HoverBoard is a screen annotation tool for Mac that puts every tool around your presentation in one quiet menu bar app: draw, spotlight, freeze, whiteboard, private notes, meeting recording, offline transcription, and on-device summaries — all a hotkey away.
macOS 14+Core tools free60s Pro trial$15.99 to unlock
30-day money-back
ETDP
★★★★★
Loved by presenters, trainers & educators who present every day.
Draw, spotlight, freeze, whiteboard & more — over a live lesson. Watch on YouTube
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Works seamlessly over the tools you present on
Zoom Google Meet Teams Keynote PowerPoint
The real cost
Mid-presentation friction costs you more than you think.
Your slides are ready. What kills the moment isn't the content — it's fumbling with tools while everyone watches.
You can't point at the thing
"See this number here?" Your cursor vanishes against a bright slide. You end up waving the mouse around hoping anyone can follow.
Switching apps breaks your flow
Need to draw a quick diagram? Tab out, open another app, share a new window — by the time you're back, you've lost the room.
Breaks drift, nobody notices
"Five-minute break" becomes fifteen. You forget to track it, the audience disengages, and the agenda slips for the rest of the session.
Every awkward pause costs you credibility. HoverBoard exists so the tools never get in your way again.
One flow, start to finish
Present clearly. Leave with the useful parts.
HoverBoard helps you stay in the conversation while you present — then turns the session into notes you can actually use. No app switching. No cloud account. No clean-up project afterwards.
01 / PRESENT
Make every point visible
Draw, spotlight, highlight clicks, and show keystrokes over any screen or call.
02 / EXPLAIN
Slow down the hard bit
Freeze a frame, open a whiteboard, or build a session as you teach.
03 / CAPTURE
Record without leaving Notes
Record meetings with a compact movable pill and keep timestamped entries beside your Markdown notes.
04 / FOLLOW UP
Get the signal back
Transcribe offline, label speakers, and create private summaries, decisions, and action items on your Mac.
New in HoverBoard 1.3.14
Your meeting stays yours.
Recording, English transcription, speaker labels, and Apple Intelligence summaries all run locally. Hardware and feature availability are checked before use, so the workflow stays clear and predictable.
Offline English transcription
Timestamped speaker labels
Key points and action items
Private on-device writing help
See it in action
Tools that disappear into your workflow
Click through the moments where presenters usually lose momentum — every one is a single hotkey away, layered right over your screen.
Full walkthrough in the How to Use HoverBoard guide.
Annotate in the moment
Press a hotkey and your cursor becomes a pen. Draw freely, add arrows and rectangles, use the highlighter or laser pointer, and pick colors and stroke width. Set drawings to auto-fade or keep them until you dismiss.
Capture the current screen as a frozen image, then draw on top. Your audience sees the snapshot while you annotate and explain at your own pace — no more rushing while content changes underneath you.
Numbered annotations for step-by-step walkthroughs
Save to Session from the toolbar (Pro)
Resume the live screen when you're done
Infinite canvas for teaching
Open a private whiteboard without leaving your presentation. Build mindmaps, drop sticky notes and checklists, add media links, or sketch system design with architecture stencils. Export when you're done.
Mindmap trees — Tab child, Return sibling, ⌘⇧L arrange
Sticky notes, checklists, frames, quotes, polaroids, media links
Architecture stencils — compute, data, network, infra
Export PNG, SVG, or editable Excalidraw files
Keep everyone on schedule
Set a countdown timer overlay for breaks. Choose fullscreen or a minimal corner display, customize the message, and add an optional chime when time's up. Perfect for workshops and long sessions.
Fullscreen or minimal corner overlay
Custom messages and end chime
Pause or add minutes on the fly
Be seen
Add an animated halo around your cursor. Customize color, size, and animation style, with click effects that show exactly where you're interacting. Essential for screen recordings, demos, and remote teaching.
Customizable halo color and size
Click ripple effects for emphasis
Visible on shared screens and recordings
Focus attention
Dim the screen and put a soft-edged spotlight hole around your cursor. Viewers follow your pointer without you waving the mouse — and click-through stays enabled so you can still interact.
