Screenshots

1. Capture Modes

Choose how to capture: full screen, a specific window, a custom region, any shape you trace, or a scrolling page.

Shortcut: ⌃ + ⌥ + ⌘ + A

• Scroll capture automatically stitches long pages
• Region mode lets you select exactly what you need
• You can capture while a recording is running. The shutter in the floating controls (or ⌃⌥⌘S) grabs a still of exactly what the recording sees, and the take keeps going
• Global shortcuts: ⌃⌥⌘S screenshot, ⌃⌥⌘A area screenshot, ⌃⌥⌘L Free Capture, ⌃⌥⌘T Capture Text. You can change these in Settings → Hotkeys

2. Free Capture — any shape, not just a rectanglePro

Trace a shape on screen and cut out exactly that. The screen freezes while you draw, so nothing moves under your hand — drag to trace freehand, or click to place straight edges, and mix both in one shape. Let go and it closes itself. What lands is a transparent PNG cropped to what you traced.

Shortcut: ⌃ + ⌥ + ⌘ + L

• Magnetic edges snap the trace to nearby high-contrast borders. Press M to turn it on, hold ⌥ to steer by hand for a stretch, and [ or ] to change how far it reaches
• Soft edge controls how the cut meets whatever you paste it onto. − and + adjust it while you draw
• ⌫ removes the last stretch you drew, so one wobble does not cost you the whole shape
• Trace across two displays and the cutout spans both, with a transparent band where the gap between them falls

• Good to know: Paste into an app that flattens transparency — most chat and slide apps do — and the clear background fills in white. The copy carries a real PNG file alongside the image, so sending it as a file keeps the transparency
• Good to know: Free Capture is a stills mode. There is no recording of a traced shape: choose Record while it is selected and you get the region flow instead

3. Scroll capture — full pages, the right way

Capture a whole scrolling page as a single tall image. OwnClip brings the window to the front, scrolls it for you, and stitches the frames together. You never scroll by hand. Run it two ways: capture the entire window, or draw a region to capture only the part that actually scrolls.

• Full window — best for articles, docs, long chats, settings panes, and forms.
• Region — draw a box over just the scrolling area. Use it on pages with a fixed sidebar, header, or footer (like social feeds) so those don’t repeat down the image.
• Pause autoplaying videos and close pop-ups or cookie banners first. Anything that moves or floats can appear more than once in a stitched shot.
• Very long or endless feeds stop at a built-in length limit so the image stays usable.
• Apps with their own custom scrolling (some code editors and terminals) can confuse full-window capture. If a window stops after one screen, use Region mode and draw over just the scrolling content; that captures it cleanly.
• The window needs to be scrollable; it comes to the front while capturing. A small panel shows when it’s preparing, scrolling, and done; just let it finish.
• The finished tall image opens in the editor. Scroll or zoom to review it, then save (the success toast has a Show in Finder button).

4. Quick Access overlay

Every screenshot drops into a floating panel in the corner: your latest shot front and center, your last few captures stacked behind it. Drag a thumbnail straight to Slack or Finder without ever opening the editor. Click it to edit. Pin to protect from auto-prune. Auto-saves to a managed Recents folder; oldest non-pinned roll off past your configured history size (3 to 20).

• History size, auto-dismiss, corner, and "open editor on capture" are all configurable
• Every capture is copied to your clipboard as it lands, ready to paste. If you would rather keep your clipboard untouched, turn "Copy screenshot to clipboard after capture" off in Settings › General
• Pinned screenshots survive the prune cap, even past 20 items
• Hover the overlay to pause the auto-dismiss timer
• Hover any thumbnail for its quick actions (Edit, Copy, Float, Keep, Delete) so you can float or copy any recent shot, not only the latest
• Stills taken during a recording land here too, so you can drag one straight into a message without touching the take

• Good to know: While a recording is running, the editor stays closed. Copy, drag, float and pin all still work; editing waits until you stop

5. Annotation Tools

Mark up with the full annotation toolbox: pen, marker, highlighter, eleven shape variants, arrows, text, step numbers, blur, stickers, signatures, and AI image generation.

6. PDFs use the same toolbox

Drop any PDF onto OwnClip and you get the same annotation toolbar: pen, marker, highlighter, shapes, text, step numbers, stickers, and blur. Sign with the trackpad, run on-device OCR, and flatten everything on export. There's a dedicated walkthrough with all the details, from saved signatures and audit trails to tamper-evident locking and three compression presets.

Shortcut: ⌘ + Shift + O

• Drag-and-drop PDF files directly into OwnClip
• ⌘⇧O opens the macOS file picker filtered to .pdf
• ⌘S flattens annotations and offers three compression presets
• Saved signatures and audit-trail locking are covered in the dedicated PDF guide

7. Adjustment Layers

Add a grading layer that adjusts everything stacked below it (the image itself, plus any shapes, text, or stickers already on the canvas) without touching a single pixel of the original. Choose from a full set of grading tools: Brightness & Contrast, Exposure, Curves, Levels, White Balance, HSL / Color Mixer, Color Grading, Selective Color, Black & White, Photo Filter, Sharpen & Detail, Noise Reduction, Vignette & Grain, Posterize, Threshold, Invert, and built-in Filter/Film looks. Confine any of them with a hand-painted mask or a linear/radial gradient (invert either one to flip what's revealed) and blend the result into the layers underneath. It's part of the same free toolbox from the last step, for screenshots and PDFs alike.

