How much are you paying to share screenshots? If you’re using CleanShot Cloud Pro, Droplr, or Zight—probably $6-8 per month. That’s $70-96 per year for something that should cost almost nothing.
Here’s what gets me: you’re not paying for complexity. You’re paying for storage and bandwidth. The same storage Backblaze gives you 10GB of for free. The same bandwidth Cloudflare R2 charges exactly $0 for. These screenshot tools take commodity infrastructure and slap a monthly fee on top.
I built ScreenFwd because I got tired of it. Use your own storage, get the same one-click sharing workflow, pay nothing for the app.
What ScreenFwd Actually Does
It’s a tiny menubar app that watches for screenshots. Take one with Cmd+Shift+4, and three things happen automatically:
- Screenshot uploads to your S3 bucket
- A short gofwd.to link gets created
- That link lands in your clipboard
Paste and share. No subscription, no per-image limits, no vendor storing your files.
The whole point is you bring your own storage. I don’t want to host your screenshots—I don’t want to see them, store them, or be responsible for them. They’re yours.
The Math That Made Me Build This
Let me show you what the screenshot sharing market looks like:
| Service | Monthly | Yearly |
|---|---|---|
| CleanShot Cloud Pro | $8 | $96 |
| Droplr Pro Plus | $6 | $72 |
| Zight Pro | $8 | $96 |
| ScreenFwd + Backblaze B2 | Free | ~$3 |
| ScreenFwd + Cloudflare R2 | Free | ~$7 |
That ~$3-7/year assumes you’re storing 50GB of screenshots. Most people need way less. If you stay under 10GB, both Backblaze and Cloudflare have free tiers. You pay literally nothing.
So why are people paying $8/month? Because the alternative used to be complicated. You needed to set up your own infrastructure, write scripts, configure CDNs. ScreenFwd removes all that friction.
How the Workflow Feels
Here’s the day-to-day experience:
You take a screenshot using whatever method you prefer—Cmd+Shift+4, Cmd+Shift+5, or any third-party capture tool that saves to your Desktop.
ScreenFwd notices immediately. It’s watching your screenshots folder with macOS’s file system events. No polling, no lag.
Upload happens in the background. Your file goes directly to your S3 bucket using standard S3 protocols. Works with Backblaze, Cloudflare, AWS, DigitalOcean, Wasabi—anything S3-compatible.
A short link hits your clipboard. This is a gofwd.to link that redirects to your screenshot. Paste it in Slack, email, docs, wherever.
The whole thing takes a couple seconds. Same experience as the paid tools, just without the subscription.
Why Your Own Storage Matters
Besides the obvious cost savings, there’s something else: you own your data.
When you use CleanShot Cloud or Droplr, your screenshots live on their servers. Stop paying, and what happens? Depends on the company. Maybe your links break. Maybe your images get deleted. Maybe they change their terms.
With ScreenFwd, your images sit in a bucket you control. If you stop using the app tomorrow, your files are exactly where you left them. No export needed. No migration panic.
And if you’re paranoid about privacy (you should be), your screenshots never touch gofwd.to’s servers. Only the mapping between the short link and your S3 URL is stored.
Which S3 Provider Should You Pick?
I’ll make this easy:
For most people: Backblaze B2
- 10GB free forever
- $0.006/GB/month after that (stupidly cheap)
- Battle-tested, reliable, great reputation
If your screenshots get viewed a lot: Cloudflare R2
- 10GB free
- $0.015/GB/month storage
- Zero egress fees—this matters if you’re sharing screenshots in popular docs or posts
If you’re already on AWS: Use S3, but know you’re paying more (~$0.023/GB) for the privilege.
Self-hosters: MinIO works great. Zero cost if you run your own server.
Here’s the full compatibility list:
- Backblaze B2
- Cloudflare R2
- Amazon S3
- DigitalOcean Spaces
- Google Cloud Storage (S3-compatible mode)
- Wasabi
- Hetzner Object Storage
- MinIO
If it speaks S3 protocol, ScreenFwd can upload to it.
Setting It Up
The whole setup is maybe 5 minutes:
1. Download ScreenFwd
Grab it from gofwd.to/screenfwd . Standard macOS DMG, nothing weird.
2. Sign in with your gofwd.to account
This is free—you need it so we can generate short links. Sign in with email or Google.
3. Add your S3 credentials
Open Settings and punch in:
- Your provider (Backblaze B2, Cloudflare R2, etc.)
- Bucket name
- Access key
- Secret key
Hit “Test Connection” to make sure it works.
4. Take a screenshot
Cmd+Shift+4, select an area, and check your clipboard. Should have a gofwd.to link ready to paste.
That’s it. No config files, no environment variables, no terminal commands.
The Questions You’re Probably Asking
Is the app actually free?
Yes. Zero cost. You pay for storage, but Backblaze/Cloudflare give you 10GB free. Most users never spend a cent.
Where do my screenshots actually go?
To your S3 bucket. gofwd.to never sees or stores your actual images—only the short link mapping.
What macOS version do I need?
Sonoma (14.0) or later. Sorry, older Mac folks.
Can I use this with CleanShot X?
Yes! If CleanShot saves to your Desktop, ScreenFwd will detect those captures. You get CleanShot’s excellent capture features with free cloud sharing.
What happens if I stop using ScreenFwd?
Your images stay in your bucket forever. The short links keep working too, as long as you’re within your gofwd.to plan limits. You can also share the direct S3 URLs if you prefer.
Can I drag and drop files?
Yep. Drag any image onto the menubar icon. Uploads and generates a link just like auto-detected screenshots.
Why I’m Not Charging For This
Honestly? gofwd.to doesn’t even have paid plans yet. It will eventually—the plan is to charge power users based on link volume and traffic. But the free tier should cover most people for a long time.
ScreenFwd is free because it solves a narrow problem: getting screenshots from your Mac to a shareable link without paying a subscription. That’s it.
If you want annotation tools, screen recording, scrolling capture, cloud editing, OCR, or any of the other features that CleanShot and friends offer—this isn’t for you. Those tools earn their subscription fees with genuine functionality. ScreenFwd doesn’t compete with that.
But if you just want to take a screenshot and share it? You don’t need $8/month worth of features. You need storage and a link. ScreenFwd gives you that for free.
Get Started
Download ScreenFwd at gofwd.to/screenfwd .
Set up takes 5 minutes. Storage costs ~$3/year instead of $96. Your screenshots stay yours.
Happy sharing!