How to screenshot a whole page that scrolls

Why a normal screenshot is not enough

Your operating system's screenshot key captures pixels that are currently on screen. Anything below the fold simply does not exist yet as far as the screen is concerned, so a long article, a pricing page or a dashboard gets cut off at the bottom of the window.

A scrolling screenshot solves that by taking several captures while the page moves, then joining them into a single tall image. The hard part is not the scrolling: it is joining the pieces without duplicating anything and without losing content that only renders while you scroll.

Capture a scrolling page in Chrome, step by step

1. 1

   Let the page finish loading

   On pages that load content lazily (feeds, infinite lists, image galleries) scroll once to the bottom, then return to the top. This forces the browser to render everything before the capture starts.

2. 2

   Press the shortcut

   Alt+Shift+S on Windows and Linux, Option+Shift+S on macOS. There is no popup and no dialog: the capture starts immediately. You can change the shortcut at chrome://extensions/shortcuts.

3. 3

   Let it scroll and stitch

   The page scrolls itself section by section. Sticky headers and floating chat widgets are accounted for during stitching, so the same bar does not repeat down the image.

4. 4

   Edit, copy or export

   The stitched image opens in a new tab with a built-in editor: pen, highlighter, text, arrows, shapes, crop, undo and redo. Then copy it to the clipboard or download it as PNG, JPEG, WebP or PDF.

What usually goes wrong (and how to fix it)

Most complaints about scrolling screenshots come down to four causes. Each one has a fix.

• Repeated headers: a sticky navigation bar appears at every stitch seam. Handled automatically here, but on other tools the workaround is hiding the header before capturing.
• Missing sections: content that only loads while scrolling. Scroll to the bottom once first.
• Unreadable text after upload: the image is so tall that the destination scales it down. Export numbered parts instead of one file.
• Nothing happens at all: you are on a chrome:// page, the Chrome Web Store, or Chrome's PDF viewer. Chrome blocks every extension there, without exception.

When the window is not the thing that scrolls

In chat apps, mail clients and admin dashboards the page itself often does not scroll at all: a panel inside it does. A tool that only scrolls the window captures the same visible frame over and over.

Smart capture detects the relevant scroll container instead of assuming the window, and you can force main content only or scrollable side panel mode when a layout is unusual. Your choice is remembered for the next capture.

For very tall pages, export parts

A 20,000 pixel image is technically a successful capture and practically useless: paste it into a document or an AI tool and the text gets scaled into mush.

Exporting numbered parts of 3000, 4000 or 5000 pixels with 160 pixels of overlap keeps every part readable at full resolution, and the overlap means no line is cut in half at a seam.