Compare
Honest comparisons, including when to buy theirs
The Mac screenshot category is crowded and most of it is good software. These pages say what each competitor does better, because a comparison that only flatters us is worth nothing to you.
Screenshot Inbox vs CleanShot XThe capture-and-annotation incumbent. Different job, often run alongside.Buy theirs if You spend your day producing screenshots for other people — documentation, bug reports, design feedback, tutorials.
Screenshot Inbox vs ShottrFast, local and free or nearly. The hardest price comparison on this site.Buy theirs if You want a fast, free, local capture tool and you don't go back looking for old screenshots.
Screenshot Inbox vs CaplioThe closest thing to a direct competitor. Browse-first rather than retrieval-first.Buy theirs if You want a visual library for images generally, not just screenshots, and browsing a timeline is how you prefer to find things.
Screenshot Inbox vs XnapperThe closest overlap on this page: on-device recognition and automatic redaction, aimed at making a screenshot look good.Buy theirs if You screenshot things in order to send them — to a customer, a pull request, a social post — and the work is making that image clear and presentable before it goes.
Screenshot Inbox vs the built-in macOS toolsLive Text and Spotlight do more than people think. Precisely where they still stop.Buy theirs if You take a handful of screenshots a week, deal with them the same day, and never go back for one.
All 5 checked against the current released versions on 4 September 2026. If something here is out of date, tell me and I'll correct it.
All five at once
The whole category on one screen.
Eight things people actually decide on. Every cell restates a claim from the comparison page it links to, and “not stated” means the vendor does not document it — not that the answer is no.
| What you are trying to do | Screenshot Inbox | CleanShot X | Shottr | Caplio | Xnapper | Built-in macOS |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Search every screenshot you have ever takenNot the last few in an in-app history — the whole library, by the words inside the image. | Yes — The core feature | No — No | No — No | Yes — Yes, in the app | Partly — Recent in-app history | No — Filename and date only |
| Retrieve without leaving the app you are inA global shortcut that opens over your work, because stopping to open an app is the thing you won't do mid-task. | Yes — Global overlay | No — No | No — No | No — Open the app | No — Open the app | No — No |
| Reads text on your Mac, not on a serverEvery one of these does this locally. It is table stakes in this category, and worth saying so. | Yes — Apple Vision | Yes — Per capture | Yes — Yes | Yes — Apple Vision | Yes — Apple Vision | Yes — Live Text |
| Keeps the Desktop clear on its ownWatches wherever macOS saves screenshots and files them without being asked. | Yes — Automatic | Partly — Choose a save folder | No — No | Yes — Watches a folder | Not stated — Not stated | No — No |
| Indexes the screenshots you already haveMost people arrive with several thousand. A tool that only sees new captures leaves all of them unfindable. | Yes — Resumable import | No — No index to import to | No — No | Not stated — Not stated | Not stated — Not documented | No — No |
| Annotation and markupArrows, shapes, callouts, blur — producing an image for somebody else to look at. | No — Redaction only | Yes — Extensive editor | Yes — Quick tools | Not stated — Not stated | Yes — Arrows, shapes, blur | Partly — Preview markup |
| Scrolling capture, GIF and videoCapturing more than one screen's worth, or motion. We do not attempt any of it. | No — No | Yes — All three | Partly — Scrolling | No — No | No — No | Partly — Screen recording |
| What it costsOne-time where it is one-time. An update fee or a subscription is named as such. | Yes — $22 once | Partly — $29 + $19/yr | Yes — Free or low one-time | Partly — Subscription or lifetime | Partly — $54.99 for two Macs | Yes — Free |
The short version
Most tools in this category are capture tools — they help you take a screenshot and do something with it immediately. Screenshot Inbox is a retrieval tool: it assumes you already took the screenshot and the problem is finding it again three weeks later.
That's why the honest answer is often "run both". A capture tool and an index of everything you've captured barely overlap, and at $22 once we're not asking you to replace anything.
