Capture Kit
Add to Chrome

User guide · v1.9

How to use Capture Kit

Capture Kit is a Chrome extension for screenshots, annotations, scroll recordings, and GIFs. Everything is processed locally in your browser.

1. Basics

  1. Install Capture Kit from the Chrome Web Store.
  2. Open the page you want to capture (not chrome:// or the Web Store).
  3. Click the Capture Kit icon in the toolbar, or use a keyboard shortcut.
  4. Screenshots open in a preview tab where you can annotate, copy, or save.
  5. Videos and GIFs download to your Downloads folder and appear in History.

2. Visible area screenshot

Captures exactly what is visible in the current tab viewport.

  1. Open the popup → Visible.
  2. Or press Alt+Shift+V (default).
  3. Review the image in the preview tab, then Copy image or Save.

3. Full page screenshot

Scrolls the page (including app layouts with a fixed sidebar and an inner scroll pane) and stitches slices into one tall image.

  1. Popup → Full page, or Alt+Shift+F.
  2. Wait while Capture Kit scrolls and captures. Keep the tab focused.
  3. The stitched result opens in the preview tab.

Fixed sidebars are painted once and extended so you don’t get transparent gaps below the first viewport.

4. Region / crop capture

Drag a rectangle on the page to capture only that area.

  1. Popup → Region, or Alt+Shift+R.
  2. Drag on the page to select. Press Esc to cancel.
  3. The cropped image opens in preview.

5. Element capture

Hover to highlight a DOM node (card, modal, section), then click to capture it.

  1. Popup → Element (or assign a shortcut under Chrome’s extension shortcuts).
  2. Move the pointer until the blue outline matches the component you want.
  3. Click once. Esc cancels.

6. Capture options (popup)

Under Capture options in the popup you can set defaults used by most screenshot modes:

  • Delay timer — wait before the shot.
  • Viewport preset — temporarily resize the window.
  • Color scheme — force light or dark where the page supports it.
  • Hide fixed chrome — hide sticky headers, banners, and similar UI.

These preferences are saved automatically when you change them.

7. Delay timer

Useful for opening menus, hover states, or dropdowns before capture.

  1. Set Delay timer to 3 or 5 seconds.
  2. Start a capture mode. A countdown overlay appears on the page.
  3. Prepare the UI while the timer runs; Capture Kit shoots when it hits zero.

8. Device / viewport presets

Resize the browser window to a common device size, capture, then restore the previous size.

  • Current window (no resize)
  • Desktop · 1440×900
  • Laptop · 1280×800
  • iPad · 1024×768
  • iPhone · 390×844

Presets change the window size; they are not a full mobile browser emulator.

9. Hide fixed chrome

When enabled, Capture Kit temporarily hides many position: fixed / sticky elements (cookie banners, chat widgets, sticky headers) so full-page and visible captures look cleaner.

  1. Enable Hide fixed chrome in the popup.
  2. Run visible or full-page capture.
  3. Chrome is restored after the capture finishes.

10. Dark / light forced capture

Force color-scheme light or dark on the page before capture. Sites that respect CSS color-scheme / theme classes will re-theme for the shot.

  1. Choose Force light or Force dark.
  2. Capture as usual. Theme overrides are removed afterward.

11. Scroll recording controls

Records the tab while auto-scrolling the real scroll container (including sidebar layouts).

  1. Set Video quality, Scroll speed, and optional start/end offsets (px).
  2. Click Start recording (or Alt+Shift+S).
  3. Use Pause scroll / Resume while recording, or Stop recording.
  4. When the scroll reaches the end (minus end offset), recording finishes automatically.
  • Start offset — begin scrolling lower on the page.
  • End offset — stop before the absolute bottom.
  • Speed — Slow, Normal, Fast, Turbo.

12. GIF / short clip export

While scroll recording, enable Also export GIF. Capture Kit samples frames during the scroll and encodes an animated GIF after the video is saved.

  1. Check Also export GIF in the popup.
  2. Start a scroll recording as usual.
  3. When finished, the video downloads first; the GIF encodes shortly after.

GIFs are downscaled for size. Long pages may produce fewer sampled frames (capped).

