How to Capture a Selected Area of a Website with Awesome Screenshot

To capture one region with Awesome Screenshot, open the extension and choose Capture > Selected Area in Chrome, Edge, and browsers using the Chrome extension. Drag across the part of the page you want. The menu wording differs in Safari and Firefox: choose Capture Area in Safari or Capture Selected Area in Firefox.

Capture a selected area

1. Open the webpage and let it finish loading. Wait for images and other content that could shift the layout.
2. Click the Awesome Screenshot extension icon.
3. Choose the selection option for your browser:
   • Chrome, Edge, and Chrome-extension-compatible browsers: Capture > Selected Area.
   • Safari: Capture Area.
   • Firefox: Capture Selected Area.
4. Drag with the left mouse button across the region you want to capture.
5. Review the result. Depending on your annotation setting, the extension may open an annotation step before giving you the image.

In Chrome, the documented default shortcut for selected-area capture is Alt+Shift+S. You can customize extension shortcuts through Awesome Screenshot’s Options or the browser’s extension-shortcuts page. The default may differ if it has been changed or conflicts with another shortcut.

Choose whether to annotate

Awesome Screenshot provides a Skip Annotating setting with three choices: Never, Always, and Only When Capturing Full Page. Choose Always if you want to skip annotation and get the capture directly. The full-page-only option applies to full-page captures; it does not mean selected-area captures will skip annotation.

Fix selection problems

What happens	Likely cause	What to try
The capture option is disabled or does not work on a page.	The browser restricts extension access to that page. Browser settings, extension pages, and chrome:// pages are examples of restricted locations.	Capture the visible part or the screen and crop the result. If that does not work for your page, try the Awesome Screenshot desktop app.
The selection jumps or the captured region is misplaced.	The page layout changed while images or other content were loading.	Wait for the page and images to finish loading, then start the selection again.
The shortcut does nothing.	The shortcut may have been changed, disabled, or assigned to another command.	Check the shortcut in extension Options or the browser’s extension-shortcuts page, or open the extension menu and select the capture mode there.
The result opens in an annotation step.	The Skip Annotating setting is set to Never or Only When Capturing Full Page.	Set Skip Annotating to Always if you want to bypass annotation for selected-area captures.

Restricted-page behavior is a browser security limitation, not necessarily a problem with your selection or the extension installation. The available modes and labels can vary by browser and version.

Fallbacks when the extension cannot capture the page

Try these in order:

1. Use the browser’s visible-part capture, then crop to the region you need.
2. Use an entire-screen or app-window capture and crop the saved image.
3. Use the Awesome Screenshot desktop app if the browser blocks extension capture and the browser’s built-in capture is not suitable.

These workarounds capture the screen or visible browser content first; they may include surrounding content that you will need to crop out.

Or skip the browser setup

If you need a screenshot through code or an API, ScreenshotNeo returns a screenshot from one GET request. Its API can capture a full page or a CSS-selected element; it does not provide drag-to-select an arbitrary screen rectangle. For a selected element, pass the supported selector option shown in the ScreenshotNeo API documentation.

curl -G "https://api.screenshotneo.com/v1/shot" -d access_key=YOUR_API_KEY --data-urlencode url=https://stripe.com -o shot.webp

import requests
r = requests.get("https://api.screenshotneo.com/v1/shot", params={"access_key": "YOUR_API_KEY", "url": "https://stripe.com"}, timeout=90)
open("shot.webp", "wb").write(r.content)

const q = new URLSearchParams({ access_key: 'YOUR_API_KEY', url: 'https://stripe.com' });
const res = await fetch(`https://api.screenshotneo.com/v1/shot?${q}`);

• Cookie banners, newsletter popups, and chat widgets are removed before the shot; each cleanup step can be turned off.
• Bot checks, blank pages, timeouts, and failed loads are never billed. Responses identify page verdict and billing status in headers; cache hits also cost nothing.
• An MCP server gives AI agents tools to take screenshots, get page information, and capture PDFs.
• 1,000 screenshots a month are free with no card. Paid plans start at $5 for 3,000 screenshots.

Sign up for ScreenshotNeo and get 1,000 free screenshots a month, with no card required.

FAQ

Can I select an area that is outside the visible part of the page?

The selected-area workflow described here is a drag selection on the page. If the region is not visible, use a capture mode that supports the content you need, or scroll to bring the target region into view before selecting it.

Does the Chrome shortcut work in every browser?

The documented Alt+Shift+S shortcut is for Chrome. Other browsers can use different shortcuts or may let you assign one through their extension-shortcuts settings.

Why do the instructions use different names in different browsers?

The extension’s menu wording varies by browser: Chrome-style workflows say Selected Area, Safari says Capture Area, and Firefox says Capture Selected Area.