How to use Tellshot

Know the editor

Everything happens in this one window. Six areas to know:

1 2 3 4 5 6

1. 1 Toolbar — Select, pin, arrow, box, highlight, text, blur, fill, crop
2. 2 Canvas — Your screenshot — click or drag here with a tool selected
3. 3 Comments — One row per pin; click a row to edit its comment
4. 4 Pre-Share Check — Sensitive text detected in the image, with Hide buttons
5. 5 Template & copy — Pick the output format, preview it, and copy
6. 6 Style bar — Background frame presets: None / Simple / Card / Pop

Getting started

Tellshot is a menu-bar app: after launch, its icon sits in the top-right of your screen. There's no Dock icon and no window until you capture something.

1. Drag Tellshot.app into Applications and launch it.
2. Follow the short onboarding and allow Screen Recording when macOS asks — the only permission Tellshot needs, used only at the moment you capture.
3. Find the Tellshot icon in the menu bar. Every command starts there — or from a keyboard shortcut.

• See the onboarding again: menu-bar icon → “How to Use…”.

Capture

Three modes, each with a global shortcut that works in any app (changeable in Settings → Shortcuts). The editor opens as soon as the capture is taken.

• No shortcut handy? Menu-bar icon → Capture Area / Window / Full Screen.
• Annotate an existing image: menu-bar icon → “Import Image…”.
• Prefer a lighter flow? In Settings, switch “After Capture” to a quick overlay with Copy / Save / Edit buttons.

Numbered pins & comments

Pins are the heart of Tellshot: numbered markers, each with a comment. Behind the scenes, Tellshot reads the on-screen text and UI around every pin (OCR + accessibility info), so “① make this button stand out” is copied together with the button's actual label.

1. Click the pin tool (①) in the toolbar.
2. Click the spot on the image you're talking about — pin ① drops and the comment field focuses automatically.
3. Type the comment and press Return.
4. Click the next spot for pin ② — numbers increase automatically.

• Edit later: click a comment row to rewrite it; the trash icon deletes the pin.

Arrows, boxes & more

The classics live in the toolbar next to the pin tool. Nothing is burned in while you work — every shape stays selectable and editable until you copy.

1. Pick a tool in the toolbar: arrow, box, highlight, or text.
2. Drag on the canvas to draw it (for text, click and type).
3. Use the bar that appears above the canvas to change color and line width.
4. Made a mess? ⌘Z undoes, ⇧⌘Z redoes.

• Zoom: ⌘+ / ⌘− / ⌘0 fits the window, ⌘1 shows 100%.

Privacy masks & Pre-Share Check

Two ways to hide things: draw a mask yourself, or let the Pre-Share Check panel find sensitive text for you — it scans the screenshot for emails, API keys, and similar, and lists every candidate.

1. To mask by hand: pick the blur or fill tool and drag over the area.
2. To use detection: check the Pre-Share Check panel on the right — each candidate has a Hide button.
3. In a hurry? Hide All Remaining masks every unreviewed candidate at once.

• Safety net: if unreviewed candidates remain when you copy, Tellshot asks before proceeding.

Output templates & copying

The template decides what text goes with your image. Three are built in — ChatGPT Fix Request, Cursor Code Fix Request, and Share in Slack — and you can build your own with placeholders for page title, URL, and comments.

1. Pick a template from the Template menu in the right panel.
2. Check the output with the eye icon (preview).
3. Click the big blue Copy button — or just press ⌘C.
4. Paste in your destination. For apps that can't take image + text at once (like ChatGPT), Tellshot copies in two steps: paste the image, then paste the text.

• Make your own: menu-bar icon → “Manage Templates…”.

Framing styles

The bar at the bottom wraps your screenshot in a background frame before it's copied or saved.

1. Click a preset: None, Simple, Card (default), or Pop.
2. Want it different? Adjust… opens controls for background, padding, corner radius, shadow, and output scale.

• Change the default for new captures: Settings → Initial Style.

Review documents

When one screenshot isn't enough, collect several into one fix-request document and hand it over as a file.

1. In the editor, open “Add to Review” (top right).
2. Choose “Add and Capture Next” (⇧⌘↩) to add this page and immediately capture the next — or “Add and Close Editor” to stop at one.
3. A small floating tray appears. Capture adds more pages (up to 20).
4. Organize opens the document: drag pages to reorder, edit each page's title and summary.
5. Export produces a PDF or PowerPoint file. Finish saves the document to History.

History

Closing the editor saves the session to History; finished review documents get their own tab there. Reopen anything later and keep editing — pins, masks, and all.

1. Menu-bar icon → “Open History…” (or Recent Images for the last five).
2. Double-click a session to reopen it in the editor.
3. Select a row and press Delete to remove it.

• Heads up: History keeps the original image as captured, before masks are burned in. Turn off “Save original images to History” in Settings → History if you'd rather not.
• Retention: 100 sessions by default (1–1000).

Settings & updates

Settings (menu-bar icon → Settings) covers shortcuts, save location (Pictures/Tellshot by default), capture sound, language (English / 日本語 / system), and the anonymous-crash-report toggle. Updates arrive via the built-in updater — Tellshot checks automatically and always asks before installing.