How to get your screenshots on every device

Screenshots are the quickest way to keep something: a confirmation code, a map, a slide from a webinar, a bug on a website, a recipe someone posted. They’re also the hardest to move around. Phone screenshots sit in the camera roll between holiday photos, and computer screenshots pile up on the desktop with names that are only a date and a time.

This guide covers how screenshots usually travel between phones and computers, why they get lost on the way, and how to have Fabric collect them from every device into one library where the text and contents of each image can be searched.

How people usually get screenshots from one device to another

On a phone, screenshots go into the photo library, so iCloud Photos or Google Photos syncs them along with everything else. That gets them onto other devices signed in to the same service. Finding one later means scrolling past hundreds of photos, since photo apps are built around pictures from the camera rather than captured text.

Computers save screenshots to a default folder: the desktop on a Mac, a Screenshots folder in Pictures on Windows. They stay on that one machine unless the folder is inside a cloud drive. Plenty of people paste screenshots into a chat with themselves or a note just to get them onto another device, which works for one image at a time.

The common thread is that screenshots are taken in a hurry and rarely named or sorted, so even when they sync, they’re hard to find again. How to do a digital declutter has suggestions for clearing out an existing backlog.

Step 1: Import phone screenshots automatically

Install the Fabric app for iOS or Android. Fabric can import screenshots from iOS and Android automatically, so new ones appear in your library without you sharing each one. They’re then available on your laptop, your desktop and the web app as well as the phone.

For a single screenshot you want to save with context, open it, tap Share and choose Fabric. You can add a comment or tags at that point, such as which project it’s for or why you took it.

Step 2: Send computer screenshots to the Fabric drive

Install the Fabric desktop app on Mac, Windows or Linux. It mounts Fabric as a virtual drive, and you can point your computer’s screenshot location at a folder on that drive. On a Mac, the Screenshot app’s Options menu lets you choose another location; on Windows, the Screenshots folder’s properties let you move it. Each new capture then lands in Fabric and is on your phone shortly after.

Screenshots you’ve already taken can go across in one batch. Select them on the desktop and drag them into the Fabric drive or the web app, or click Upload a file.

Step 3: Capture web pages with the browser extension

When the thing you want to keep is on a website, the Fabric browser extension for Chrome, Safari and Firefox can save a screenshot of the page directly. It can also save the whole website, selected text or individual images, which is useful when you want the page itself and a picture of how it looked.

Captures from the extension go to the same library as your phone and desktop screenshots, so a pricing page captured at work is there to show someone on your phone that evening. It also gives you a dated record of what a page said, such as a price or a set of terms, in case it changes later.

Step 4: Search screenshots by what they show

Fabric reads the text in screenshots and what’s visually in them. When each one arrives, it also writes a short summary and suggests tags. Search uses all of that, so “flight confirmation for Lisbon” or “error message from the checkout page” finds the right image from any device, even though the file is named Screenshot 2026-03-14 at 09.41.

Put a code or a name in quotes to match it exactly. To narrow the results, filter by kind of item or by tag. If you’d like screenshots grouped as they come in, set up smart collections that fill themselves by content, for example one for receipts and one for design references.

Designers and anyone collecting visual references can go a step further. Select a screenshot and run a similarity search to see other captures with a similar layout, color or subject, wherever they were taken. It helps with questions like which other apps used that onboarding pattern you screenshotted last spring.

Step 5: Ask the AI about a batch of screenshots

Screenshots often hold information you’ll want to pull together later, such as prices from several shops or slides from a talk. Put the relevant ones in a folder, open it, and ask the AI assistant. It limits itself to that folder, reads the images, and cites the screenshots it used. You can save the answer as a note, which is then on every device too.

For more on keeping phone and laptop in step generally, How to move files between your phone and laptop covers other file types.

Frequently asked questions

How do I get iPhone screenshots on my Mac or PC automatically?

Install the Fabric iOS app and use Fabric’s automatic screenshot import. New screenshots then appear in the Fabric desktop and web apps.

Can I separate screenshots from my photos?

Yes. Fabric extracts the content type of everything it saves, so you can set up a smart collection that gathers screenshots, and filter search results by kind of item.

Can I search the text inside a screenshot?

Yes. Fabric reads the text in screenshots, including photographed text, and search covers it from any device.

How do I save Mac screenshots to the cloud?

Install the Fabric desktop app and set your screenshot location to a folder on the Fabric drive using the Options menu in the Screenshot app.

Does Fabric work with Android screenshots?

Yes. Screenshot import works on both iOS and Android.

Can I take a screenshot of a web page and save it to Fabric?

Yes. The browser extension for Chrome, Safari and Firefox saves a screenshot of the page you’re on.

Will old screenshots take up space on my laptop?

Not if they’re on the Fabric drive, which keeps nothing on your disk and streams each screenshot when you open it.

What does Fabric cost for this?

The free plan is for trying Fabric out and has storage caps and limited AI use. Connections to other apps and transcription need a paid plan. See pricing.