CleanShot X Review: Screenshots, Recording, and the New Video Editor

CleanShot X is a replacement for the built-in macOS screenshot tool that also records your screen, recognizes text, and shares captures as links. Its developer now mostly calls it just CleanShot, and says it has more than 50 features and over 250,000 users.

If you ask me for the best screenshot and screen recording tool for the Mac, I still say CleanShot. I use it every day for screenshots, bug reports, and short recordings. Since this review first ran, the app has had its biggest update yet: version 5.0 (September 2026) added Studio Mode, a built-in video editor. Here's what it does today and whether it's worth paying for.

Quick Takeaway

• Best for: anyone who takes screenshots or short recordings daily and wants them annotated and shared in seconds.
• Standout features: Quick Access Overlay, scrolling capture, on-device OCR, pinned screenshots, and the new Studio Mode editor with smart zooms.
• Price: $35 one-time for CleanShot Basic (one year of updates and 1 GB of cloud storage), or CleanShot Pro at $10 per user per month billed annually. Also on Setapp.
• Requires: macOS 13 or later.

Key Features

Capture

• Area, window, fullscreen, and scrolling capture (vertical and horizontal, in any app)
• All-In-One mode: every capture mode behind a single shortcut, with fixed sizes and aspect ratios
• Self-timer, crosshair, magnifier, and screen freeze for capturing moving content
• Window screenshots with a desktop, custom, or transparent background and optional shadow
• Hide desktop icons for clean captures

Annotation and Editing

• Crop, pixelate (randomized for security), blur, arrows in four styles, spotlight, counters, highlighter, pencil with smoothing, shapes, and seven text styles
• Color picker and saved color palette
• Combine several screenshots in one canvas, and save editable CleanShot project files
• Background tool with 20 built-in backgrounds, Auto Balance, aspect ratios, and reusable presets

Screen Recording and Studio Mode

• Record an area, window, or fullscreen as MP4 or GIF, with control over quality, frame rate, and resolution
• Microphone and computer audio, a webcam overlay, and highlighted clicks and keystrokes
• Do Not Disturb and desktop clutter hiding while recording
• Studio Mode (new in 5.0): smart zooms that follow your cursor, cursor smoothing, trimming, backgrounds, motion blur, and adjusting cursor size, keystrokes, and camera after recording
• Export in landscape, square, or vertical formats, with hardware-accelerated rendering

Workflow and Sharing

• Quick Access Overlay: every capture appears in a corner pop-up to copy, save, annotate, upload, or drag into another app
• Text recognition: on-device OCR in more than 30 languages, plus QR codes
• Floating screenshots: pin a capture above all windows, adjust its opacity, and click through it with Lock Mode
• Capture history: restore anything you captured in up to the last month
• CleanShot Cloud: one-click upload and share links, 4K video, transcription, and comments
• A URL scheme API and a Raycast extension for automation

What's New in CleanShot 5

Studio Mode is the reason to look at CleanShot again if you skipped it before. Until 5.0, CleanShot's recordings were plain: you trimmed and exported. Now you can turn a raw recording into a polished demo with zooms and smooth cursor movement, which previously meant paying for a separate app such as Screen Studio. CleanShot 5.0.1 followed on 18 September 2026 with bug fixes.

Screen Studio is still the more specialized tool for marketing-quality videos. But for quick demos, bug reports, and short tutorials, CleanShot's editor is now good enough that many people won't need both. We compare them in CleanShot X vs Shotbase vs Screen Studio vs Shottr.

Pricing

CleanShot Basic: $35 one-time

• The full Mac app, yours to keep
• One year of updates, then optional renewal at $19 per year
• CleanShot Cloud with 1 GB of storage

Need it on more Macs? Add seats to your license in CleanShot's License Manager. Moving to a new Mac is simple: activate it with your license key, and the old Mac is deactivated automatically.

CleanShot Pro: $10 per user per month, billed annually

• Always the latest version
• Unlimited cloud storage
• Custom domain and branding
• Password-protected links, self-destruct control, and file access control
• Team management with SSO and SCIM

A monthly Pro option is also offered; the yearly plan is about 17% cheaper.

Discounts and Other Ways to Get It

• 30% off for students with a university-issued email address
• 20% off for existing PixelSnap 2 customers
• Included in a Setapp subscription, which has a 7-day free trial
• A 30-day money-back guarantee on direct purchases (there's no free trial of the direct version)

Prices are in USD, and taxes may apply at checkout.

Pros

• Polished, native Mac interface that stays out of the way
• Huge set of capture and annotation tools in one app
• Studio Mode makes recordings presentable without a separate video app
• One-time purchase option, with updates optional after the first year
• Fast, private on-device OCR
• Regular updates (five releases between July and September 2026)

Cons

• No free trial of the direct version, only a money-back guarantee
• Basic includes just 1 GB of cloud storage; unlimited storage and team features need the Pro subscription
• Mac only, with no Windows version planned
• Captures live in folders and a one-month history, not a searchable library
• Overkill if you only take an occasional screenshot; the built-in macOS tool (Shift-Command-5) is fine for that

Verdict

CleanShot remains the screenshot tool I recommend to most Mac users. It's especially useful for:

• Developers and QA testers filing bug reports
• Support and customer success teams
• Technical writers and educators
• Founders and marketers making quick product demos
• Anyone who shares screenshots many times a day

Studio Mode turns it from a great screenshot tool into a capable all-round capture app, and the $35 one-time license is still fair for something you use daily. If you're weighing other options, see our CleanShot X vs Shottr vs Snagit comparison and our roundup of the best screenshot apps for Mac.

Catch these apps on sale: many paid Mac apps, including screenshot apps, run discounts at least once a year, most often around Black Friday. Subscribe to the Apps.Deals newsletter to hear when the deals arrive.

Note: First published in January 2025 and updated in October 2026. Features and prices are current as of October 2026 and can change; verify them on the official CleanShot website before buying.

Affiliate disclosure: This post contains affiliate links for CleanShot, Setapp, and Screen Studio. Apps.Deals may earn a commission if you purchase through them, at no additional cost to you.