Get the Chrome extension and share snapshots in 3 easy steps

Aug 5, 2015 14:16 GMT  ·  By

For a few weeks now, a new Chrome extension has been making sharing screenshots of a Web page much easier than whatever method you were using before.

The extension, Snip and Share, is available on the Google Web Store and can currently be used to easily select portions of a page and share them via Twitter and email.

Selections can be made on texts, images, and videos, or they can be made by drag-and-drop in the form of a square box, which will take a snapshot of the desired page section.

As the team describes on their blog, the extension started out as an exploration of how to simplify the process of sharing a screenshot on Twitter, but ended up being one of the most useful plugins on the Google Web Store.

"How you would compose a tweet with a screenshot? I counted and it’s 13 steps on a PC. We decided to cut it down to as few steps as possible, and we got it down to just 3! At this point, we’d pretty much run out of ideas, so we named it after what it does: snip and share."

Adding support for sharing via email, full page captures, and a keyboard shortcut (CTRL+S) to make it work even faster for people who don't like moving their mouse to the top right corner of the screen all the time, their new baby was ready for the spotlight.

Which it got, on Product Hunt, along with lots of positive reviews, gleeful reactions, and feature requests.

Sharing on mobile devices will be available soon

Nowadays, the team is working on adding support for sharing screenshots on mobiles (via a telephone number) and adding small enhancements here and there.

We can attest to this ourselves, since we had planned our story a week ago, but we got delayed because of the Windows 10 launch, and now the Snip and Share extension looked so different we had to redo all our screenshots.

Contacted by email, we had a small talk with Peter Huang, Snip and Share Product Manager, and since we're all curious tech-heads over here, we "forced" him to reveal how all of this works. Some tech-related mumbo-jumbo was involved, but if someone's keeping score, check another win for MongoDB and Azure.

Additionally, we noticed that there were no Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy on the site, and we asked how images are handled and for how long they'll be stored.

We were promptly reassured that these sections were in the pipeline and would appear pretty soon on the site, while "screenshots are kept on the servers, locked and only accessible for deletion or reaccess upon request. We are super critical on privacy of any content shared via Snip and Share."

So there you have it! Unless you specifically request it, snapshot links won't go dead after a few weeks or months, as on some other services.

Drag-n-drop selections are supported with Snip and Share
Drag-n-drop selections are supported with Snip and Share

Snip and Share Chrome extension (3 Images)

Users can share content on Twitter or via email
Drag-n-drop selections are supported with Snip and ShareSnip and Share comes with various selection options
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