• Stack as many adjustment layers as you like; each one grades everything below it, including adjustment layers added earlier in the stack
• Turn on "Clip to layer below" to confine an adjustment to just the layer underneath it, instead of everything in the stack
• Paint a mask to hand-pick where an adjustment shows, or draw a linear or radial gradient mask for an instant falloff. Invert either one to flip what’s revealed
• However you stack them, adjustments always render in the same sensible order internally: white balance and exposure first, then color-mixing tools like HSL and Color Grading, then Curves and Levels, with Sharpen & Detail, Noise Reduction, and Vignette & Grain applied last. Results stay predictable no matter the order you added them

8. AI Features

Extract text with OCR (18+ languages) and smart-crop. Every model runs on-device; your screenshots never leave your Mac.

• OCR works on any visible text, handwriting included for some languages
• Text actions run on the capture before any export, so the original is preserved
• Auto-Crop is unlimited on every plan, including Free

• Good to know: The Free plan includes 5 text captures a month, shared with the other AI text actions. Pro and Studio are unlimited. A scan that fails never uses one up.

9. Magic Erase

Remove an unwanted object or person from a screenshot. OwnClip detects the subject, you confirm the selection, and it rebuilds the background behind it. Pick the engine that fits the shot: Fast for small objects on simple backgrounds, Content-Aware for textured areas like walls or sky (no download), or High Quality for production-grade removals.

• Pick the engine for the shot: Fast for small objects, Content-Aware for textured areas, High Quality for the cleanest result
• Drag the selection handles to tighten the subject before erasing: the tighter the selection, the cleaner the edges
• High Quality downloads a one-time model on first use, then runs fully offline
• Set your preferred default engine in Settings → General

• Good to know: It extends the surrounding background rather than inventing new content, so plain or textured areas (walls, sky, grass) rebuild best
• Good to know: Works best on small to medium subjects; erasing a whole person against a busy, detailed background can leave soft edges
• Good to know: Fast uses a small bundled model for quick, simple removals; Content-Aware uses no AI model at all, so results vary with the background
• Good to know: If the first pass looks rough, refine the selection or re-run with the High Quality engine

10. Pin to Screen

Keep a capture in view while you work. Float it on top of every app as an always-on reference: drag to move, scroll or drag the corner to resize, and dim it down to trace or compare. Edit, copy, or save it from the toolbar that appears on hover. Float the latest with ⇧F, or float ANY recent shot from the Quick Access strip (hover it → Float); it’s no longer just the last one. Pin as many as you like; they clear when you quit.

Shortcut: ⇧ + F

• Pin several captures at once for side-by-side reference
• Lower the opacity to trace a layout or compare two designs
• Closed it by accident? Re-open it from the menu-bar icon → Recent Screenshots

11. Capture Text (OCR)

Grab text off the screen without a screenshot at all. Draw a box over anything (a paragraph, an error dialog, a screenshot of a screenshot) and OwnClip reads it on-device and drops clean, selectable text into a small overlay, already copied to your clipboard. The language is auto-detected (18+ supported), and you can force a specific one. The same engine powers Extract Text inside the editor.

Shortcut: ⌃ + ⌥ + ⌘ + T

• Runs entirely on-device, so the text never leaves your Mac.
• Auto-detects the language; switch it in the overlay if a different script is needed.
• In the editor, the Extract Text tool opens the same overlay for the current image.

12. Beautify

Turn a raw screenshot into something share-ready. Pick from 220 built-in backgrounds, or describe one and OwnClip generates it on your Mac. Add padding, rounded corners and a shadow that adapts to the background, then lock it to an aspect ratio for any platform. Pro adds a 3D tilt. On Studio, Best Quality renders a generated background at the exact shape of your canvas, and Match My Screenshot builds one from the shot’s own colors and tone.

• AI backgrounds are generated entirely on your Mac — nothing is uploaded anywhere
• Save any look as a named style and reapply it with one tap — or, on Studio, make it your Brand style
• Batch Beautify (Pro) applies one style to a whole set of screenshots in one go
• The Adaptive shadow reads the background so the card sits right on light and dark alike
• Aspect-ratio presets cover 16:9, 1:1, 9:16, social headers, and OG images
• Beautify is non-destructive; your original screenshot is untouched

13. Export & Share

Copy to clipboard, save as PNG, JPEG, HEIC, or PDF, or grab the drag handle in the toolbar and drop the finished image straight into Slack, Mail, Finder, or a browser upload. Every path preserves your annotations at full resolution.

Shortcut: ⌘ + C

• The drag handle (next to Copy) exports exactly what you see — annotations, Beautify framing and all — rendered fresh the moment you drop.
• Editing a PDF? The same drag handle carries the full annotated PDF, not a flattened image.
• After you save, the confirmation has a Show in Finder button to jump straight to the file.
• Smart Share turns any capture into a branded, trackable link without leaving the app.