CloudApp Screenshot Tool Review

I use a variety of screenshot tools in my work and for sharing the images, animated gifs, movies and pretty much any file, I use CloudApp.

I rely on CloudApp for my testing and consultancy work.

I use a variety of tools, and CloudApp excels for sharing images, videos and files.

Features

CloudApp has the normal Screen Capture features associated with most applications.

screenshots
- can annotate
animated gifs
record videos
- webcam style
- screencapture

The benefit here is that the files are automatically uploaded and stored in the cloud making them easy to share.

automatically stored in the cloud
- makes it easy to share via a link e.g. paste into slack or an email
- don’t have to worry about taking up space in your reporting tool or repo

CloudApp refers to the images as “drops”. Which means it also acts as a file upload host for storing general files for sharing. I’ve used it to upload .zip files of code for sharing with clients.

Animated Gifs

Animated Gifs are very easy to record via Cloudapp.

Here is an example that is ‘shared’ as a page to demonstrate some of the sharing capabilities in CloudApp.

https://cl.ly/7fd83bedc953

And I downloaded it to embed it in this post:

OCR

CloudApp also uses OCR so any images that are stored in the cloud are easy to perform text searches on.

https://cl.ly/8545104f33ce

Use Cases

daily reporting during feasibility projects for automating
defect reports and replication, evidence
showing automated execution running
demos and walkthroughs of code reviews
handover demos
great for internal communication

I have used this during my consultancy work to make if faster to visibly share information with the client.

One of the timeconsuming parts of video work is the final set of steps: producing the video to make an mp4, then uploading and sharing the file. These steps are completely automated with CloudApp.

When I record a demo for a client then I can do it as a live demo, I don’t have to worry about editing because it is for internal use, and after the recording it is automatically uploaded.

e.g. for feasibility projects with WebDriver or API Automating:

when I am working remotely on feasibility projects to determine how WebDriver will work for their application.
I will spend a week or so, and after each day, I will record the execution achieved,
so that the client can see what parts are automated and what issues there are.
This will often have voice over so that I can explain the progress.
As the video is uploading, I can write a summary of the progress
copy in the link to the video and send it off

This can be quite a timeconsuming process if I have to record, edit, produce, upload, write and then share.

Sometimes the progress will require animated gif, or I’ll raise a defect or a question and illustrate it with an animated gif.

e.g. for remote code reviews

when I am working remotely on code reviews
create a live video of findings with cloudapp
automatically uploaded and ready to share

The sharing makes it great for internal communication because I don’t have to:

compress the files to add to email
fiddly share via intermediate system e.g. dropbox, google drive
it isn’t on a public site like YouTube or Vimeo so less concern about information leakage

I do use CloudApp a lot for my testing and consultancy work. It has a free plan and if the above use cases match your work, you might find it useful too. CloudApp