Indie Devs Drowning in App Store Screenshots
Independent developers struggle with the tedious and complex process of creating localized App Store screenshots, often seeking alternatives to expensive or restrictive SaaS solutions. They desire more control over their data and workflows, prioritizing local processing and direct integration with Apple's App Store Connect. This pain point is compounded by difficulty in user acquisition and the need for efficient screenshot organization.
SOURCES (60)
“a small update to this digital wellbeing software since my last post. This is a prerelease version which i have tagged to be stable and slated for future release and add to main branch from the beta branch. This highlight is less about asking you…”
Hey everyone, I wanted to share a major upgrade we just shipped for AetherCut , an app focused on keeping video editing 100% privacy-first and local. Most mobile video editors force a…
“U can checkout localbg.app aswell, runs locally and is being actively worked on”
“Hi, thanks for Screendrop, I've been using it daily for a few weeks and it's become my go to screenshot tool. Use case After a capture I want the screenshot uploaded to my cloud (so it's stored and shareable later from history), but I want the image itself in the clipboard, so I can paste it directly into chats, emails or tickets. Current behavior The after capture options include "Copy to Clipboard" and "Upload to Cloud & Copy Link". If both are enabled, the upload wins and the clipboard ends u”
I ship small apps, and every update needs screenshots in every locale: same layout, different captions, exact store sizes. Doing it by hand took hours, so I built a tool for myself.…
What's the difference to the 20 other existing notch apps?
“https://preview.redd.it/wp9lx9lsaosh1.png?width=2514&format=png&auto=webp&s=da1ceb0cc72b948f332930a07debe2d7b0ff3fd0 Screenshot of SnapRecall's library with demo content.”
“wait you named it Daddy Cull and it just shows you today's date across every year? that's genius for actually dealing with the backlog instead of letting it rot”
“Wow super grateful for this genuinely useful feedback. Copy that RE: the screenshots - was thinking of adjusting the order to tell the story better but I think they can be tightened up generally as well. A couple pointless ones in the bunch. Good call about giving the user a clear win and not making them take action to find it.”
“Love the on-device + no-account framing. That is exactly the trust pitch for apps that touch Photos. On pricing: one-time $19.99 feels fair if the free tier already proves the OCR and note save work well, and the paid unlock is clearly for the cleanup/delete workflow. Just make sure the App Store first two screenshots show before/after (messy camera roll -> searchable note) without needing the caption. One UX ask: after save, a one-tap "show me the note" is nice so people feel the w”
“When I have a screenshot in my clipboard, it would be nice to create a new file that has the correct dimensions. In MacOS preview there is a file new from clipboard option, this would be great to have in Compositor as well.”
“Oof, deleting when you meant to keep is exactly the mistake I wanted to catch. Thanks for giving it 20 minutes. I’ll make the swipe labels harder to miss and look at a clearer undo. The same-background groups sound like bad matches too. Were those mostly screenshots or camera photos?”
“Used this for like 20 minutes with my old screenshots pile. The swipe direction felt backwards at first, I kept deleting when I wanted keep. Maybe add a left swipe undo toast or something. Similar photo grouping is nice but sometimes it shows 4 photos that are not same at all, just same background. That made me hesitate more than I expected.”
“For text-heavy app screenshots, I'd start with a straight-on view and fairly tight padding. A tilted dashboard can look good at full size but be hard to read in a phone feed. The README says the style thumbnails use your actual screenshot, which helps you judge the fit. A preset that suits a colourful landing page might swallow up a dense settings screen. I'd keep the initial result easy to read and save the stronger tilts and wallpaper treatments for the shuffle”
“I've shipped 3 paid Mac apps, and the thing nobody tells you is how much stuff surrounds the actual app. So I mapped out my whole setup in one pic. Here's what each piece does: The Mac app Swift 6 + SwiftUI A licence window, with the key saved in Keychain Settings: open at login, updates, licence, about A proper menu bar and main menu (you'd be surprised how many apps skip this) Sparkle for auto-updates Payments Creem or Polar as merchant of record, so they deal with sales tax and VA”
“Hey everyone! Like many of you, I take dozens of full-page screenshots every week for web development, design reviews, and bug reporting. For years, GoFullPage was the go-to tool. However, it always frustrated me that basic features like adding an arrow, cropping, or blurring out sensitive client data were locked behind a $12/year premium paywall. On top of that, there was no way to copy text directly from screenshots, and sharing long captures with teammates always meant manually saving and ema”
“Maybe add an option to lower the cam quality to 720p. That will make it even less noticeable”
“The core idea is solid, the screenshot graveyard is a real problem. Weakest part for me is the voice cook mode being buried under the recipe extraction. That hands-free step is the actual differentiator, I'd lead with it harder. Also curious how you handle reels where the caption is basically useless and the real recipe is only spoken in the video.”
“The white dip is a good catch. Between two shots of the same UI, any flash reads as a glitch rather than a transition. A straight cut, or a quick push into the next part of the window, reads as intentional. One thing I'd check with the sound effects: in the feed on X and Reddit, video autoplays muted, and most people never turn the sound on. So the taps and the rise are for the few who click through, and the first two or three seconds have to work silent. Usually that means the title is on s”
“paint is like trying to carve a turkey with a spoon. I just use the built in photos app, it has a text tool that is not amazing but works for quick stuff. If you need layers or anything fancy it will not help but for slapping some text on a jpeg it does the job.”
