CleanShot X
The Mac screenshot tool that replaces 7 apps: capture, annotate, record, OCR, and cloud in one toolbar.
About
CleanShot X is a native macOS screenshot and screen recording app marketed as seven apps in one, and for a lot of Mac users it has replaced a whole utilities folder. A single toolbar handles freehand area, window, full-screen, timed, and scrolling captures, plus on-device OCR text recognition. Captures open in an annotation editor with arrows, shapes, text, highlights, and blur, and a floating overlay keeps recent shots handy for dragging into other apps or uploading to CleanShot Cloud with a share link. The same app records video with webcam, keystroke overlays, cursor effects, and adjustable zooms.
Pricing is refreshingly simple for this category: a $35 one-time Basic purchase (Mac app forever, 1GB cloud, one year of updates, optional $19/year renewal), or Pro at $10 per user per month for unlimited cloud, custom domains, and team features. It is also included in the Setapp subscription. The obvious limit is macOS-only, and older reviews cite $29 pricing that has since risen to $35. No independent performance benchmarks are published.
What it can do
- Area, window, fullscreen, timed, and scrolling captures
- Annotation editor: arrows, shapes, text, highlights, blur, pixel resizing
- Screen recording with webcam, keystroke overlays, cursor effects, smart zooms
- On-device OCR text recognition from any capture
- CleanShot Cloud: instant upload, share links, comments, 4K quality
- Pin screenshots as floating always-on-top references
- Desktop icon hiding and background customization for clean captures
- Hotkey presets and customizable file formats and destinations
Setup
Buy on cleanshot.com, download the native Mac app (or install via Setapp), and grant screen-recording permission.
Prerequisites
macOS 13.0 or newer.
Use cases
Works with
Trust score — 8/10
Scored 8/10 (verified tier, metrics-v1). Evidence: the official pricing page confirms the $35 one-time Basic plan and $10/user/mo Pro plan with feature breakdowns, and independent reviews (TechRadar, macss) verify the capture, annotation, recording, OCR, and cloud feature set. Strengths: one native app replacing a stack of utilities, honest one-time pricing, included in Setapp. Docked for: (1) macOS-only; (2) the base price crept from $29 to $35 over time; (3) cloud sharing and the full editor require their ecosystem, and no independent benchmarks exist. License: proprietary.
How the trust score is built
Full methodology →- Adoption · stars/downloads, log-scaled vs peers
- 8.0/10
- Maintenance · recency, releases, issue load
- 9.0/10
- Openness · license + docs
- 2.0/10
- Manual review · sanity read + red-flag check
- 8.0/10
- · Native macOS app; requires macOS 13.0+
- · Area, window, fullscreen, timed, and scrolling captures
- · Annotation editor: arrows, shapes, text, highlights, blur
- · Screen recording with webcam, keystroke overlays, cursor effects, smart zooms
- · On-device OCR text recognition
- · CleanShot Cloud: instant upload, share links, comments, 4K
- · Included in the Setapp subscription
- · macOS-only; price rose from $29 to $35 over time; no independent benchmarks
Sources
Every fact above was checked against these sources. Where a claim comes from the provider and couldn't be independently verified, the text says so.