Adjustable radius, darkness, and feather
Click-through enabled
Default hotkey ⌃⌥S — fully remappable
Show what you type
Display live keystrokes on screen while you present or record — perfect for shortcuts demos and tutorials. HoverBoard asks for a privacy confirmation the first time you enable it, and Esc closes the overlay.
On-screen HUD for modifier combos and keys
Privacy acknowledgment before first enable
Default hotkey ⌃⌥K — fully remappable
Build a deck as you present
Save frames from Draw, Freeze, or Whiteboard into a local Session library. Reorder, rename, and export an ordered PNG set or multi-page PDF when the session is done. Everything stays on your Mac.
Save to Session from Draw, Freeze, or Whiteboard
Session browser with frame reordering
Export PNG files or multi-page PDF (Pro)
Your notes, invisible when you need them to be
Keep speaker notes, prompts, and technical details beside your presentation in a fast local Markdown workspace. Notes stay private by default, so your audience sees only what you intentionally share.
GitHub-Flavored Markdown with live preview
Mermaid diagrams, folders, search, and autosave
Popup or full-screen presenter mode
Private / Sharing toggle and PDF export (Pro)
Record once. Keep the useful parts.
Capture a meeting from Notes, then turn the recording into a searchable local transcript and a private summary with key points, decisions, and action items.
Quiet tools for the live session, plus a private way to make sense of what happened afterwards.
One hotkey, no context switching
Every tool appears exactly where you need it: over your slides, browser, IDE, or video call. Stay in the conversation instead of hunting through windows.
Works over anything
Present on Zoom, Meet, Teams, Keynote, PowerPoint, a browser, or an IDE without changing how you share your screen.
Private by default
No account, no cloud workspace, and no telemetry on your screen contents. Your notes, recordings, transcripts, and sessions stay on your Mac.
Leave with something useful
Capture frames, notes, recordings, transcripts, and follow-up in one workflow — then export what you need when the session is done.
Built around muscle memory
Global hotkeys use a consistent Control-Option leader by default, and every shortcut can be remapped in Settings.
Spotlight and Timer free forever
Spotlight and Break Timer never require Pro. Try Draw and the rest for 60 seconds, then unlock the full workflow with a one-time Pro license.
Made for live moments
Lightweight and quiet until you summon it, so the app supports your presentation without becoming part of the distraction.
Export when the moment is over
Turn a live session into something you can keep: export annotated frames, whiteboards, notes, transcripts, and follow-up without rebuilding the work in another app.
Why HoverBoard
Presentify alternative for Mac
Presentify and similar apps are great at drawing on screen, cursor focus, and spotlight. HoverBoard is a broader Mac presentation tool: it adds Freeze, Timer, Keystrokes, Mindmap Whiteboard, private Notes, and Sessions — with Spotlight and Timer free forever, plus a 60-second Draw trial. Read the full Presentify alternative comparison →
HoverBoard
Presentify & similar
Stock macOS / Keynote pointer
Draw & annotate over any screen
Cursor highlight / halo
Spotlight focus
Screen zoom magnifier
Freeze the screen & explain
Break timer overlay
Live keystroke display
Infinite whiteboard + mindmap / collage
Simple board
Sessions capture & PDF export
Private Notes — Markdown, Mermaid & PDF export
Excalidraw / SVG export
Spotlight / Timer free forever
Paid / Setapp
—
One-time purchase, no subscription
—
Works over Zoom / Meet / Teams
—
Loved by presenters
What people are saying
★★★★★
"This app is incredibly cool! I help my parents with their MacBooks whenever they need it. Thanks to the cursor highlighting, they no longer have to ask, 'Which button should I press?' It's really handy to start highlighting something or drawing arrows. Or take the whiteboard feature — you can easily sketch out a diagram or write something… This app is just awesome! Thanks so much!"
i3
i3aychikov
Reddit · helping parents on Mac
★★★★★
"I teach three online classes a day. Freeze & Explain alone changed how I walk through diagrams — I snapshot the slide, annotate step by step, and the class actually follows. The hotkeys are muscle memory after a day."
