Every feature, built for speed.
A complete screenshot and recording toolkit, built natively for macOS and tuned for speed and ease of use.
Capture
Press your shortcut and the selection overlay is there at once. The screen is frozen underneath, so you get exactly what you saw.
- Area, window, full screen
- Drag to select, click a window, press F for the whole display.
- Previous area
- Capture the same part of the screen again with one key.
- Self-timer
- Wait 3, 5 or 10 seconds, then capture. Open a menu or hover a button in the meantime and it shows up in the shot.
- All-In-One
- Every capture mode in one panel, for when you do not remember the shortcut.
- Precise selection
- A magnifier for pixel-perfect edges, the exact size as you drag, and arrow keys to nudge.
- Resize from any edge
- Grab an edge anywhere along its length. Hold ⇧ Shift to keep the shape, or ⌥ Option to resize from the center.
- Screenshot flash
- A brief flash confirms the capture. It never ends up in the image and never slows saving down.
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Scrolling capture
Capture pages, chats and documents that are longer than your screen, as one image.
- Fixed parts once
- Sticky headers, footers and docks appear once in the result instead of on every screen.
- Live progress
- A small panel shows how long the image is so far, with hints along the way. Press Return to finish or Esc to cancel.
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Text recognition
Select any part of the screen and the words in it are ready to paste. It works on images, videos and slides, and runs entirely on your Mac.
- Private
- Recognition uses Apple's built-in text recognition. Nothing is uploaded.
- QR codes and barcodes
- Capture a code and what it contains is copied. Web links also get an Open button.
- Its own shortcut
- Give text capture a shortcut of its own, or start it from the menu bar.
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On-device intelligence
Shotbolt reads your screenshots so you do not have to: it finds, names, redacts, captions and translates them. All of it runs on your Mac with Apple’s built-in models. Nothing is uploaded.
- One place for all of it
- Settings → Intelligence has search, smart file names, redaction, captions and translation together, each with its own switch.
- See what is ready
- The pane shows which of Apple’s on-device models are ready on your Mac, and why one is not, for example when Apple Intelligence is switched off.
- See what is stored
- It shows how much text Shotbolt has read from your captures and keeps on your Mac. Clear deletes it, never your captures.
- Copy Text from any capture
- Right-click a capture in Quick Access or history and choose Intelligence → Copy Text to copy its words, without capturing again. The same menu has the AI actions below.
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AI-safe Copy
Paste screenshots into ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini with your keys and personal data covered first. One click, on your Mac.
- Covered before you paste
- API keys, passwords in links, email addresses, card and bank numbers and the other kinds Redact finds are covered with solid blocks. If the text cannot be read, nothing is copied, never the original.
- The right size
- Large screenshots are scaled down to a size AI tools accept, and hidden details such as the time and screen resolution are removed.
- Or just the text
- Hold Option to copy the text instead, as clean Markdown with lists and code blocks, and anything sensitive replaced by a label such as [REDACTED EMAIL].
- Undo
- Changed your mind? Undo puts the original on the clipboard instead.
- Optional paste protection
- Turn it on and screenshots you paste into AI apps such as ChatGPT, Claude or Perplexity are redacted automatically, while other apps get the original. You choose the apps. It cannot tell websites apart, so in a browser use AI-safe Copy.
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AI actions
Right-click any capture and choose Intelligence to put its text to work. Answers appear in a small panel as they are written, and everything runs on your Mac with Apple’s on-device model.
- Extract Table
- Turn a screenshot of a table into rows and columns. Paste it straight into Numbers, Excel or Google Sheets, or save it as a CSV file. Works even without Apple Intelligence.
- Explain Error
- Capture an error message or terminal output and get what happened, the likely cause and fixes to try. Keys, passwords and other secrets are hidden before the model reads the text.
- Summarize
- Three or five short bullet points for a long page, chat or document.
- Alt Text
- A one or two sentence description of the screenshot for people who use a screen reader.
- No chatbot, no upload
- There is nothing to type and no account. Copy the answer, try again, or close the panel to stop.
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Measure and inspect
Check sizes, spacing and colors anywhere on screen, without opening a design app. Press your Measure shortcut and the screen holds still while you measure.
- Distances as you point
- Lines run from the pointer to the nearest edges, with the width and height between them.
- Boxes that snap
- Drag a rough box around a button or an image and it shrinks to fit it exactly.
- Spacing
- Select two boxes and hold Option to see the gaps between them.
- Guides
- Press H or V to add a horizontal or vertical guide, labeled with its position.
- Points or pixels
- Switch with one key. Shotbolt remembers your choice.
- Copy or save
- Copy a size as text, like “128 × 44 pt”, or save the screen with every measurement drawn in.
- Colors
- See the color under the pointer as HEX, RGB or HSL, and copy it with one key.
- Contrast check
- Click two colors to check if text is easy enough to read, with a clear pass or fail for the WCAG 2.2 AA and AAA levels. A ratio is never rounded up to make it pass.
