Oriel Support
Stuck or curious? Email hello@papermint.studio and a human reads every message, usually within a day.
Getting started3
- Install. Download Oriel, open the .dmg and drag Oriel to Applications. It needs macOS 26 Tahoe or later, on Apple silicon.
- The welcome walks you through the Screen Recording permission, your capture keys, the microphone and camera (optional), and the MCP server for coding agents (optional).
- Where it lives. Oriel sits in the menu bar. Click it for the capture buttons, the self-timer, the ruler and your recent captures. The main window holds the Library, the MCP Server page and Settings.
Permissions4
- Screen Recording is needed for every screenshot and recording. macOS asks the first time; if you said no, turn Oriel on in System Settings › Privacy & Security › Screen & System Audio Recording, then quit and reopen Oriel.
- Microphone and Camera are asked for only when you first record with them. Settings › General shows each one and lets you allow it.
- Accessibility is asked for only for scrolling captures, so Oriel can scroll the page for you.
- Input Monitoring is asked for only if you turn on Keys pressed for recordings, so Studio can show the shortcuts you typed.
Taking screenshots6
- The keys. ⇧⌘1 an area, ⇧⌘2 a window, ⇧⌘6 copy the text on screen, ⌥⇧⌘1 the same area again, ⌥⌘R the ruler and colour picker. The whole screen, a scrolling page and recording are ⌥⇧⌘3, ⌥⇧⌘4 and ⌥⇧⌘5, or ⇧⌘3, ⇧⌘4 and ⇧⌘5 if you let Oriel take over the Mac's own screenshot keys (in the welcome or Settings › Shortcuts). Change any of them in Settings › Shortcuts.
- Scrolling captures. Pick the area, and Oriel scrolls it and stitches the page together.
- Copy text reads the words in the area you pick and puts them on the clipboard. It happens on your Mac.
- Self-timer. Off, 3, 5 or 10 seconds, from the menu bar panel or Settings › Capture.
- Window shadows, the notch strip and Oriel's own windows. Choose in Settings › Capture whether window captures keep their shadow, whether the black band beside the notch is trimmed, and whether Oriel's card and record bar may appear in captures (they're left out unless you say so).
- Format and folder. PNG or JPEG, the quality, and the folder Save uses, in Settings › Capture. Every capture is in the Library whether you save a copy or not.
The card after a capture4
- What it does. A small card waits in the corner of the screen with the shot: Copy, Save, Pin and Edit. Drag the card into any app to drop the file there.
- Smart actions. When the shot has a link or a QR code, the card offers Open link; for code, Copy as text; for a table, Copy as CSV.
- Pin keeps the shot floating above every window, handy for copying from a reference.
- It tucks away after a few seconds; hover over it to keep it. Pick its corner and timing in Settings › Capture, or turn it off.
Marking up5
- The tools on the left: select, arrow, line, box, oval, pen, text, numbered steps, highlight, blur, pixelate, solid redaction, crop and background.
- The background sets the shot on a colour, gradient, picture or none, with padding, rounded corners, a shadow and a size (Auto, 16:9, 1:1, 4:5, 4:3, 3:2). Put it in a MacBook or iPhone frame, and add a watermark in a corner or tiled.
- Private details. Oriel looks for emails, API keys, tokens and card numbers in each shot and covers them for you. A note says what it hid; Undo brings them back.
- Copy or Save when you're done. The original stays in the Library, so you can open it and mark it up again.
- Your own images. Open any picture with Open file… in the menu bar panel and it opens as an editable copy; the file itself is left alone.
Recording your screen5
- Start. ⇧⌘5, or Record in the menu bar panel. Pick a display, a window or an area, and choose the camera, the microphone and the Mac's sound.
- Separate tracks. Screen, camera, microphone and the Mac's sound are kept apart, so Studio can turn one down or move the camera later.
- The record bar has the timer, Pause, Restart, Discard, the mic level, the camera and Stop.
- Teleprompter. Turn it on in Settings › Recording, add your script from the record bar, and it moves along next to the recorded area as you speak, never inside it.
- Count down first gives you a few seconds before recording starts.
