Perishot

A macOS menu bar app that takes a photo with a connected iPhone or iPad and either copies it to the clipboard or saves it to disk.

📷 ─ Take Photo and Copy
     Take Photo and Save
     ─────
     Save Format ▸ HEIC • PNG • JPEG • TIFF
     Open Save Folder
     ─────
     Quit Perishot

Photos are saved to ~/Pictures/Perishot. The format setting applies to saving; copying puts a standard bitmap on the clipboard so it pastes anywhere. With more than one device connected, each entry grows a submenu to pick which one takes the photo.

Requirements

• macOS 26 or later (developed and tested on 26.3.1)
• An iPhone or iPad eligible for Continuity Camera: same Apple Account, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth on

How it works

AppKit exposes Continuity Camera capture through NSMenuItem.importFromDeviceIdentifier — set that identifier on a menu item and AppKit expands it into a device submenu. That mechanism is unusable for a menu bar app:

• AppKit only expands items that live in NSApp.mainMenu. Items in an NSStatusItem menu are ignored outright.
• Only the first such item in any given menu is expanded, so two entries cannot both be capture items.
• AppKit overwrites the item's title with its own ("Import from iPhone").

So Perishot skips the menu item and calls the machinery behind it directly, in SidecarImport.swift. From SidecarUI.framework:

Symbol	Use
SidecarMenuController.sharedController	Entry point
-updateMenu:withEvent:withFlags:withResponder:	Populates a throwaway NSMenu with the live device services, without displaying anything
SidecarServiceAction	One service; identified by unlocalized title (SidecarServiceNameTakePhoto, …ScanDocument, …Sketch)
-invokeWithResponder:	Runs the capture
SidecarService.devices	Connected SidecarDevices (name, identifier, model)
-copyWithDevice: + SidecarServiceAction -initWithService:	Builds an action aimed at one specific device

The captured photo arrives through the public NSServicesMenuRequestor path: the app delegate returns itself from validRequestor(forSendType:returnType:) and receives the image in readSelection(from:).

This relies on private API and can break with any macOS update. It degrades to a disabled menu reading "Device Import Unavailable" rather than crashing.

Building

open perishot.xcodeproj   # then ⌘R

Releasing

scripts/release.sh archives, exports with Developer ID, notarizes, staples, and produces a distributable zip. One-time setup:

1. Create a Developer ID Application certificate: Xcode → Settings → Accounts → Alluja LLC → Manage Certificates → + (requires Account Holder or Admin on the team).
2. Store notarization credentials in the keychain, using an app-specific password from appleid.apple.com (an account password will not work):

   xcrun notarytool store-credentials perishot-notary \
     --apple-id <apple-id> --team-id Z74U5327X4 --password <app-specific-password>

   For CI, store an App Store Connect API key instead — --key AuthKey_XXX.p8 --key-id <id> --issuer <uuid> — and keep the .p8 outside the repository.

Then ./scripts/release.sh. The script only references the profile name; the credentials themselves stay in the keychain and never touch the working tree. Override the defaults with TEAM_ID and KEYCHAIN_PROFILE if you fork this.

Notarization checks signing and scans for malware; it does not review API usage, so the private framework dependency does not affect it.