How to annotate a screenshot on your Mac
Add arrows, text, boxes, numbered steps and a magnifier to a screenshot on Mac, with Markup in Preview for free or Koi's Annotate. Step by step, compared.
Start here
What CleanShot X does, and what it costs
CleanShot X is a screenshot and screen recording app for Mac. It captures an area, a window or the full screen, takes scrolling captures, records the screen as an MP4 or a GIF with your microphone and the Mac's sound, and opens every capture in a quick overlay where you annotate, blur, pixelate, pin it on screen or put it on a background. Its text recognition runs on your Mac and reads 30+ languages, per CleanShot's features page.
On CleanShot's pricing page, the one-time license is $35. It includes the app, one year of updates and 1 GB of CleanShot Cloud. After that year, updates are an optional $19 a year. CleanShot Pro, with unlimited Cloud, team features and an app that stays up to date, is $10 per user a month billed yearly. It's also on Setapp, and it needs macOS 13 or later.
We make Koi, so read this with that in mind. Koi is not a full CleanShot X replacement: it doesn't take screenshots or record your screen. It edits the pictures and videos you already have, which covers the second half of what people use CleanShot for. That's why it isn't first below. Every fact about another app comes from its own site or its Mac App Store page, checked October 21, 2026. We didn't run tests or benchmarks.
Why switch
Why people look for a CleanShot X alternative
- Updates stop after a year unless you pay $19 again, so a new macOS feature can mean another payment.
- You only need screenshots, not recording, Cloud links or team features, and want something smaller or cheaper.
- You want a tool that does one thing better, like automatic redaction or one-click backgrounds for social posts.
- You already pay for Setapp and would rather use what's in it, or you'd rather not pay at all.
- You're on an older Mac. CleanShot X needs macOS 13.
The honest starting point: macOS already captures and records the screen for free, and most CleanShot alternatives fill in the editing around that.
The picks
The best CleanShot X alternatives for Mac in 2026
1. Shottr
Best for: Fast screenshots with OCR, scrolling capture and a pixel ruler
Shottr is the closest small, cheap alternative for screenshots. It does scrolling capture, text recognition and QR codes, annotation, a pixel ruler for measuring, and backgrounds with gradients, a shadow and rounded corners through its Backdrop tool. It runs on macOS 10.15 or later and is optimized for Apple silicon.
It's free to use, and after 30 days it asks you to consider paying. A Basic license is $12 once and is needed for commercial use; Friends Club is $30. One license covers up to 5 computers, on Shottr's purchase page. Its weakness: neither of its pages mentions screen recording, so plan on screenshots only.
2. macOS Screenshot (built in)
Best for: Capturing and recording for free, with nothing to install
Press Shift-Command-5 and the Mac's own Screenshot toolbar opens. It captures the entire screen, a window or a part of it, and records the same three, with a timer, your microphone, the pointer and a choice of where to save, per Apple's guide. Click the floating thumbnail to mark up a screenshot or trim a recording.
It's free and always there. What it lacks: no scrolling capture, no backgrounds, no blur or pixelate, no pinned screenshots and no GIF. Pair it with an editor (Koi, below, is one) and you cover most of CleanShot's daily use.
3. Xnapper
Best for: Screenshots for social posts, with automatic redaction
Xnapper puts each screenshot on a gradient or image background, picks a matching background colour for you, and redacts emails, card numbers, IP addresses and API keys in one click. It also selects text with Apple's Vision, blurs, draws arrows and shapes, and has size presets for social sites.
It's free to use with a watermark. One-time licenses are $29.99 for one Mac, $54.99 for two and $79.99 for three, each with a year of updates, and renewal is optional at 60% of the price, on Xnapper's pricing. It runs on macOS 10.15 or later and is on Setapp. Weakness: it's about making a screenshot look good, not recording video.
4. Snagit
Best for: Teams writing guides and documentation, on Mac and Windows
Snagit by TechSmith captures screenshots and scrolling captures, records the screen with your microphone, the computer's sound and your webcam, and annotates with arrows, callouts and text. Step Capture and templates help you turn captures into how-to guides.
Since Snagit 2025 it's subscription only, billed yearly with no monthly option: $39 a year for one person on TechSmith's store. It needs macOS 14 or later. Weakness: if you left CleanShot to avoid paying for updates, Snagit charges every year.