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Annotation editor
Mark up a screenshot and change your mind later. Every annotation stays separately selectable and editable after saving and reopening from history.
- Tabs
- Open several screenshots and they become tabs in one window. Press ⌘T to pick an earlier screenshot from your history.
- Layers panel
- See every annotation in a list, including ones hidden under others, and bring anything to the front or send it back.
- Shapes and lines
- Rectangle, rounded and filled rectangles, ellipse, triangle, star, speech bubble, line and pen.
- Arrows
- Tapered, straight, curved or double-headed, with head size and bend controls.
- Text
- System, rounded, serif and monospaced fonts, 8 to 120 pt, outlines and pill, rounded or square backgrounds.
- Counters
- Numbers, letters or Roman numerals, filled or outlined, with Renumber from 1.
- Highlight and spotlight
- Highlight like a marker, or dim everything except the part that matters.
- Auto-redact
- One click, or the D key, finds email addresses, phone numbers, IBANs, card numbers, API keys, IP addresses and more, and covers just the sensitive part. It all happens on your Mac.
- Redact before copying
- Optional: every new screenshot is checked before it reaches the clipboard. The original stays in your history, in case you need it.
- Redaction
- Pixelate, blur, or a solid block that fully hides what is underneath. Solid is the default, because blurred text can sometimes be read back.
- Combine screenshots
- Drop or paste another image onto the canvas. It becomes a layer you can move and resize, and the canvas grows to fit.
- Lift Subject
- Cut a person, an object or a window out of a screenshot as a transparent image. Windows keep their rounded corners and shadow. Copy it, save it, or make it the canvas.
- Rotate, flip and resize
- Annotations move with the image, and text never ends up mirrored or upside down.
- Backgrounds
- 30 presets, your own pictures, custom gradients, padding, corner radius and shadow. Save any setup as a preset.
- Color picker
- A built-in picker with a hex field, and an eyedropper on every color control to match anything on screen.
- Adjust
- Exposure, contrast, highlights, shadows, color temperature, sharpness and more, or one-click Auto Enhance. Hold the backslash key (\) to compare with the original.
- Filters
- Vivid, Warm, Mono, Noir, Sepia and more, previewed on your own screenshot, with an intensity slider. Adjustments stay editable after you save.
- Precise controls
- Rotate with snapping, pick line thickness and style, add shadows, and reuse recent colors.
- Crop
- Free or 1:1, 4:3, 16:9, 3:4 and 9:16.
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Edit and translate text
Change the words in a screenshot as if it were a document: fix a typo, mock up a new label, hide a name, or translate the whole thing.
- Click and retype
- Press I, or choose Edit Text in Screenshot on a Quick Access card, click any line of text and type. The new text matches the size, weight, color and position of the original, and the background is filled in around it.
- Erase text
- Clear a line and it disappears from the screenshot.
- Move, turn and resize
- Drag edited text anywhere, turn it or scale it with its handles. The patch that hides the original stays where the old words were.
- Translate in place
- Translate the whole screenshot, or just the lines you pick, with Apple’s translation built into macOS. The language is detected for you.
- Private
- Reading and translating happen on your Mac. A language is downloaded once by macOS, after it asks you, and then works offline.
- Always editable
- Every changed line stays its own layer, so you can restyle it, retype it, or delete it to bring the original back. Hold the backslash key (\) to see the original.
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Quick Access and history
Every capture is one move away: dragged into another app, pinned above your windows, or found again days later.
- Quick Access
- Each new capture appears as a small card in the corner. Copy, save, annotate, or drag it straight into another app. When a capture clearly needs it, the card suggests one next step, such as Redact or Translate.
- Pinned screenshots
- Keep a capture floating above your other windows, with zoom and see-through controls.
- Recent captures
- One shortcut shows your latest captures at the edge of the screen. Close it and you are back where you were.
- Search inside screenshots
- Type a word and find every screenshot that shows it, with the match highlighted. The text is read on your Mac shortly after you capture.
- Full history
- Grouped by day and filtered by type. Select several captures to copy, save or drag them at once.
- Smart file names
- Optional: captures are named after what they show, like “Stripe – Payout settings”, by Apple’s on-device model. Off by default.
- Keyboard friendly
- Move with the arrow keys, press Return to open and Space to preview.
- Safe deletes
- Remove a capture from history only, or move the file to the Trash. You choose.
- Keeps itself tidy
- Keep captures forever, or for 3 months, a month, a week or a day. Only captures you never saved are removed.
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Compare
Spot what changed between two screenshots, down to the pixel. Made for checking designs, releases and bug fixes.
- Compare with Previous
- One click compares a screenshot with the one you took before it. Or pick from your recent screenshots, or drop in any image.
- Four ways to look
- Side by side with zoom kept in step, a swipe slider, one image faded over the other, or a difference view that marks every changed pixel.
- Lines up for you
- A shift of a few pixels is corrected automatically, so the whole screen does not light up as changed.
- Only real changes
- Changes are grouped and counted. Press [ or ] to jump to the previous or next one, and set a tolerance for how small a difference may be before it counts.
