Pin any part of your screen.
Live.

Keep terminals, dashboards, videos and status indicators visible without keeping the whole window open.

Download for Mac Pro $9.99 once

macOS 13 or later · Apple silicon and Intel · one pin free, forever

import { useEffect } from 'react'
 
export function BuildStatus() {
  // keep an eye on it
  return <Meter />
}
> npm run dev
VITE ready in 342 ms
 
building…
✓ 148 modules
api | listening :8080
api | GET /health 200
api | GET /v1/pins 200
0 × 0
VITE ready in 342 ms
 
building…
✓ 148 modules

Select a region. Release. It keeps updating while you work somewhere else.

How it works

Three seconds, then you forget it exists

No configuration, no sources to add, no window picker. You draw a rectangle around anything already on your screen.

1

Select

Press ⌥⌘P from any app and drag a region. A pixel loupe and a live size readout show exactly what you are about to capture.

2

Pin

Release. The region lifts out into a floating window that stays above everything else and never steals focus when you click it.

3

Continue

Switch apps, go full screen, change desktops. The pin stays in sight and keeps updating.

ViewPin's selection overlay over a terminal, showing corner brackets, a 294 by 130 size readout, and a pixel loupe with exact coordinates

Selecting. The readout gives size, aspect ratio and scale factor before you commit.

What people pin

Anything you keep alt-tabbing back to

Build output

Watch a compile finish without leaving your editor.

Server logs

Keep a tail visible while you write the code that produces it.

Dashboards

Grafana, Datadog, CloudWatch — a single panel, not the whole browser.

Charts

One ticker or one graph, floating over everything else.

Video and streams

A talk or a match in the corner while you work.

Anything at all

If it renders on your screen, it can be pinned.

The Console

It shows you what it costs

Most utilities ask you to trust that they are light. ViewPin reports its own frame rate, latency and load, per pin, continuously.

The activity trace on each card is real: ScreenCaptureKit tells ViewPin when a region did not change, so the graph shows whether your build is actually doing anything — for free, from data the capture already produces.

Three live pins7.1% CPU
Memory64 MB
Capture to screen0.2 ms
App sizeunder 5 MB
ViewPin's Console showing three live pins with moving thumbnails, activity sparklines, frame rates and latency

Every pin appears as its own moving picture — the real capture, not an icon.

Privacy

Your screen never leaves your Mac

ViewPin is a viewer, not a recorder. Frames go from ScreenCaptureKit straight to a window and are never written anywhere.

  • Nothing is saved to disk, uploaded, or sent anywhere.
  • No account, no sign-in, no server to depend on.
  • No analytics on anything your screen contains.
  • Works entirely offline, including your licence.
A ViewPin window floating above an editor, showing live build output from the terminal beneath it

Pricing

One pin is free. Forever.

Not a countdown, not a nag screen. If one pin is all you need, that is a complete product and it costs nothing.

Free

$0

No account, no expiry

  • One pin at a time
  • Up to 30 fps
  • Move, resize, pause
  • Menu bar and global shortcut
  • The full Console
Download free

Pro

$9.99

once, plus GST · every future update included

  • Unlimited pins
  • Up to 60 fps
  • Opacity control
  • Click-through pins
  • Float over full-screen apps
  • Saved layouts
  • A shortcut for every pin
Get ViewPin Pro

Every download includes a 7-day Pro trial. When it ends you drop to Free — you are never locked out.

Questions

Does it slow my Mac down?

Three pins running at once measured 7.1% CPU and 64 MB on an M-series MacBook. ViewPin uses ScreenCaptureKit and hands frames straight to the GPU, and it skips work entirely when a region has not changed — a static terminal costs almost nothing to keep pinned.

Is this screen recording? Where do the frames go?

Nowhere. ViewPin is a viewer. Frames travel from the system capture API to a window on your Mac and are discarded. Nothing is written to disk or sent over a network. macOS still asks for Screen Recording permission, because that is the permission that governs reading the screen at all.

What happens when a pinned window moves or closes?

A pin captures a rectangle of the display, not a window, so it keeps showing whatever is at those coordinates. Move the source window and the pin shows what is now underneath. Following a specific window as it moves is on the roadmap, not in this version.

Does the free version expire?

No. Every download starts with 7 days of Pro. After that you keep the free tier permanently — one pin, full quality, no nag screens.

How many Macs does one licence cover?

Several. Activate on each Mac with the key from your receipt. Your licence works offline; ViewPin re-checks it quietly when it can and never stops working because a network is unavailable.

Multiple displays?

Yes. Pin regions on any connected display, at any scale factor. The Console draws your actual monitor arrangement to scale and shows which pin is where.