Bananotate

Bananotate is a macOS screen annotation app that captures and marks up anything on your screen with pen, shapes, arrows, and text, then lets you present, teach, or share the result.

What is Bananotate?

Bananotate billed itself as 'Your Screen, On Steroids' — a native macOS screen annotation app for capturing whatever is on your screen and marking it up live. The tool covered the full annotation toolkit: a pen for freehand drawing, rectangle/circle/line shapes, directional arrows, and text callouts with precise size control, plus a standout on-screen color picker that snags any shade from anywhere on your display and drops the hex value straight onto your clipboard. Around that core sat presentation-oriented features — blackboard and whiteboard modes for teaching, image pasting directly onto apps, Combos that chain multiple commands into one shortcut like a built-in Yellow Highlighter, and professional alignment tools for building clean UI mockups. It was sold freemium on the vendor's own site: a free tier with core tools, then one-time 'pay once, use forever' licenses (Standard $39, Extended $74) that included lifetime updates and dashboard-based license management. The catch: the vendor has since rebranded the whole product to Brilliant, a free vector design tool with AI agents, and bananotate.com now just redirects there. There's no TrustRadius, G2, or Capterra listing to lean on, so everything above comes from the vendor's own (archived) site.

Key Features

• Screen Capture & Annotation — Capture anything on screen and mark it up live with pen, shapes, arrows, and text.
• On-Screen Color Picker — Pick any shade from anywhere on your screen and get its hex code copied to your clipboard instantly.
• Precision Alignment — Center, align, flip, scale, and fine-tune corner radius so callouts land pixel-perfect.
• Combos — Chain multiple commands into a single shortcut, including a built-in one-tap Yellow Highlighter.
• Blackboard & Whiteboard Modes — Switch your screen into a teaching surface for clear, focused presentations.
• Image Pasting — Drop images directly onto any app or screen, with full move, resize, and edit controls.
• Text Annotations — Add and fine-tune text callouts with precise size levels for explanations and feedback.
• Lifetime Updates — Paid licenses include all current and future features and updates at no extra cost.
• License Dashboard — Manage activations and transfer licenses between your Macs through a personal web dashboard.

Who is it for?

• Presenters and teachers who want to draw live over their screen during demos or lessons
• Designers and reviewers leaving precise visual feedback on screenshots and mockups
• Mac users who prefer a one-time purchase over a subscription for screen capture and annotation
• Content creators pasting images and mockups into on-screen explainers

Who is it NOT for?

• Windows, Linux, or web-only teams — the app is macOS native and stays there
• Anyone needing team collaboration or shared annotation workspaces — this is a solo tool
• Buyers expecting an actively sold product: the brand has rebranded to Brilliant and the standalone app is no longer offered for purchase
• Users who are already happy with macOS's built-in screenshot markup or free alternatives like Skitch