5. Monosnap
Best for: Screenshots and recordings sent straight to a cloud you pick
Monosnap takes full-screen, area and window screenshots, records video and GIFs, annotates with a pen, text, arrows and shapes, and blurs. Paid plans upload to Monosnap's cloud or to Dropbox, Google Drive, S3, FTP and others.
On its Mac App Store listing, the free download is for non-commercial use. Non-commercial plans are $4.49 a month or $44.99 a year, and commercial ones $14.49 a month or $85.99 a year. It needs macOS 14.6 or later. Weakness: it's built around uploading, so it's the opposite of a tool that keeps files on your Mac.
6. Koi
Best for: Editing, redacting and framing screenshots you took with macOS
Koi covers the editing half of CleanShot. Drag any picture, start the drag and hold Shift, and a wheel of nine tools opens round your pointer: Compress, Metadata, Edit, Annotate, Add BG, Crop, Redact, Collage and Convert. Annotate has arrows, text, boxes, rings, a pen, a highlighter, numbers and a magnifier in six colours. Redact covers boxes in a colour, a blur or pixels, and Find Faces or Text covers them for you with Apple's Vision. Add BG puts the screenshot on one of thirty gradients, a colour or another picture, with padding, rounded corners and a shadow.
For recordings, the video wheel trims, crops, compresses and mutes a video, and Convert under More makes a GIF. Every tool runs on your Mac, nothing is uploaded, and a copy lands beside the original. The Shift wheel is one part of Koi, which also types what you say in any app and records your calls. Koi needs a plan: Pro is $20 a month or $192 a year after a 3-day trial that needs a card, or Lifetime, paid once, from $59.
Weakness, plainly: Koi doesn't capture anything. No screenshots, no scrolling capture, no screen recording on its own, no pinned screenshots and no text recognition to copy. You still take the shot with Shift-Command-5.
Do it free
Take and mark up a screenshot with macOS alone
- Press Shift-Command-5. Pick Capture Entire Screen, Capture Selected Window or Capture Selected Portion.
- Open Options to choose where it saves, a timer, and whether the floating thumbnail shows.
- Click Capture. Click the floating thumbnail in the corner to open Markup.
- Draw, add text or shapes, crop, then click Done. The screenshot saves where you chose.
To record instead, pick Record Entire Screen or Record Selected Portion in the same toolbar, and stop from the menu bar. The thumbnail lets you trim the recording. It saves a .mov, not a GIF.
With Koi
Annotate, redact or frame a screenshot with Koi
- Take the screenshot with Shift-Command-5, so it lands on your desktop or in the folder you chose.
- Start dragging the screenshot. While you hold it, press Shift. The picture wheel opens round your pointer, its size in the middle.
- Drop it on Annotate for arrows and text, Redact to hide names and faces, or Add BG to put it on a gradient.
- Save. A copy like “Screenshot annotated.png” lands beside the original and shows in Finder.
Compress shrinks a screenshot before you send it, down to a file size you type. Crop has 1:1, 16:9, 9:16, 4:3 and 3:4. Convert saves it as PNG, JPEG, HEIC, TIFF, AVIF, BMP or PDF, though not WebP: the Mac reads WebP but can't write it. For a screen recording, the video wheel trims it and makes a GIF. Step by step: how to use the Shift wheel.
Comparison
CleanShot X vs the alternatives
From each app's own site or Mac App Store page. “Not listed” means the site doesn't mention it.
| Screenshots | Recording | Annotate | Backgrounds | Blur or redact | Price | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CleanShot X | Yes, scrolling too | MP4 and GIF | Yes | Yes | Blur, pixelate | $35 once, $19 a year for updates |
| Koi | No | No, edits videos you have | Yes | Yes, Add BG | Solid, blur, pixelate, finds faces and text | $20 a month, or Lifetime, $59 for the first 25 buyers, rising to $199 |
| Shottr | Yes, scrolling too | Not listed | Yes | Yes, Backdrop | Not listed | Free, $12 once to support or for work |
| macOS Screenshot | Yes | Yes, .mov | Markup | No | No | Free |
| Xnapper | Yes | Not listed | Yes | Yes | Auto redaction | $29.99 once |
| Snagit | Yes, scrolling too | Yes, with webcam | Yes | Themes | Not listed | $39 a year |
| Monosnap | Yes | Video and GIF | Yes | Not listed | Blur | $44.99 a year, non-commercial |
Head to head
CleanShot X vs Koi
They overlap on what happens after the capture. CleanShot captures, then opens its editor. Koi starts from a file you already have, a screenshot, a photo or a video, and edits it from a drag. If you want one app that does capture, scroll, record, pin and upload, CleanShot X is the better tool, and $35 once is fair for it.
