library/Application Support/capd/.

Path Contents
capd.sqlite Captures, notes, tags, metadata, and the full-text index
assets/ Captured images, stored by content hash
favicons/ Cached website icons and short-lived missing-icon records
agent.lock The background helper’s live-process lock

Copying the complete folder creates a full backup. capd export creates a portable data export, but captured image files remain in assets/.

Permissions

Capd requests two optional macOS permissions:

  • Accessibility reads selected text, detects secure fields, and reads tab details from Firefox-based browsers. Without it, the hotkey uses clipboard fallback and cannot inspect a current Firefox-based tab.
  • Automation asks Safari, Chrome, and Arc for the front tab’s address and title. macOS stores consent separately for each browser.

macOS may revoke Accessibility when an app’s code signature changes after an update. Capd detects this, explains the reduced behavior, and links to the correct System Settings pane.

Diagnostics

capd status reports the enrichment queue, capture counts, database size, and background-helper state. capd doctor checks database integrity, rebuilds the search index, removes orphaned image files, repairs the helper, and reports Accessibility status.

For a live log stream:

log stream --predicate 'subsystem == "dev.jxd.capd"'

Log categories include capture, pipeline, store, and agent.

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