- Share the result
- Export the difference image, or both screenshots side by side with every change boxed and numbered. It lands in history.
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Step-by-step guides
Show someone how to do something by just doing it. Every click becomes a step with a screenshot and a title, ready to share as a document.
- Record your clicks
- Choose Record Step Guide, or Steps in All-In-One, and work as usual. Each click captures the window you clicked in. No extra permission is needed.
- From a screen recording
- Already recorded it? Choose Make Step Guide on a video in history, or Step Guide in the video editor. Every click in the parts you kept becomes a step, and what you said before a click becomes its description.
- Titles written for you
- Each step is named after what you clicked, like “Click ‘Save’ in Pages”. The words are read on your Mac.
- Numbers and spotlight
- Every screenshot gets a step number and a spotlight on the click. Turn either off for all steps.
- Tidy it up
- Edit titles and notes, drag steps into a new order, merge two steps, crop again, or open any step in the editor to mark it up.
- Redact every step at once
- Cover email addresses, card numbers and other sensitive data in all screenshots with one click.
- Share it your way
- Export a Markdown folder, a single HTML file with light and dark mode, or a PDF. Or copy it as rich text and paste it into Notion, Google Docs or Pages.
- Kept in history
- Guides appear in history with a Guide badge, and never expire.
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Workflows
Do the same few things to every screenshot? Save them as a workflow and run them with one shortcut.
- Build it from steps
- Redact, filter, background, resize, file format, file name, copy, save to a folder, pin, open in the editor or show in Quick Access. Put them in any order.
- Start from a template
- Share safely, Polished screenshot or Bug report, then change what you like.
- One shortcut
- Give a workflow its own shortcut. It captures an area, a window or the full screen and runs every step, in one go.
- Or run it later
- From the menu bar, on screenshots in history, or from a script with a link.
- Safe by design
- If redaction cannot finish, the workflow stops, so an unredacted screenshot is never copied or saved. Your original captures are never overwritten.
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Screen recording
Record your screen as a video or an animated GIF. Add your camera, show your clicks and the shortcuts you press, if you want them.
- Sound and pointer
- Include your microphone, the sound from your Mac and the pointer. The recording panel shows which ones are on.
- Camera bubble
- Drag it to any corner, or switch to full-screen camera. The camera turns off the moment you stop.
- Click highlights
- A ring wherever you click, in your color and size. Right-clicks look different.
- Keystrokes
- Show the shortcuts you press. Normal typing stays hidden by default and typed text is never stored.
- Countdown
- A short countdown before recording starts. Press Esc to cancel.
- GIF conversion
- Shows progress and time left. Changed your mind? Save it as a video instead.
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Video editor
Everything a tutorial needs, nothing a film studio needs: cut the slow parts, zoom in where it matters, add titles and captions. Everything runs on your Mac.
- Trim and cut
- Drag the ends to trim, and cut out parts in the middle. Removed parts stay visible, so you can bring them back.
- Smart zoom
- Zooms are added around your clicks and where the pointer pauses. Move, resize or remove any of them.
- Zooms that feel right
- Pick a curve for each zoom (Smooth, Snappy, Spring or Linear), set how long it takes to zoom in and out, and follow the pointer or hold on an area you choose.
- Titles and callouts
- Add text on its own timeline lane: a title, a lower third or a callout, fading, sliding or popping in and out.
- Speed up the slow parts
- Play a stretch at 1.5×, 2×, 4× or 8×. Audio is muted there and the rest stays in sync.
- A calmer pointer
- Optionally smooth the pointer's path, hide it when it rests and add a click effect.
- Motion blur
- Zooms and pointer movement get a natural blur, rendered in full when you export.
- Framing
- Put the video on a background with padding, rounded corners and a shadow.
- Captions
- Turn speech into captions on your Mac, with nothing uploaded. Fix any line in the transcript, then pick a font, size and position, and highlight each word as it is spoken.
- Subtitles and transcripts
- Burn captions into the video or GIF, save SRT or WebVTT subtitle files, or copy the whole transcript.
- Export
- Original, 16:9, 1:1, 9:16 or 4:5, as MP4 or GIF, up to 4K.
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And the details that add up
- Your own shortcuts
- Click any shortcut in Settings and press the keys you want. Esc cancels, Delete clears it, and Reset brings the defaults back.
- Clash warnings
- If macOS or another app already uses a combination, Settings tells you and shows where to change it.
- Fewer permissions
- Capturing needs only Screen Recording. The camera and keystroke overlay ask for permission only when you turn them on.
- Switch without relearning
- Your CleanShot X shortcuts, export folder and after-capture actions come along on first launch. Otherwise a short welcome guide sets you up.
- Automation
- Every capture mode, Measure, Record Step Guide and each saved workflow has its own link, so Raycast, Keyboard Maestro or a script can start it.
- Follows macOS
- Light and dark appearance, native materials, and every animation respects Reduce Motion.
- Local and private
- No account, and your captures never leave your Mac. One click saves captures to iCloud Drive, so they show up on your other devices.