“In a minute, someone’s going to show up and recommend an app. How serendipitous! Certainly not paid. Or planned.”
you may use canva for creating the palette and images ^^
“Hey @iqui27, I had another small feature idea — no rush at all. Would it be possible to add something similar to the Spotlight feature to the profile selection screen? For example, a large cinematic/Netflix style background behind the profile selection. It could either: Use a selected catalog, like Spotlight does, and rotate through the posters/backdrops, or Have an automatic mode that randomly selects titles and keeps changing the background. Basically, something that gives the profile select p”
“Hello there I've decided to build several macOS apps as side projects besides my actual work. There are currently 3 simple apps available. Sticktop: a nice to use (and look at) app for creating, editing and adding sticker to your macOS desktop. Windowcase: add high quality borders to your Mac windows. Penfont: a high quality tool that can turn your handwriting (or any page from your notebook) into a macOS font that you can use anywhere. Would appreciate your feedback and support! - P.S. I ca”
I made a screenshot extension called Capture Pro a while back and the first version honestly wasn't great. Full page capture barely worked, the editor was squeezed into a tiny popup, and…
“Hello! Helmarr says it's a MacOS app on your website but it doesn't show as a native MacOS app in the App Store. "Designed for iPad. Not verified for MacOS" I am strongly considering your app, but wanted clarification on this.”
“I save a lot of UI reference. Nice empty states, pricing tables, onboarding flows, animation details. All of it ended up as flat PNGs in a folder I never opened again, because a screenshot tells you nothing about spacing, type scale, or how it was actually put together. So I built Stele. It's a Chrome extension plus a library for everything you save off the web. The difference is that a capture keeps its real structure, colors and typography instead of flattening to an image. When you actual”
“I needed a promo video for my app, and that got me exploring a simple idea: upload your screenshots, describe what you want to highlight, and get an animated video for your launch or social media. The attached video is an early example. Before building further, I’d love some honest feedback: Would you use a video like this to promote your product? How do you create your product videos today? What would need to improve for this to be worth paying for? Still early, so feel free to be critical. I’d”
It would be super informative and gratifying to see this addon in action.
“I kept running into this stupid problem where I’d screenshot something because I knew I’d need it later, and then when I actually needed it… absolutely no clue where it was. Eventually I had thousands of screenshots, all named something like Screenshot blahblah67420.png . I figured I probably wasn’t the only one, so I built PixSift , a Windows app that lets you search screenshots, PDFs and documents by what’s actually inside them, using both text and visual search. I’ve also built a quick overla”
“The core use case makes sense, especially for quick sightings; I’d lean toward a lightweight “sighting” flow rather than making people curate a full collection. One feature I’d love is an edit/confirm step for the AI’s make and model plus a map or timeline view, since where and when I saw a car is probably as valuable as the photo. Keeping profiles private by default is a good call.”
“Ok im struggling a little because i tried and it wont let me save the photos its only letting mw download them and idk where they are going because they arent in my gallery”
“macOS, 0.4.5, free to try: curl -fsSL https://deiko.app/install.sh | shI kept losing time explaining my own screen to Claude Code. Screenshot, crop, paste, then type three paragraphs describing which dropdown I meant. The context was all right in front of me and I was transcribing it by hand.Deiko: double-tap Right Option, and it listens while following your cursor. Hover what you mean while you talk — "this dropdown closes when I scroll, keep it open". Each thing you point at gets cropped and l”
“First app I’ve ever shipped. Months of evenings went into this, and this is the first time I’m putting it in front of people who don’t know me, so be as blunt as you want. PassageShelf is for people who read physical books and keep losing the good parts. You photograph a page, it reads the text from the photo, and the passage gets saved under the book along with its page number. The part I actually care about most is what happens after that: PassageShelf brings passages back to you later, with t”
The main question do you get any return from doing these things
Thanks for the curiosity! I will soon release TestFlight
“I've experienced the pain your app targets. I tried it out - was quick and easy to use. Would be nice to be able to drag and drop photos to the photo input box.”
“So I made Give Me Back My Screenshot : Every new screenshot goes to your clipboard automatically. Take it like you normally do, then ⌘V. Copied something else since? Drag the menu bar icon and drop your latest screenshot into Slack, Mail, a browser upload box, or a Finder folder. The file still gets saved as usual (⌃⌘⇧4 only copies, and I never remember it anyway). Works with any save folder or language. It recognizes screenshots by the tag macOS puts on them, not by file name. Pause it from the”
“Store screenshots — biggest junk first / confirm every delete. Quick honest note from a first-time ship: we initially only released for iOS 26.5+ (tiny %), which hurt early reach — now fixed to iOS 17+. Public Live is only about ~6 days old, so the review count is still tiny (~3). App Store: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/photofloor/id6803229804 https://preview.redd.it/cirytw8uweph1.jpeg?width=1152&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ecbcffb87e21c27a5bd37f167221adff8de9a8b2”
“$350 from 900 users is under 40 cents each, so most people generated one set and stopped, and the cancellations land the week after a release, when paying for a full month of one export is easy to drop. Credits that don't expire fit that pattern better than a subscription. Someone shipping four times a year would buy four sets and keep the balance for the next launch. Studios are a different sale, and no nudge beats the week a release actually ships.”
“that s true, I may pick the wrong ICP. 1% left for developer ICP is hard to get in indeed”
“Trust me... we dont need to pay for single use tools just because its very sophisticated. If you are offering it open source for the community.. then maybe... but pretending that we should pay you proves why devs like you are disconnected from reality.”
“struggling with this. we have a SaaS web app and finding it difficult to get beta users. anyone has any tips on how that can be done?”