Annotate screenshots for bug reports on Mac

Capture the smallest useful area

Choose an area that includes the problem and enough surrounding context to identify it. A region capture avoids unrelated windows; a window capture can preserve the relevant application boundary.

ClipOrigin uses Control–Option–S for a region and Control–Option–W for a window by default. For a long page, the direct edition also supports scrolling capture. Check the resulting image for skipped or repeated content.

Make the observation easy to find

Open the capture in the editor. Use one arrow or a short text label to point to the relevant detail. Keep the screenshot legible at the size where the recipient will view it.

Write the expected and actual behavior in the issue description. An arrow identifies a location; it does not explain how to reproduce the problem.

1. Capture the visible failure using harmless test data.
2. Add a concise annotation to the relevant detail.
3. Write reproduction steps, expected behavior and actual behavior beside the screenshot.
4. Include app and macOS versions when they matter.

Inspect the final export before sharing

Check for email addresses, tokens, customer names and background windows. When masking information, inspect the actual exported file. Do not rely on decorative blur as a guarantee that a secret is unrecoverable.

Keep the editable project privately if you need to revise it. Share the intended exported image, not an editable source document that may retain original material.

ClipOrigin supports PNG, JPEG, HEIC, WebP and PDF export. Choose a format your issue tracker accepts. A lossless PNG is a practical starting point for screenshots containing text.

Find the screenshot for a follow-up

Open the clipboard panel with Control–Option–V and inspect an image with Space. Reuse the same result in a follow-up message or documentation rather than making another capture of the same state.

The default capture workflow saves a screenshot to history and copies it, but these actions can be changed in settings. Check those settings if the item does not appear where expected.

When the recipient is a local AI coding tool

The direct edition can copy an explicit cliporigin://image/<SHA-256> reference for a selected original image. After configuring and authorizing a local MCP client, the client can resolve that specific image.

Connecting a client is optional. Sharing a specified original image does not require granting access to the entire clipboard history. Remote or browser-only agents still need a separate transfer; they cannot read a local file just because it has a reference.

Questions & answers