E
Elena Vasquez
Online instructor
★★★★★
"Demoing software to clients used to mean endless 'let me find the right window'. Now I draw on the screen, freeze to explain a flow, and the halo shows every click. My demo recordings look professional with zero editing."
D
Devon Park
Solutions engineer
Simple pricing
Free forever. Pro once.
Download the same app for everyone. Spotlight and Break Timer stay free forever. Try Draw, Freeze, Whiteboard, Notes, Cursor Halo, Keystroke Display, Sessions, and more for 60 seconds, then unlock the full workflow with a one-time Pro license.
Free
$0/ forever
Present every day with Spotlight and Break Timer — no account, no trial countdown, no card.
One-time payment, not a subscription. Same download for Free and Pro — buy a license, paste the key from your email to unlock. 30-day money-back guarantee, no questions asked.
Questions
Before you ask
Does it work while I'm sharing my screen on Zoom, Meet, or Teams?
Yes. HoverBoard draws and overlays on top of whatever is on your screen, so when you share your screen or a window in any video call, your audience sees the annotations live. It works over Keynote, PowerPoint, browsers, IDEs — anything.
What's free without buying?
Spotlight and Break Timer are free forever — no trial countdown. Draw, Freeze, Whiteboard, Cursor Halo, and Keystroke Display include a 60-second Pro trial each time you open them. See the complete guide for the full free vs Pro breakdown.
Does my data stay private?
Completely. HoverBoard has no backend server, no account, and no telemetry on your screen contents. Your slides, drawings, and whiteboards stay on your Mac. Whiteboards export only when you choose to. Keystroke Display asks for a privacy confirmation before the first enable.
What's the refund policy?
A 30-day, no-questions-asked money-back guarantee. If HoverBoard doesn't fit your workflow within 30 days of purchase, email us and we'll refund the full amount — you don't need to justify it. Buy it, put it through its paces in real presentations, and if it's not for you, get every cent back.
Which macOS version do I need?
HoverBoard runs on macOS 14 (Sonoma) or later. It's a lightweight native menu bar app that uses minimal resources and stays out of the way until you summon it.
Can I customize the hotkeys?
Yes. Every tool — Draw, Spotlight, Freeze, Whiteboard, Break Timer, Cursor, and Keystroke Display — has a global hotkey using the ⌃⌥ leader key, and all of them are remappable in Settings. Defaults are ⌃⌥D / S / F / W / T / H / K. Cheat sheet in the guide.
What are Sessions?
Sessions let you capture presentation frames as you teach. Use Save to Session in Draw, Freeze, or Whiteboard to add the current view to a local library. Reorder frames, rename sessions, and export an ordered PNG set or multi-page PDF. Sessions are a Pro feature — everything stays on your Mac with no cloud account.
How does the 60-second Pro trial work?
Draw, Freeze, Whiteboard, Cursor Halo, and Keystroke Display run at full power for 60 seconds each time you open them. A live countdown pill shows time remaining. When the trial ends, you can reopen for another preview or upgrade to Pro for unlimited use, Sessions, export/copy, command URLs, and launch at login. Spotlight and Break Timer never start a trial.
Can I export my whiteboards?
Yes. Whiteboards export to PNG, SVG, or Excalidraw format, so you can drop them straight into your slides, docs, or hand off the source file for further editing.
What are HoverBoard Notes?
Notes is a local Markdown workspace for speaker notes and presenter prompts, with live preview, Mermaid diagrams, folders, search, autosave, and PDF export. In 1.3.14 it can also record meetings, keep timestamped note entries, and connect them to local transcripts. It opens as a popup or full-screen presenter view and stays hidden from screen sharing by default until you choose Share.
Can HoverBoard record and transcribe meetings?
Yes. HoverBoard 1.3.14 records from Notes, transcribes English offline with WhisperKit, can label speakers in completed transcripts, and can create private key points, decisions, and action items with Apple Intelligence on supported Macs.
How do I learn all the tools?
Read the How to Use HoverBoard complete guide — install, every mode, whiteboard collage, hotkeys, free vs Pro, Stream Deck URLs, and troubleshooting.
Your next presentation deserves better tools.
Install HoverBoard once. Stop fighting your software mid-presentation.
