CrtCrown

A CRT monitor frame that sits on your Mac screen, with live scanlines, barrel distortion, and bloom on the window underneath.

Download for macOS Version 1.0.0  ·  692 KB  ·  2026-08-23

CrtCrown needs Screen Recording permission — it reads the pixels of the window beneath the frame in order to draw the CRT effect on them. macOS will ask on first launch.

Nothing captured ever leaves your Mac: the pixels go straight to the on-device renderer and are never written to disk or sent anywhere.

What it is

CrtCrown draws a CRT monitor frame as a floating window on your desktop. Anything that sits under it — a terminal, an emulator, a video, a text editor — is re-rendered in real time through a Metal shader that adds the things a cathode-ray tube did to a picture: scanlines, a curved glass bulge, glow around bright pixels, and a slight bloom that spills into the dark.

It is a display effect, not a video filter. The window underneath keeps working normally — you can type in it, scroll it, and click through it while it looks like it is coming out of a 1987 monitor.

Features

Real-time CRT shader

Scanlines, barrel distortion, and bloom applied live through Metal — not a static overlay image.

Window binding

Bind the frame to a specific window so it follows that window as you move it around.

Seven presets

From a clean Classic CRT to a blown-out Cyberpunk look. Switch between them from the control bar.

Runs on anything current

Apple Silicon and Intel, macOS 14 or later. Signed with a Developer ID and notarized by Apple.

Screenshots

Screenshots coming soon.

Download

This release

Version
1.0.0
Released
2026-08-23
File
CrtCrown-1.0.0.dmg
Size
692 KB
Signing
Developer ID, notarized and stapled

Download DMG

Install

  1. Open the downloaded DMG.
  2. Drag CrtCrown to your Applications folder.
  3. Launch it and allow Screen Recording when macOS asks.

Optional: the window-binding feature also asks for Accessibility permission, which lets CrtCrown move a bound window. Everything else works without it.

SHA-256 checksum

Verify your download with shasum -a 256 CrtCrown-1.0.0.dmg and compare: 

d11d53acbd5a0696dcf3bd03a05d7634387e7048aa2b2734a03d87bb0df5da6f

Trial and licensing

CrtCrown is free to try for 7 days, with every preset unlocked. After the trial ends the app keeps working — three presets stay free forever, and the four premium presets need a license key.

Free forever

  • Classic CRT
  • Warm Amber
  • Green Terminal

Premium presets

  • 80s TV
  • Arcade Cabinet
  • VHS Tape
  • Cyberpunk

Buy a license key

After buying, the key arrives by email. Enter it in the app under menu > License… to unlock the premium presets. One key activates the app, and a licensed copy keeps working offline.

Requirements