Keep your next
capture moving.

Your first snip.

1. Click New Snip in the editor — it is the leftmost control — or use the scissors icon in the menu bar.
2. Drag to select an area, or choose Full screen for that display.
3. Add arrows, highlights, text or numbered markers.
4. Click Copy image, then paste into a destination that accepts images.

Use Open, Paste or drag an image into the editor to work with a file you already have. Snip requires macOS 15 or later and has an English interface.

Screen and microphone permission.

Open System Settings → Privacy & Security → Screen & System Audio Recording and enable Snip. On some macOS versions this is called Screen Recording. If macOS offers Quit & Reopen, follow that prompt and try New Snip again.

If capture is still blocked, check that you enabled the same installed copy of Snip that you are opening. Editing an existing image with Open or Paste does not need this permission.

Microphone access is only requested if you turn Microphone on in recording setup and choose Start Recording. If you declined it earlier, enable Snip under Privacy & Security → Microphone. Screen capture and recording only happen when you ask for them.

Get the screen ready first.

Choose Delay: 3s, 5s or 10s, then click New Snip. The editor hides while the countdown runs, giving you time to open a menu or arrange another app. After the countdown, select an area or Full screen.

Delay: Off captures immediately. Cancel returns to your existing image without clearing its marks. The countdown panel is excluded from the captured image.

Change your mind. Change your marks.

Use Select to move an annotation. Shapes, arrows and redactions have handles for resizing. Use the color and size controls to adjust a selected mark, and Edit text for a text annotation. Undo and Redo are available in the editor for the current session.

These controls edit marks you added in Snip. Text and objects already inside a screenshot are image pixels, so they cannot be edited separately.

Extract Text isn't reading it correctly.

Extract Text uses Apple Vision on your Mac to read the visible pixels of the current image. Review and edit the result in the panel, then use Copy Text. Nothing is uploaded, and no API key or account is involved.

• Capture the text larger or closer in — small, low-contrast text reads poorly.
• Code, tables and multi-column layouts can be misread or reordered; check the result before you use it.
• English is prioritized. Recognition of other languages depends on your macOS version and installed language support.
• Edits you make to the extracted text are not written into the PNG — the image keeps its original pixels.

What lands on the clipboard.

A new screenshot is copied to your clipboard automatically and saved as a PNG at its original resolution, so a successful capture is immediately ready to paste. If you cancel a capture, or bring in an image with Open or Paste, your existing clipboard content stays as it was.

Edits update the saved PNG automatically, but they do not re-copy on their own. After annotating or redacting, click Copy image so the clipboard holds the edited version — otherwise you may paste the original capture.

Starting a New Snip does not ask for confirmation: Snip saves the previous captured image first, then continues with the new capture.

Light, Dark or System appearance.

Snip follows your Mac’s appearance by default, and you can pin the editor to Light or Dark at any time. The choice affects Snip’s own interface only, never the pixels in a capture or recording.

Where are my images?

Captures save automatically as PNGs. Editing a capture updates its saved PNG after a short pause, and starting a new capture saves the previous image and its marks first.

Click Show Snips in the editor footer or the File menu to open the correct folder in Finder. The direct local build uses Pictures/Snip; sandboxed builds use Snip's app storage (Application Support/Snip/Captures inside the app container). Files remain until you delete them. Save lets you make an additional PNG wherever you choose.

Saved PNGs are flattened images. Separate marks and undo history remain only in the current editing session — reopening a PNG does not restore editable annotations.

If automatic saving fails, keep the current image open and use Save to export a copy to a writable location. Check free disk space and folder access, then retry.

Copy a detail. Or give it a finish.

Copy image puts PNG and TIFF representations on the clipboard for compatibility. Standard Copy and Save preserve the source pixel dimensions. If a destination does not accept pasted images, save a PNG and attach that file instead.

Studio adds a Violet, Midnight or Paper background, adjustable padding, rounded corners and a shadow. Use its Copy styled image or Save PNG controls to export that result. The added background increases the output dimensions.

Check what you share.

Drag Redact over a detail to cover it with solid black pixels that are flattened into copied and saved images. Check that the entire sensitive area is covered before sharing. The redaction remains editable during the current session.

An automatic capture file may exist before you add a redaction. Editing updates that PNG, but does not erase copies you made earlier or copies held in backups or sync folders. Delete or replace those separately if needed.

Record your screen.

Screen recording arrives in Snip 1.4 and requires macOS 15 or later. Snip 1.3.2 does not include Record. Mac App Store release in preparation.

Choose Record, or File → New Recording, to open recording setup. Pick Region or Full Screen for one display, turn System Audio and Microphone on or off independently, choose your microphone input, and set a delay of Off, 3s, 5s or 10s. Then choose Start Recording.

While recording you can see the elapsed time and use Pause, Resume and Stop. Snip’s own control windows are excluded from the recording. If you hear no sound in the result, check that the audio toggle you needed was on before you started, and that the correct microphone input was selected.

Recording captures video and any audio you enabled. It does not include a webcam, and it does not offer trimming, video annotations, captions, live streaming or cloud hosting. Annotations are a screenshot feature.

Find and share a recording.

After you press Stop, one MP4 is saved on your Mac and opens in Recording Preview. From there you can play it back, use Save As to keep a copy where you choose, Show in Finder to reveal the actual file, or Copy File to paste the file into an app that accepts file attachments. Copy File places the file itself, not image clipboard data, so apps that only accept pasted images will not take it — attach the saved MP4 instead.

The direct local build saves recordings in Movies/Snip/Recordings. Sandboxed and App Store builds use Snip’s own app storage (Application Support/Snip/Recordings inside the app container). Show in Finder always opens the actual output location.

If a recording is interrupted, finalized segments can remain on disk so Snip can offer recovery when you return. Once a final MP4 is written successfully — including after a successful recovery — those temporary segments are removed. Recovery is a best effort, not a guarantee, so stop a long recording deliberately when you can and keep enough free disk space before you start. Completed PNG and MP4 files stay until you remove them.

Bring the context to your AI chat.

Capture the interface you want to discuss, point to the change, then click Copy image. Paste the image into a chat that supports image input and type your request.

Snip prepares and copies the image. It does not connect to an AI service, send prompts or modify your code. Your chosen service handles the next step under its own account requirements, charges and privacy policy.

NEED A HAND?

Contact support.

When reporting a problem, note:

• Your Snip version (Snip → About Snip) and your macOS version.
• What you expected to happen, and what happened instead.
• The exact steps that caused the problem, in order.
• Whether you use multiple displays.

Remove private information before attaching screenshots.