Parrot Macro app icon: a green parrot with a play-shaped beak

Parrot Macro

Record your mouse and keyboard. Replay it exactly, as many times as you ask.

Download for Mac

Version 1.2.1 · Free · macOS 13 Ventura or later · Apple silicon and Intel
Signed and notarized, so it opens without warnings. Updates install from inside the app.

Three shortcuts, no scripting

Record ⌃⌥⌘R

A short countdown, then every click, drag, scroll and keystroke is captured with its timing. Press again to stop.

Replay ⌃⌥⌘P

Plays the last recording with the original pauses, or faster. Repeat a set number of times or until you stop it.

Stop ⌃⌥⌘X

Works from any app, including full-screen ones. Holding ⎋ for a second or clicking the menu bar icon stops too.

Built for replays that do not drift

Playback is scheduled against a clock rather than by sleeping between steps, so the fiftieth repeat lands where the first one did. Before each click the cursor is moved into place and allowed to settle. Recorded mouse paths are replayed as paths, so apps that react to hovering and dragging see real movement. Parrot Macro also brings the recorded app back to the front and puts its window where it was, and warns you first if your screens or keyboard layout have changed since you recorded.

What it asks for, and why

Accessibility
Needed to move the mouse and press keys during playback, and to put the recorded window back in place.
Input Monitoring
Needed to see your mouse and keyboard while recording. The app walks you through both permissions the first time it opens.

Your recordings stay on your Mac, encrypted

Every recording, including the keystrokes typed while it was made, is encrypted on your Mac with a key that lives in your login Keychain. Backups, cloud sync and other apps see only scrambled files, and an app that asks for the key has to get past the macOS permission prompt first. Nothing is uploaded, there are no analytics, and the only network request Parrot Macro ever makes is to check for updates. Exported .macro files are plain text so they can be shared; mark a recording as sensitive and it cannot be exported. Passwords typed into fields macOS protects with Secure Input are never seen by the app at all.

Questions

Can it wait for a screen to load, or react to what is on screen?
Not in this version. Record generous pauses, or add an extra pause before clicks in the recording's settings.
Why did my keystrokes not record in a password field?
macOS turns on Secure Input for password fields and some terminals. No app can see those keystrokes; Parrot Macro shows a warning while this is happening.
Does it work on a different screen layout?
Clicks use the recorded coordinates by default. Each recording can instead scale to the current screen size or play relative to where the cursor is when you start.
What does the encryption protect against?
Anything that gets hold of the recording files without the key: Time Machine and cloud backups, disk images, a shared account, or an app that quietly reads your Library folder. It cannot protect against software you have granted Accessibility access, which could watch your keyboard directly.

What's new

1.2.1
Only recordings written by Parrot Macro itself are read from its recordings folder. A file placed there by anything else is reported as unreadable instead of being trusted, so no other software can plant a recording or a shortcut.
1.2
Recordings are encrypted on your Mac with a key kept in your Keychain. Recording files are checked before use, so a damaged or hostile file can no longer crash the app or bind a global shortcut when imported.
1.1
Warns when the app is running from the disk image or a temporary location, where macOS would forget the permissions you grant, and asks you to move it to Applications first.
1.0
First release: record and replay your mouse and keyboard with three shortcuts, a Library with speed, repeats and a shortcut per recording, and updates from inside the app.