A Windows tray application for capturing screenshots and clipboard images to temporary files, with hotkey-triggered path pasting.
Ephemery (ephemeral + memory) - Temporary screenshot storage for quick file path access.
💡 Perfect for AI workflows! Quickly capture and share screenshots with AI assistants (Claude, ChatGPT, etc.) by pasting file paths instead of uploading images manually.
Ever wanted to share a screenshot with an AI assistant but found copy-pasting images cumbersome? Ephemery solves this:
- Capture - Take a screenshot with
Ctrl+Alt+S - Paste Path - Press
Ctrl+Alt+Pto type the file path - AI Ready - Your AI assistant (Claude Code, ChatGPT, etc.) can now read the image
No more:
- ❌ Manual file saving and navigation
- ❌ Drag-and-drop gymnastics
- ❌ Uploading images one by one
Just capture, paste path, done.
- 📸 Screen Capture - Snipping Tool-like region/window selection
- 📋 Clipboard Save - Capture images from clipboard
- ⌨️ Path Pasting - Paste file paths via hotkey (SendInput)
- ⚙️ Customizable Settings - Configure hotkeys and file retention limit
- 🔄 FIFO Management - Automatic old file deletion (default: 10 files)
- 🪶 Lightweight - Only 181KB (Release build)
Download the latest release from Releases page.
- Windows 10/11 (x64)
- Visual C++ Redistributable 2022 (usually pre-installed)
| Hotkey | Action |
|---|---|
Ctrl+Alt+S |
Screen capture (region/window selection) |
Ctrl+Alt+C |
Save clipboard image |
Ctrl+Alt+P |
Paste file paths |
- Capture: Press
Ctrl+Alt+Sto capture screen, orCtrl+Alt+Cto save clipboard image - Auto-save: Images are saved to
%TEMP%\Ephemery\as PNG files - Paste: Press
Ctrl+Alt+Pto type all file paths (newline-separated) - Auto-cleanup: Old files are deleted when limit is reached (FIFO)
Ephemery stores captured images in your system's temporary folder:
Storage Location: %TEMP%\Ephemery\
File Naming: ephemery_YYYYMMDD_HHMMSS_N.png
- Date/time stamp for easy identification
- Sequential number to prevent conflicts
Lifecycle:
- Images are saved immediately after capture
- File paths are tracked in memory
- When retention limit is reached (default: 10), oldest files are deleted (FIFO)
- On app restart, existing images in the folder are preserved but not loaded into the path list
- Images remain on disk until overwritten or manually deleted
Why Temporary Storage?
- Fast access (no network/cloud dependency)
- Automatic cleanup by Windows (eventually)
- No cloud storage quota/privacy concerns
Right-click the tray icon → Settings to:
- Change hotkeys
- Adjust file retention limit (1-100)
- Choose quote style (None/Double/Single/Backtick) - Wrap file paths with quotes when pasting
- Visual Studio 2022
- CMake 3.20+
- Windows 10/11 SDK
# Clone repository
git clone https://github.com/ymoage/Ephemery.git
cd Ephemery
# Build with CMake
mkdir build
cd build
cmake .. -G "Visual Studio 17 2022" -A x64
cmake --build . --config Release
# Output: build/Release/Ephemery.exeOr open the folder in Visual Studio 2022 as a CMake project.
- Language: C++17
- UI Framework: Pure Win32 API
- Graphics: GDI+ (PNG encoding), BitBlt (screen capture)
- Hotkeys: RegisterHotKey API
- Input: SendInput API
- Settings: JSON (%APPDATA%\Ephemery\settings.json)
MIT License - see LICENSE file for details.
Built with assistance from Claude (Anthropic).
This README was written by Claude Code - the very AI assistant this tool was designed to work with. Meta, isn't it? 🤖