CleanShot X alternative: Peekaboo vs CleanShot X
By Vishva Variya · Updated
CleanShot X is the screenshot app many Mac users swear by: capture, record, annotate and share, with a text-recognition tool that copies the words from anything on screen. It’s $35 once with a year of updates, or $10 a month for Pro. Peekaboo isn’t a screenshot tool. It starts where CleanShot finishes: with thousands of screenshots already saved and one of them you need to find.
Looking for CleanShot X itself? It’s at cleanshot.com.
- CleanShot X price
- $35 one-time (1 year of updates); Pro $10/user/month billed annually
- CleanShot X requires
- macOS 13 or later
- Peekaboo
- $24.99 one-time (launch price $9.99 until Nov 13), 14-day trial, macOS 14+
CleanShot X figures from cleanshot.com, cleanshot.com/pricing and its changelog, verified 2026-11-03.
Why pick Peekaboo over CleanShot X?
Search what you’ve already captured
Peekaboo reads the text in every screenshot, photo and PDF on your Mac in the background, so “screenshot with tracking number” finds it. CleanShot’s OCR works on what you select on screen now.
Copy text from fifty at once
Select any number of images in Text in Images and copy all their text in one go.
Clear the old ones
Clean Up finds old screenshots alongside forgotten downloads and duplicates, and any cleanup can be undone.
Peekaboo vs CleanShot X, job by job
| Job | CleanShot X | Peekaboo |
|---|---|---|
| Taking screenshots and recordings | CleanShot X: Its core: capture, scroll, record, annotate | Peekaboo: Not offered |
| Copying text from the screen now | CleanShot X: Capture Text, on-device | Peekaboo: Not offered; use CleanShot or macOS Live Text |
| Finding a saved screenshot by its words | CleanShot X: Not offered | Peekaboo: On-device OCR over every screenshot, photo and PDF |
| Old screenshot cleanup | CleanShot X: Capture history | Peekaboo: Clean Up card for old screenshots, undoable |
| Price and macOS | CleanShot X: $35 once (1 year of updates) or $10/month Pro; macOS 13+ | Peekaboo: One-time per Mac after a 14-day trial; macOS 14 or later |
The honest verdict
These two work best together. CleanShot X is the better way to take screenshots and grab text off the screen; Peekaboo is how you find that screenshot again three months later by what it says, and clear out the ones you don’t need.
CleanShot X vs Peekaboo: questions
Does CleanShot X have a free trial?
- Not directly: CleanShot offers a 30-day money-back guarantee instead. It’s also in Setapp, which has a 7-day free trial, per cleanshot.com on November 3, 2026.
Is CleanShot X OCR on-device?
- Yes. CleanShot says text recognition is performed completely on-device and copies the text to your clipboard.
Can Peekaboo take screenshots?
- No. Use macOS (⇧⌘5) or CleanShot X to capture; Peekaboo makes what you captured searchable.