$ swift build -c release
Compiling ScreenshotInboxCore (48 sources)
error: connection timeout after 30000ms
at PackageResolver.resolve(_:) line 212
host: github.com attempt 3 of 3
** BUILD FAILED **
Terminal — build failureTerminal · 9 Aug
Stripe › Balance › Payouts
Next payout $4,182.60 26 Aug 2026
Schedule: automatic, every 7 days
Account ending 4471
Last payout $3,904.15 19 Aug 2026
Stripe — payout scheduleSafari · 12 Aug
#eng-backend
priya 10:41
migration 0042 has to run before deploy
it rebuilds the fts index, ~4 min lock
raj 10:44
ok — window is 02:00 IST Saturday
Postgres migration notesSlack · 4 Aug
Create API token
Token name: screenshot-inbox-worker
api key sk_live_51KdmQ2eZvKYlo2C
Permissions: Workers KV Storage — Edit
Copy this now. It will not be shown again.
Cloudflare — API tokenSafari · 1 Aug
INVOICE UT-2026-118
Udaan Technologies
Bill to: Acme Corp
Retainer, July 2026 ₹84,000.00
GST 18% ₹15,120.00
Total due ₹99,120.00
Invoice — Acme CorpPreview · 28 Jul
OCRQualityTool — batch run
thermal state: nominal
low power pause triggered 0 times
no timeout observed
queue drained, newest first
Xcode — Vision throughputXcode · 22 Jul
Decision guide
Choose by the job, not by the feature table.
The right answer is often another app, or both. These are the questions that decide it fastest.
Need scrolling capture, video or heavy markup?Buy a capture suite. Screenshot Inbox is deliberately not trying to replace that workflow.
Need to find an old screenshot by its words?That is the core reason Screenshot Inbox exists: full-library retrieval from anywhere.
Need local-only because of clients or credentials?Read the privacy page first. It explains exactly what network access exists and how to verify it.
Only take a few screenshots a week?You may not need this at all. Live Text, Preview and Finder can be enough for small libraries.
Before you choose
Is CleanShot X better than Screenshot Inbox?
For producing screenshots — annotating them, capturing a scrolling page, sharing a link — yes, and we say so on its page. CleanShot X is a capture tool. Screenshot Inbox is a retrieval tool: it assumes the screenshot already exists and the problem is finding it three weeks later. They barely overlap, which is why a lot of people run both.
Can I run Screenshot Inbox alongside another screenshot tool?
Yes, and for CleanShot X and Shottr it is the setup we would suggest. Screenshot Inbox does not replace the system capture shortcut or intercept anything — it watches wherever macOS is already saving screenshots and indexes what appears there. Your existing tool keeps working exactly as it does now.
Why is it cheaper than the alternatives?
There is no server to run. Recognition happens on your Mac with Apple Vision, the index is a SQLite file on your disk, and nothing is uploaded — so there is no recurring cost to pass on and no subscription to justify. It is $22 once.
Do I need this if I already have Live Text and Spotlight?
If you take a handful of screenshots a week and deal with them the same day, no — keep your $22, and the macOS comparison page says exactly that. Spotlight does index the text in images now, but hours or days after the fact and only through a Finder search most people never run. The difference is whether a capture from ten minutes ago is findable.
Which one finds an old screenshot by what it says?
That is the specific job Screenshot Inbox exists for. Every capture is read on-device, indexed with the app it came from and the entities inside it, and searchable from a global shortcut over whatever you are working in.
Keep reading
Or come at it from your side of the problem.
For developers →Terminal output, API responses, config screens and error dialogs — captured constantly, and actually needed again weeks later.For consultants & agencies →If your screenshots hold other people's data, most of this category is off-limits to you. This one was built for that constraint first.For designers →Interface screenshots, type specimens and competitor flows. A pile of images is only a reference library if you can find things in it.Screenshot tools that don't upload →A survey of what actually stays on your Mac, including tools we do not sell.How to search thousands of old screenshots →The free approaches first, then the indexed one. Useful whichever tool you end up with.