CleanShot X: The Mac Tool to Perfect Screenshots Every Time

When it comes to creating engaging tech content, the right screenshots can make all the difference. After years of writing tutorials and reviews for the Mac audience and the Apple user ecosystem, we’ve learned that high-quality visuals are just as crucial as the information shared. Enter CleanShot X—our go-to tool that revolutionizes the way we capture, edit, and share screenshots.

About CleanShot X

CleanShot X is an all-in-one screenshot and video capture tool made for macOS. It can replace the screenshot app that your Mac comes with and offer many additional features. You can use CleanShot X to capture typical screenshots, GIFs, or screen recording videos.

Over time, CleanShot X has become the go-to screenshot tool for many professionals using macOS. For what it’s worth, CleanShot X offers an incredible set of features as well. These features do a great job of creating stunning screenshots that you can confidently share on the web or social media.

Features highlight:

• Native macOS look and feel.
• Capture full screens and specify custom area dimensions.
• Scrolling capture.
• Add arrows, text boxes, shapes, highlights, and blur effects to your screenshots.
• Crop, resize, and rotate your screenshots with ease.
• Record your screen as a video.
• Record as GIF.
• Transcribe video content directly within CleanShot X.
• Extract text from images with OCR function.
• Combine multiple images into one.
• Easily access and manage your previous screenshots.
• Leverage AI for automatic text highlighting and intelligent suggestions.
• Menu bar module, no keyboard commands required.
• Upload screenshots or recordings to CleanShot Cloud and get a link to share.
• Apple Silicon & macOS Sequoia ready!

CleanShot X review (TheSweetBits take)

We wanted to tell you how faithful CleanShot X is to the claims it makes. It won’t be difficult because we’ve been using CleanShot X for over two years for all things screenshots on our Macs. However, for the purpose of this review, we tested the latest version of CleanShot X on our M2 MacBook Air, running macOS Sequoia.

This way, we can give you an overview of how it feels to install, set up, and use CleanShot X. Although we’ve looked at its video and GIF creation options, the focus will be on static screenshots.

TheSweetBits’ key takeaways

• You can capture Mac’s screenlike a pro, including full-screen, app-window, and scrolling modes. You can also customize how each of these capture modes behaves.
• An incredible collection of editing and annotation tools, including cropping, shapes, redaction, etc., removing the need for tens of separate apps.
• CleanShot X doubles as a design tool that you can use to make your screenshots look great, thanks to multiple templates, backgrounds, etc.
• Offers screen recording and GIF creating, but not fully replace dedicated tools like Snagit for advanced users.
• Additional features like Optical Character Recognition (OCR) and CleanShot Cloud add more value to the screen capture experience.
• There’s no free trial version, but the developer offers a 30-day money-back guarantee.
• The overall performance is good.

Setup and getting started

You can install and set up CleanShot X in a few minutes. The process takes less time if you get the app from a source like Setapp. Anyway, during the setup, you need to provide permission for Accessibility and Screen Recording. It does not ask for anything extra.

There is no setup process as such. When you start CleanShot X after the installation, you can see the icon on the menu bar. You can use this widget to access the screenshot utility. In most cases, CleanShot X can replace the native macOS screenshot shortcuts with the ones specific to the app.

It means you can start using CleanShot X for screen capture in a few seconds.

User interface and user experience

Like other screenshot apps/utilities for macOS, CleanShot X also does not have a full-window interface. You can, instead, access the utility from the menu bar widget or using a keyboard shortcut. So, when you are not using CleanShot, you won’t know it is running in the background.

We always use keyboard shortcuts for typical screenshots, such as full-screen and window. However, when you want something special like All-in-One, OCR, or Scrolling Capture, you need to access the widget. Either way, the UI of CleanShot X is intuitive and easy to navigate.

It is also convenient that CleanShot X integrates so well with macOS. After a day or two, the app feels like a native feature. Therefore, we have more praise to say about the overall User Experience from CleanShot X. We also believe the developers deserve a raise for their constant improvements.

Screenshot capture features

As we said, CleanShot X lets you capture a variety of screenshots. The list includes All-In-One, Capture Area, Capture Window, Full-screen, and Scrolling Capture. Depending on the option, you would see many control options on the screen. More importantly, you can ask CleanShot X to do certain tasks after capturing.

For instance, CleanShot X can open the Quick-Access Overlay, Save, Copy the file to the clipboard, or open one of the built-in processing tools. You can also use the cloud service to automate the sharing process. This option lets you set up CleanShot X to upload the screenshot to cloud storage and give you a shareable URL.

What’s more, you can get standard control options, such as the background, shadow, screenshot quality, etc. You can also decide whether you want the screen to freeze or if you want the cursor present on the screenshot. CleanShot X currently supports PNG and JPEG files only.

CleanShot X seamlessly integrates with macOS, making it a great option if you were previously using the Mac screenshot app. The latest version of CleanShot X also integrates with Raycast AI Chat. So you can use Raycast Chat to access the screenshots you have captured using CleanShot.

Editing options

Capturing what you want is something, but you need the right editing tools for great screenshots. When you use CleanShot X, you get a total of three editing tools. You can mix and match options from these tools until you have the best screenshot.

The first editing interface lets you crop and resize the screenshots using custom measurements or presets. It also lets you change the background and aspect ratio for the image. We can use this section to bring two different screenshots into a single canvas.