13. Annotate & blur sensitive areas

Every screenshot opens in a preview tab with drawing tools:

  • Highlight — translucent rectangles
  • Draw — freehand pen
  • Arrow — freeform arrows
  • Box — outline rectangles
  • Text — labels with size and background
  • Blur — pixelate a region to redact emails, tokens, faces, etc.
  1. Select Blur, drag over the sensitive region.
  2. Use stroke size for stronger/weaker pixelation.
  3. Undo removes the last annotation.
  4. Copy or save when finished.

Speed up common styles with annotation templates (tool, color, stroke, and text defaults).

14. Annotation templates

In the screenshot preview toolbar, use the Template dropdown to apply a saved style (tool, color, stroke, text size, and text background). Templates do not auto-draw shapes — they set your tools so the next strokes match the style.

Built-in templates:

  • Bug report — red box tool, dark text background
  • Highlight — yellow highlight tool
  • Brand — blue arrow + blue text background
  • Redact — blur tool with a stronger stroke
  1. Open any screenshot in the preview tab.
  2. Choose a template from Template (or leave Default).
  3. Draw as usual — colors and tools match the template.
  4. To keep your own style: set tool/color/stroke/text options, click Save style, and name it. Custom templates appear under a Custom group.
  5. Select a custom template and click Delete to remove it.

The last selected template is remembered for the next preview.

15. Copy to clipboard

  1. In the preview tab, click Copy image to place the annotated PNG/JPG on the clipboard.
  2. Optional: open Settings and enable Auto-copy screenshots when preview opens.

16. Capture history

Recent screenshots, videos, GIFs, and scheduled captures are stored locally in the extension.

  1. Popup header → History icon (clock).
  2. Browse thumbnails; Open reopens preview/media; Delete removes an item.
  3. Clear all wipes the history list.

History size is limited (default 40). Tune the limit in Settings. Scheduled captures appear labeled as “Scheduled capture”.

17. Keyboard shortcuts

Defaults (customize at chrome://extensions/shortcuts):

Action Default shortcut
Visible area Alt+Shift+V
Full page Alt+Shift+F
Region Alt+Shift+R
Element Unassigned — set in Chrome shortcuts
Start / stop recording Alt+Shift+S

18. Auto filename templates

In Settings, set a template used for downloads and history labels.

Supported tokens:

  • {domain} — site hostname
  • {path} — short path slug
  • {date} — YYYYMMDD
  • {time} — HHMMSS
  • {type} — screenshot, fullpage, region, element, scroll, gif, watchdog, …
  • {title} — title-like slug from the URL

Default: {domain}-{date}-{type} → e.g. docs-example-com-20260717-fullpage.png

19. Scheduled / watchdog capture

Recapture a tab on an interval for visual monitoring. Everything stays local (History) — no public share URL. Chrome must be running for alarms to fire.

  1. Open Settings (popup header gear icon, or the extension options page).
  2. Find Scheduled / watchdog capture.
  3. Enable scheduled capture and pick an interval (5 minutes through daily).
  4. Optional: set URL contains (e.g. staging.example.com) so Capture Kit uses the first open tab whose URL includes that text. If empty, it uses the active tab (or first capturable tab).
  5. Leave Open preview tab on each run off to save quietly to History only. Turn it on if you want a preview tab each time.
  6. Click Save settings.
  7. Optional: click Run now to test immediately.

Watchdog captures the tab’s visible area only (not full page). Restricted URLs (chrome://, etc.) are skipped. Status shows last run and next scheduled time when available.

20. Settings page

Open from the popup header → Settings gear, or the extension’s options page.

  • Screenshot format: PNG or JPG
  • Video format: WebM or MP4 (falls back to WebM if MP4 isn’t supported)
  • Filename template
  • Auto-copy to clipboard
  • History limit
  • Scheduled / watchdog capture
  • Reminder for keyboard shortcuts

21. Tips & limits

  • Restricted pages (chrome://, Chrome Web Store, extension pages) cannot be captured.
  • Keep the target tab focused during full-page stitch and scroll recording.
  • Very long pages produce large images/videos; prefer region/element when you only need a section.
  • GIF export samples frames — not every video frame — and caps length for performance.
  • Scheduled capture needs Chrome open and a matching tab; it does not run in the background if Chrome is fully quit.
  • All processing is local; nothing is uploaded by Capture Kit.