In August I built a small tool that can take screenshots or scrolling video recordings of any publicly accessible website.
At first, my idea was very simple—just grab a screenshot. But as I explored more, I realized this could be much deeper.
Website Screenshots
How to capture clean, full, and useful screenshots? Here are some of the factors I considered:
- Support for different device resolutions (desktop, tablet, mobile).
- Option to capture only the visible viewport or the entire page (“Full Size”).
- Output formats: JPEG/PNG are enough for most cases, but for long articles or reference content, I added PDF export.
- Capture timing: too early and you’ll catch a loading state. I added options to wait for
load,network idle, plus a custom Capture Delay parameter. - Ads: nobody wants them in their screenshots, so I added a Block Ads option.
- Cookie consent & GDPR banners: common on European sites, so I added Block Cookies & GDPR Banners.
Screenshot interface:
Website Scrolling Video Recording
The second feature is recording scrolling videos of websites. Many options overlap with screenshots (resolution, Block Ads, Block Cookies/GDPR, Initial Delay), but video requires extra care:
- Recording usually starts as soon as the page loads, so the video includes the loading phase. I trim this initial part later.
- Smooth scrolling requires pacing. I added Scroll Distance (how far to scroll each step) and Scroll Delay (pause between scrolls).
- Output formats: raw recording is WEBM, but I also support MP4 (more universal) and GIF (great for social sharing, e.g. on Twitter). Processing (trimming + conversion) is handled with
ffmpeg.
Video interface:
Here’s an example (default settings) recording Stripe’s homepage (~4MB): https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/8ab22ba0-23cd-42ac-a2be-67f1927fb7be
What’s Next
There’s still lots to explore, such as:
- Capturing both light/dark modes
- Providing an API
- Efficient parallel processing for better stability and scale
💡 Try it out and let me know what you think:
- Website Screenshot Tool: https://websitescreenshot.online
- Website Scrolling Video Tool: https://websitescreenshot.online/tools/record-website-video