Documentation

Getting started

Install CaptureWizard from the Chrome Web Store (pre-launch: request early access via thecontact form and you'll receive the extension package with load-unpacked instructions). Pin the icon to your toolbar for one-click captures. Every install is free forever — no account, no card, and no time limit. Pro adds the editor extras for $3/year and starts with a 30-day free trial, taken at checkout.

Capturing a page

Click the toolbar icon and choose Capture full page orCapture visible area, or use the keyboard shortcuts:Alt+Shift+P (full page), Alt+Shift+V (visible area),Alt+Shift+C (open the popup). Full-page capture scrolls the page and stitches the segments — sticky headers appear exactly once, and pages that scroll inside an inner container (docs sites, chat apps) are detected automatically. The badge on the toolbar icon shows progress; the editor opens in a new tab when the capture is ready.

Replacing the page's background

Some pages carry a busy wallpaper, a photo backdrop, or a dark theme that fights whatever you're pasting the screenshot into. In settings, Page background swaps that backdrop for a clean solid color or a gradientbefore the shot is taken, so the replacement is baked into the pixels rather than layered on afterwards. The page's own content is untouched — only the page-level backdrop is overridden, and the page is restored the moment the capture finishes. It works on the free tier.

Two things worth knowing. It only shows where the page's own backdrop is actually visible — on sites whose sections each paint their own full-width background (most product and marketing pages), there's nothing showing through to replace, so the capture looks unchanged. That's the expected result, not a failure. And the gradient deliberately spans the whole document rather than each screenful, so a stitched full-page capture gets one smooth run top to bottom instead of the same gradient repeating per viewport.

This is a different setting from the editor's background, which fills the padding around the framed screenshot. Page background changes what the captured page sits on; the editor background changes what the finished image sits on. They can be used together or independently.

The editor

Everything happens in the editor tab, on your device. Pick a frame (no frame, auto-matched to your OS and browser, or any real macOS / Windows / Linux pairing of Chrome, Safari, Edge, Brave, Firefox, and Chromium — no Safari-on-Windows nonsense — in light or dark), set padding and a solid or gradientbackground, and toggle whether the frame shows the page URL and title. The crop tool trims the capture, with exact X/Y/W/H fields for pixel-precise crops; Pro adds ratio presets (16:9, 4:3, 1:1) and named crop presets you can save, re-apply from a dropdown, and optionally auto-apply to new captures (always announced, always undoable). Pro annotation tools: pen, highlighter, arrow, rectangle, ellipse, text, callouts, numbered steps, a redaction tool that pixelates from the original pixels, and inserted images (toolbar button orCtrl+V paste). Every annotation can be selected, moved, resized, and deleted afterwards. Undo with Ctrl/Cmd+Z.

Exporting

Download saves in the selected format — PNG on the free tier; JPEG, WebP, AVIF, and single-file PDF with Pro. AVIF works in every Chrome build — when the browser can't encode it natively, CaptureWizard's bundled encoder steps in (very large captures take a few extra seconds).Copy puts a PNG on the clipboard. Filenames come from a template (default {site} {date} {time}) you can change in settings, with {title}, {width}, and{height} tokens too.

Pro: autosave, auto-apply, and the library

In settings, Pro users can point autosave at a subfolder of Downloads (Chrome extensions cannot write outside Downloads), turn on auto-apply so each capture is composed with your saved defaults and saved immediately, and keep captures in the on-device screenshot library — browse, reopen in the editor, re-export, or delete them any time. The library is capped (configurable) and prunes oldest-first.

Moving captures out of Downloads automatically

Chrome only lets extensions write inside your Downloads folder — that's a browser rule, not a CaptureWizard choice, and it applies to every screenshot extension. For a one-off capture, turn on “Ask where to save each download” in settings and pick any folder. If you want every capture to land somewhere else automatically (say Pictures/CaptureWizard), pair the autosave subfolder with a tiny watcher on your machine that moves files as they appear. Point autosave at the CaptureWizard subfolder first so the watcher only ever touches its own files.

mkdir -p ~/Downloads/CaptureWizard ~/Pictures/CaptureWizard
fswatch ~/Downloads/CaptureWizard | while IFS= read -r f; do
  case "$f" in *.crdownload) continue ;; esac
  [ -f "$f" ] && mv "$f" ~/Pictures/CaptureWizard/
done

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN"
  "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0"><dict>
  <key>Label</key><string>app.capturewizard.move-captures</string>
  <key>ProgramArguments</key><array>
    <string>/bin/sh</string><string>-c</string>
    <string>export PATH="/opt/homebrew/bin:/usr/local/bin:$PATH"
mkdir -p ~/Downloads/CaptureWizard ~/Pictures/CaptureWizard
fswatch ~/Downloads/CaptureWizard | while IFS= read -r f; do
  case "$f" in *.crdownload) continue ;; esac
  if [ -f "$f" ]; then mv "$f" ~/Pictures/CaptureWizard/; fi
done</string>
  </array>
  <key>RunAtLoad</key><true/>
  <key>KeepAlive</key><true/>
</dict></plist>

mkdir -p ~/Downloads/CaptureWizard ~/Pictures/CaptureWizard
inotifywait -m -e close_write -e moved_to --format '%w%f' \
  ~/Downloads/CaptureWizard | while IFS= read -r f; do
  case "$f" in *.crdownload) continue ;; esac
  [ -f "$f" ] && mv "$f" ~/Pictures/CaptureWizard/
done

$src = "$env:USERPROFILE\Downloads\CaptureWizard"
$dst = "$env:USERPROFILE\Pictures\CaptureWizard"
New-Item -ItemType Directory -Force -Path $src, $dst | Out-Null
$w = New-Object IO.FileSystemWatcher $src
$w.EnableRaisingEvents = $true
$move = {
  $f = $Event.SourceEventArgs.FullPath
  if ($f -like '*.crdownload') { return }  # Chrome's in-progress file
  Start-Sleep -Milliseconds 500  # let Chrome finish writing
  if (Test-Path $f) { Move-Item -Path $f -Destination $Event.MessageData -Force }
}
# Chrome writes name.crdownload then RENAMES it — watch both events.
Register-ObjectEvent $w Created -MessageData $dst -Action $move | Out-Null
Register-ObjectEvent $w Renamed -MessageData $dst -Action $move | Out-Null
while ($true) { Start-Sleep 5 }

Each watcher moves finished files only from CaptureWizard's own subfolder, so the rest of your Downloads folder is never touched.

License activation

After purchasing Pro you'll receive a license key (XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX) by email. Open CaptureWizard settings, paste it under License, and click Activate. One license covers your devices up to the activation limit; deactivate a device from its settings page to free a slot. Lost your key? You don't need us:sign in with Google at the license portal to see your keys, email yourself a copy, or free up a device slot. Settings links to it too.

Troubleshooting

“This page cannot be captured” — browser-internal pages (chrome://) and the Chrome Web Store are off-limits to all extensions.Missing lazy-loaded images — raise “Extra delay per scroll step” in settings so slow content can load before each shot. AVIF export takes a while — on browsers without native AVIF encoding the bundled encoder does the work, and huge full-page captures can take several seconds; WebP is the fast alternative.Shortcut doesn't fire — another extension may own it; reassign atchrome://extensions/shortcuts. Still stuck? Reach out via thesupport page.