HACKER Q&A
📣 LibrarySeph

Has anyone else found themselves using more screenshots?


I've been screenshotting a lot lately. It's really useful for sharing context. More often because getting ahold of an image is just three more steps than I want to take.

Today I wanted to download an image attachment in gmail on iOS, but it wasn't possible so I just took a screenshot and went on with my day. It's also the fastest way to copy an image after its been pasted in a google doc. Google is pretty aggressive about not letting people copy photos.

But I've also been using screen shots in weird ways. For instance, if I want an image to be smaller, I open the image, zoom out then screen shot. It's faster than opening a dialog and typing numbers.

I often screenshot text because copy/paste might lead to formatting issues and I'd really rather not.

It's gotten to the point where I often don't even think to right click an image anymore. So many sites do weird stuff, it's just faster to snip the screen.

Is anyone else falling into these habits? It seems funny to me.


  👤 defrost Accepted Answer ✓
Totally not guerilla marketing then?

The matched pair of meconium accounts seems like a tell.


👤 f0e4c2f7
Seems like there is an opportunity here for a workflow involving clipboard management and GPT-4V or another vision model.

👤 frantzmiccoli
Same thing here. Another reason is that, often, when I share something I don't know if people have access to the content (paywal / authwall), with a screenshot I know they do. Moreover the experience of the receiver is better anyway: no extra loading, no ads, no bloated interface.

👤 dgunay
Yeah I do that pretty frequently. Screenshot to crop things out, or resize, or even just not spend so damn long tapping through mobile sharing interfaces.

👤 nateb2022
I find myself doing the same thing a lot on mobile

👤 walterbell
iOS will auto-OCR text in screenshots for search and copy/paste.