You can explore the various annotation tools after you have cropped the screenshot. You can easily insert a number of shapes, arrows, and text elements into the screenshot. More importantly, CleanShot X allows you to redact/highlight information as well.

Third, we have the Background tool, which does a lot more than adding backgrounds to the screenshots. It offers a variety of options, including background images, colors, and alignment. You can customize your captures with precision, pick one of the many aspect ratios as well. This feature is particularly powerful for capturing screenshots for Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, or Facebook.

Presets available with this feature are a lifesaver if you regularly create content for your blog or social media profiles. As we detailed in this article, CleanShot X’s editing tools have significantly saved us time by allowing us to apply consistent styles across our screenshots.

Additional features

Before we look at the additional features of CleanShot X, we must understand how customizable CleanShot X actually is. It lets you customize almost every aspect of its functionality, including file formats and whether you need shadows on your screenshot.

So, integrating the tool into your workflow seems easier than you may think it is. In addition to those options, you get the following extra features as well.

• OCR

The OCR functionality of CleanShot X makes it capable of replacing apps like TextSniper. When you want to copy text that you cannot select, you can capture an image using the OCR mode. Its OCR module works with different languages, including English and German.

We also found that the OCR tool doubles as a QR scanner. So, when we come across a QR code on our Mac, we don’t have to pick up the phone to scan it.

• Screen Recording & GIF

You can use CleanShot X as a fully-fledged screen recorder, allowing you to create some decent videos. You get standard options, like trimming and webcam video on the inset. You can use this module to create GIFs as well. As CleanShot X integrates so well with macOS, you can also use features like Cofntinuity Camera.

It also works great in highlighting mouse clicks and turning off notifications while you are recording. The basic editing/trimming interface is also great in most cases. Sure, it can’t replace the ones like Snagit, but you can easily create a shareable tutorial.

• CleanShot Cloud

This feature makes it easy to share screenshots with the public or within your team. You’d love this option if you want to organize screenshots for software documentation or something more enterprise-grade. Basic cloud-based features are included in the one-time purchase plan of CleanShot X.

For starters, it is a great way to quickly upload a screenshot and get a shareable link with just one click. For teams, it’s great to your professional image by sharing captures using your own custom domain and branded links. Add your logo and adjust the appearance to create a consistent experience for clients and collaborators. You can also organize your captures with tags for easy access, enhance security by setting expiration dates for links, and password-protect your files.

Additionally, CleanShot Cloud offers advanced video features, including a custom video player with automatic transcription and autogenerated captions, making it a comprehensive solution for both image and video sharing.

Our take: These are only a few of the 50+ superb features that CleanShot X offers. The developers keep adding amazing features and optimizations through regular updates. For instance, they recently added Smart Highlighter. It will detect the size of text on a screenshot and adjust the brush size accordingly.

These features may seem so small, but they make a huge difference when you have a complex workflow. An awesome feature we love is custom names for screenshots. Instead of using random names, you can set up CleanShot X to add your company name, date, app name, etc., into the file name.

A word on performance

Though it packs so many features, CleanShot X has a minimal software footprint. So, even when you use the app at its full capacity, CleanShot X does not take a lot of resources. This is an ideal situation since you would want to multitask while using the screenshot utility.

The last thing you need is the screenshot utility eating up RAM and CPU resources, right? With CleanShot X, you can worry not, even while using its features like Quick-Access Overlay and deeply integrated Capture History.

Pricing

You can either get the app + Cloud Basic for $29. This plan gives you access to all features plus 1GB of cloud storage space. However, if you want full cloud-based features, you should pay $8 per user per month, and it will give you unlimited cloud storage and custom branding options.

In addition, CleanShot X offers discounts for students and those who have already purchased PixelSnap. You can also make use of the 30-day money-back guarantee if you end up not liking the app. You can get the app via Setapp as well.

We noticed that the app does not have a free trial. However, its 30-day money-back guarantee makes up for this. If you still haven’t tried Setapp, you can use its 7-day trial to check out the full version of CleanShot X and other 200+ apps.

FAQs

Is CleanShot legit and safe to use?

Yes, CleanShot X is a legitimate and safe application for macOS. The application is a native macOS app, providing great performance and stability. Additionally, CleanShot Cloud offers a secure way to store and share your screenshots with optional password protection for added security.

Who can benefit from CleanShot X?

• Technical writers and educators
• Software developers and designers
• Marketing and social media professionals
• Customer support representatives
• Anyone who needs to capture and share their screen regularly

What is the alternative to CleanShot X?

While CleanShot X offers a robust feature set, one notable alternative is Xnapper, known for creating visually appealing screenshots with features like automatic redaction and social media templates. For a detailed comparison between Xnapper and CleanShot, you can refer to this comparison. Other alternatives include LightShot and Shottr, which are free tools ideal for basic screenshot needs and available on both Mac and Windows.

Footnotes

This is no conclusion that the built-in screenshot utility on macOS is bad. But it needs many improvements. Until those improvements appear, it makes sense to rely on CleanShot X.

We can also say that CleanShot X has helped us save hours, if not days, in the past years. And, we would easily recommend this tool to every content creator out there.

For more details, visit the official CleanShot website and download the app today!