Koi is better if editing is most of what you do and you'd like it on every picture on your Mac, not just screenshots. The same wheel compresses a photo for email, strips where it was taken, edits its light and colour, makes a collage, and converts HEIC to JPEG. And Koi is a lot more than a file tool: it types what you say in any app with dictation, records and transcribes your calls, and has an assistant you talk to that can see your screen.
Stay on CleanShot X if
- You take scrolling captures, pin screenshots on screen, or copy text out of a capture. Koi does none of that.
- You record your screen as a GIF or MP4 often. Koi doesn't record the screen outside a call.
- You share captures as Cloud links with a team.
- You want one app for capture and editing, paid once at $35.
- You need macOS 13. Koi needs macOS 14 or later.
Privacy
Where do your screenshots go?
Screenshots hold more than people think: an email address in a tab, a name in a chat, a card number in a form. So it's worth knowing which tools keep them on your Mac. CleanShot X's text recognition runs on your Mac, and its captures stay local until you upload one to CleanShot Cloud for a link. Monosnap is built around uploading to its cloud or yours. Shottr, Xnapper and the Mac's own Screenshot toolbar save files to your Mac.
Every tool on Koi's Shift wheel runs on your Mac and nothing is uploaded, including Find Faces or Text, which uses Apple's Vision on the Mac. Metadata shows what a photo says about itself, the camera, the date and where it was taken, and Remove all clears it before you share. The Shift wheel uses no AI, so it never counts against Koi's usage. Whatever you use, redact before you post: a cropped-out corner is still in the original file.
Choosing
Which CleanShot X alternative should you pick?
- Cheap screenshots with OCR and scrolling capture? Shottr.
- Free and nothing to install? macOS Screenshot, Shift-Command-5.
- Polished screenshots for social posts, with automatic redaction? Xnapper.
- Documentation and how-to guides, on Mac and Windows? Snagit.
- Uploading every capture to a cloud? Monosnap.
- Editing, redacting and framing screenshots and videos you already took, on your Mac? Koi, with macOS doing the capture.
Related: ImageOptim alternatives for shrinking images, and HandBrake alternatives for compressing screen recordings. See Koi's plans.
Keep exploring
How to add a background to a screenshot on your Mac
Put a Mac screenshot on a gradient background with padding, rounded corners and a shadow: free with Keynote, or in one drag with Koi's Add BG. Apps compared.
The best Shottr alternatives for Mac
Shottr alternatives for Mac compared: CleanShot X, Xnapper, macOS Markup and Koi. Capture, scrolling, annotation, backgrounds, redaction and prices.
Drag a file. Hold Shift.
Drag any file on your Mac and hold Shift: crop a photo, edit a video, merge or compress a PDF, convert files or unzip. Tap Shift on the desktop for dark mode.
Support
Frequently asked questions
Yes. The Mac's own Screenshot toolbar, Shift-Command-5, captures and records the screen for free, and Shottr is free to use, with a $12 license for commercial use.
Yes. The license is $35 once and includes a year of updates and 1 GB of Cloud. After the first year, updates are an optional $19 a year; the app keeps working without them.
No. Koi doesn't capture the screen. Take the screenshot with Shift-Command-5, then drag it with Shift held to annotate, redact, crop, compress or put it on a background in Koi.
CleanShot X, Shottr and Xnapper all have a background tool. In Koi, drag the screenshot with Shift held and drop it on Add BG: pick a gradient, colour or picture, with padding, corners and a shadow.
CleanShot X, Monosnap and Xnapper have a blur tool. In Koi, drop the screenshot on Redact and draw boxes covered in a blur, pixels or a solid colour, or let Find Faces or Text cover them.