All features

The relevant features of Longshot include screenshot capture, annotation, screen recording, Floatting/Pinning images/Texts, text recognition (OCR), screen measurement, color picking, quick actions, and settings.

Screenshot

Longshot offers various ways to capture screenshots on Mac. It allows capturing screenshots by dragging a specific area, capturing the entire screen, copying a screenshot, capturing a specific window, capturing multiple windows, capturing a scrolling area, and capturing a scrolling window. For scrolling capture, it even supports horizontal and 360-degree scrolling. Additionally, it provides options to delay the screenshot capture by a few seconds and remembers the history of captured areas for easy retrieval. Longshot offers a variety of screenshot methods to meet your specific needs!

  • Area screenshot
  • Window screenshot
  • Full-screen screenshot
  • Copy screenshot
  • Scrolling screenshot
  • Delayed screenshot

Area Screenshot

To capture a screenshot of a specific area, you can Start Capture and then drag the cursor to select the desired area. Once you release the cursor, the selected area will be captured as a screenshot. The area screenshot feature in Longshot supports setting the aspect ratio of the selected area, allowing you to maintain a fixed ratio of width and height. It also provides options to add rounded corners and apply shadows to the captured area.

Screenshot with Aspect Ratio, Rounded Corners, and Shadow

Window Screenshot

To capture a screenshot of a specific window, you can Start Capture and then move the cursor. Longshot will automatically identify the window under the cursor. Pressing and releasing the cursor will capture a screenshot of the selected window. You can also hold down the Shift key while selecting a window to capture multiple windows simultaneously. The window screenshot feature in Longshot also supports adding shadows to the captured windows.

Scrolling Screenshot

Sometimes, you may need to capture content that is not currently visible on your screen, such as the chat history in a conversation or a lengthy code snippet that doesn’t fit within the screen. Longshot offers scrolling screenshot functionality to effectively address this need.

To capture a scrolling screenshot, start the screenshot process and enter the area selection mode. Move the cursor to the scrollable area within the selected region and scroll through the content. A thumbnail preview of the scrolled content will be displayed next to the selected area. Once you have scrolled to the desired position, you can click the save or copy button on the toolbar to complete the capture.

Full Window Scrolling Screenshot

In addition to capturing a specific area using scrolling capture, Longshot also allows you to capture a scrolling screenshot of the entire window. You can either select the entire window by clicking on it or directly enter the scrolling screenshot mode by choosing the option from the dropdown menu in the status menu. Furthermore, you can set a global shortcut key for scrolling screenshot in Longshot’s preferences. With this shortcut key set, you can quickly enter the scrolling screenshot mode with just a keystroke. Longshot is dedicated to pursuing even the slightest efficiency improvement, no matter if it’s just a 0.1-second gain.

Horizontal Scrolling Screenshot

If the content on your screen is wide and requires horizontal scrolling to view in its entirety, the vertical scrolling screenshot method mentioned earlier may not be suitable. Fortunately, Longshot also supports horizontal scrolling screenshots, allowing you to capture the content that extends beyond the screen horizontally.

Panoramic Scrolling Screenshot (360-degree scrolling capture)

If the content on your screen is both wide and long, requiring both horizontal and vertical scrolling to view in its entirety, you may wonder if there’s a way to capture the entire content. Longshot has a powerful feature that addresses this need.

Annotation and Drawing

Longshot provides a straightforward and intuitive way to annotate and draw on the screen, following the principle of least effort. It supports highlighting or hiding important information on the screen and offers a wide range of annotation tools, including rectangles, circles (ellipses), arrows, straight lines, and text.

