Monosnap is a simple yet effective program for Mac that comes in handy whenever you wish to record your screen and share the results with other users.
You don't need much computer experience in order to work with this utility. All you need to do to make a snapshot of your desktop is to go to the app's icon from the Menu Bar and choose the proper type of screenshot you need to take (screen area or fullscreen). The program immediately gets the job done and you can use the integrated image editor to add geometrical shapes to picture, add text content, and resize the snapshot if necessary.
The built-in video recording tool is much easier to handle. Though, before starting to record your screen activity I'd suggest that you adjust the output settings accordingly (video resolution, enable audio caption, and output quality). Once you finish recording you can save the output file as MPEG or GIF and share it with other users.
The thing I like the most about Monosnap is that it allows you to define global hotkeys. This way, you can immediately take a screenshot or start video recording by simply hitting the defined shortcut keys (you can set them from the Preferences menu of the app).
This new app version brings plenty of changes as various bugs were fixed and a new image editor is available. However, the program still comes with flaws: it supports only two formats when it comes to exporting video recordings (MPEG and GIF) and it allows you to save screenshots just as JPEG and PNG files.
Still, you don't have to pay a dime to use this application (you need to pay a small fee only if you wish to keep your screenshots and video recordings in Cloud). Monosnap is very intuitive, provides you with quality output, and allows you to share your results with other users directly from its interface.
Pros
- Simple to handle
- Provides you with various image editing tools
- Lets you define global hotkeys
- You can share the results via email, Facebook or Twitter
Cons
- Supports only two output formats for screenshots (JPEG and PNG)
- Lets you export video recordings to only two formats (MPEG and GIF)
I was surprised, how many tools this software provides. I used Jing earlier, now I prefer Monosnap. Sadly, it is not totally free, but it is definitely worth purchase.
I was surprised with the possibilities of this free tool. I do not use cloud services, so their paid availability didn't spoil my impression from the app. But this point can surely be a noticeable disadvantage. Still, taking into account that the rest of the program is free, I would not complain on that.