Screencappy
How to take a full page screenshot in Chrome without an extension
Last verified: August 15, 2026
Chrome can do this on its own, and if you only need it occasionally you should use the built in feature rather than installing anything.
Open DevTools, turn on Device Mode, open the More options menu in the device toolbar, and choose "Capture a full size screenshot". That is the whole procedure, and it has been in Chrome since version 59.
What are the exact steps?
Press F12 or Command+Option+I to open DevTools. Click the device toolbar icon to enable Device Mode. Open the three dot More options menu in that toolbar. Select "Capture a full size screenshot".
There is a related Command Menu route, reached with Control+Shift+P or Command+Shift+P, but Chrome documents that one for area screenshots rather than full size captures.
What are the downsides of the DevTools method?
Three, and the first is the one that sends most people looking for something else.
It takes six interactions every time, including opening developer tooling and switching the page into a simulated device viewport, which can change how the page renders. It has no annotation, no cropping and no blur, so anything you need to mark up goes into a separate editor. And Chrome does not document how it handles lazy loaded images, sticky headers or very tall pages, which are exactly the cases where full page capture tends to go wrong.
Does Firefox have this built in?
Yes, and it is noticeably friendlier than Chrome's. Right click an empty part of the page, choose Take Screenshot, then select "Save full page". The keyboard shortcut is Ctrl+Shift+S or Command+Shift+S.
Firefox documents that the output is a PNG and names the file pattern it uses. Chrome's documentation does not state its output format anywhere we could find.
When is an extension worth installing?
When you take full page screenshots often enough that six interactions each time is friction, or when you need to do anything to the image afterwards.
The DevTools route gives you a raw capture and nothing else. If you need to crop it, blur a customer name, point an arrow at the bug, or export as WebP or PDF, that is a second tool anyway.
How does DevTools compare to Screencappy?
| Chrome DevTools | Screencappy | |
|---|---|---|
| Install required | None | Extension |
| Steps per capture | Six, including opening DevTools | One click or one keyboard shortcut |
| Changes page rendering | Yes, requires Device Mode | No |
| Annotation, crop, blur | None | Included, free |
| Export formats | Not documented by Chrome | PNG, JPEG, WebP, PDF |
| Price | Free | Free |
| Account | None | None |
| Host permissions | Not applicable | None requested |
The export formats row says not documented because no Chrome documentation page states the output format for this feature. It is widely claimed to be PNG, and that may well be right, but this page only states what can be checked.
Which one should you use?
If you need a full page screenshot once a month, use DevTools. It is already there, it costs nothing, and installing an extension for that is overkill. We would rather tell you that than pretend otherwise.
If you take them weekly, or you annotate before sharing, the built in method stops being the cheaper option fairly quickly.