Example screenshot of various annotation tools

  • Shapes: Rectangles and circles (ellipses) with adjustable border thickness and color. Supports filling color and opacity adjustment.
  • Lines: Adjustable thickness and color.
  • Arrows: Two styles available: plain arrow and concave arrow. Supports arrow thickness and color adjustment.
  • Mosaic: Three mosaic styles available: rectangle, circle (ellipse), and brush. Supports adjustment of mosaic particle size. Offers options for square, diamond, crystal, and blur mosaic styles.
  • Highlight: Three highlight styles available: rectangle, circle (ellipse), and brush. Supports brightness and color adjustment.
  • Annotations: Includes length, area, text, color, and automatic measurement annotations.
    • Length Annotation: Measures pixel distance with horizontal and vertical length annotations. Supports color and customizable font and size for the numeric label.
    • Area Annotation: Dashes a rectangle around the target object. Supports color and customizable font and size for the length, width, and coordinate labels.
    • Text Annotation: Points an arrow to annotate the target. Supports color and customizable font and size for the content label.
    • Color Annotation: Picks the color at the cursor position. Supports color and customizable font and size for the label.
    • Automatic Measurement Annotation: Automatically measures and annotates horizontal and vertical distances. Supports automatic snapping of the annotation box to elements when dragging the area. Provides options to adjust the color, font, and size of the numeric label. Supports color tolerance settings for automatic measurement.
  • Brush: Adjustable thickness and color.
  • Text: Adjustable font, color, and size.
  • Steps: Three step styles available: waterdrop, speech bubble, and circle. Supports customization of the color, font, and size of the numeric label. Offers options to customize the fill color.

Screen Recording

Longshot allows you to quickly capture screen recordings and view or share them afterwards. Whether you want to record a specific window, an app, or a portion of the screen, it’s supported. It can also record the system audio on Mac without the need for any additional patches or software.

  • Supports recording of windows, regions, applications, and full screen.
  • Allows viewing the recording immediately after it’s done.
  • Supports recording system audio and microphone input.
  • Allows setting the recording frame rate and export format (mp4/mov).

Pinning/Floating Images/Texts

Longshot allows you to pin any image or text you come across to your desktop, keeping it visible at all times for easy comparison, copying, and other operations.

  • Supports pinning screenshots to the desktop.
  • Supports pinning content from the clipboard, including text and images, to the desktop.
  • Supports pinning images from Finder to the desktop.
  • Allows scrolling and zooming the pinned content.
  • Supports enabling/disabling window shadows for the pinned content.
  • Supports OCR text recognition for text on pinned images.
  • Allows rotating and flipping the pinned content.

Text Recognition (OCR)

With the latest offline OCR technology on macOS, Longshot can accurately recognize text from anywhere, such as images, videos, and scanned documents. With Longshot, you no longer need to manually enter text. Simply click on the Screenshot OCR option in the Longshot menu in the status bar, then select the area where the text is located. Longshot will automatically recognize the text in that area and copy it to the clipboard, making it extremely convenient. Similarly, you can also perform OCR text recognition in screenshots or pinned images, extract text, select the corresponding text, copy it to the clipboard, and proceed with your workflow.

Screen Measurement

Longshot can quickly capture and measure any content on the screen, including different apps and windows. It supports distance measurement and element size measurement, regardless of the color of the elements.

  • Distance measurement: Enter screen measurement mode, move the cursor, and it will automatically measure the distances between elements on the screen, allowing you to annotate pixel distances.
  • Element measurement: Enter screen measurement mode, drag the cursor to create a region, and it will automatically capture the elements within the region and annotate their pixel sizes.
  • Copy to clipboard: Crop the screen and copy the measured region to the clipboard, integrating it into your workflow.

Screen Color Picker

When you enter screenshot mode, you can move the cursor to instantly pick the color at the cursor’s position and display it. You can use the shortcut key C to copy the color at the current cursor position to the clipboard, making it convenient for design and drawing purposes.

Quick Actions

After capturing a selected area or a window screenshot, a toolbar will appear next to the highlighted area. In addition to displaying tools such as rectangle, line, and mosaic, the toolbar also provides quick actions such as pinning, opening, downloading, and saving. This allows you to quickly share annotated screenshots with other applications.

Screenshot of the toolbar with quick actions

Preferences

Longshot offers highly customizable features that can be tailored to your preferences. In the Longshot preferences, you can customize shortcuts, set the save location for screenshots, configure the appearance of the selected area, and more.

Screenshot of the shortcuts settings

Further Reading

  1. Comparison of Scrolling Capture Screenshot between Longshot, Xnip, and iShot
  2. Scrolling capture tutorial - How to take a scrolling capture
  3. Three steps to capture a scrolling screenshot