Editing in Studio7
- Your take is safe. Studio never changes the recording. Edits are kept in a project you can come back to.
- Zoom on clicks zooms in where you clicked and back out, by itself. Change or remove any zoom on the Zoom track.
- Smooth cursor steadies the pointer. Keys pressed shows the shortcuts you typed.
- Captions come from the words you say, transcribed on your Mac. Fix a word in the transcript and the caption follows.
- Edit by transcript. Strike words in the transcript to cut them from the video. Remove fillers takes out the ums and uhs, and Trim long pauses shortens the silences.
- Split, trim and speed from the toolbar; Size sets 16:9, 9:16, 1:1 or 4:5.
- Export an MP4 at 30 or 60 fps, or an animated GIF with a size to aim for.
The Library and search5
- Everything you capture lands in the Library: screenshots, recordings and pinned shots, newest first, as a grid or a list.
- Search the words inside captures. Oriel reads the text in every capture on your Mac, so typing an email address, an error message or an order number finds the shot it's in. It also matches the app and window title.
- Sorted on this Mac. New captures are sorted into groups such as Code, Conversations, Design, Receipts & Orders, App settings and Charts & Data, and by the app they came from. Sort older captures too in Settings › Library sorts the ones from before, in the background, using Apple Intelligence on the Mac.
- Select several to copy, export or move them to the Trash together. Rename, Quick Look and Show in Finder are in each capture's right-click menu.
- Turn reading off in Settings › Library if you'd rather Oriel didn't read your captures; search then matches names, apps and windows only.
The MCP server for coding agents5
- What it's for. Coding agents can look at what they built: capture a window or the screen, read the text on it, find where a button is, compare two images, mark up a shot, and record a short GIF or MP4.
- Set it up. Open MCP Server in the sidebar and turn on Let AI agents use Oriel. Pick your app (Claude Code, Claude Desktop, Codex, Cursor, VS Code, Windsurf, Gemini CLI or another MCP app) and follow its steps; new sessions see the tools.
- Private details are hidden first. With Hide private details on, emails, API keys, tokens and card numbers are blacked out before an agent sees a capture.
- You'll know. With Show a badge on, a small note shows when an agent captures, and a red dot stays while it records.
- Local only. The server answers on a socket in Oriel's folder on this Mac. Nothing listens on the network.
Where your captures live2
- The Library is in ~/Library/Application Support/Oriel, with your captures, Studio projects and the text read from them. Settings › Library shows the folder.
- Saved copies go to the folder you picked in Settings › Capture.
Buying and licences8
- Try it first. Everything works for 7 days from the first launch.
- Pay once. $19.99 for one Mac, with every future update included. Buy from Settings › About or Oriel › Buy Oriel…; the payment is handled by Dodo Payments.
- After the trial your Library still opens and your captures stay where they are. New captures and recordings need a licence.
- Activating. After checkout Oriel opens with your key filled in; press Activate. Or paste the key from the Dodo Payments email into Settings › About.
- Moving to another Mac. Deactivate in Settings › About on the old Mac, or remove that Mac at console.papermint.studio, then activate on the new one. Reinstalling on the same Mac doesn't take another place.
- All your licences are at console.papermint.studio: your keys, the Mac each is on, and your receipts.
- Refunds. Ask from your receipt at console.papermint.studio or through the Dodo Payments email, or write to hello@papermint.studio.
- Offline is fine. The licence is checked about once a day when the Mac is online, and Oriel keeps working for 30 days without a connection.
Updates3
- Automatic. Oriel checks for a new version about once a day and installs it when you choose, from Settings › About; your Library stays as it was.
- Check now from Oriel › Check for Updates… or Settings › About.
- Signed updates. Every update is signed by us and notarized by Apple, and Oriel refuses anything that isn't.
Removing Oriel3
- The app. Quit Oriel from its menu bar panel and drag it from Applications to the Trash.
- Your Library, if you want it gone too: delete ~/Library/Application Support/Oriel. Copies you saved elsewhere stay where they are.
- Your licence stays yours. Deactivate this Mac first, or remove it later at console.papermint.studio, to use it on another Mac.