GrabUp has been my choice of screenshot-sharing utility ever since I stumbled across it on a blog. So impressed was I with it, that I quickly got used to using the tool in my day to day life. GrabUp is a great tool to quickly share the screenshots with your friends. While Mac OS X already makes it simple to take screenshots, GrabUp makes it even simpler to share them by uploading them to their server, and returning the uploaded URL to the clipboard. Just hit Command + V to share the screenshot with your friends via IM, Email, Twitter or Facebook.
Previously, GrabUp used to host the images and link to them directly. These images could this be hotlinked, and there was no mention of GrabUp anywhere. Obviously, this must have started becoming a burden on the developers, as they have now stopped linking to the images directly. Instead, the images are embedded in a page with GrabUp branding, ads and links to the images, much like the way ImageShack, TinyURL and other image hosts do.
GrabUp
If you need to avoid this, there’s a Pro version available for $20 which has 3 major advantages over the Free version
1. Banner-Free
2. Use your own server to host the images via FTP
3. Image watermarking.
The new version also brings a much needed option to delete the image files from your desktop after uploading if you need to (available in both free and pro)
Initially, as it is with every new service, there were a lot of problems. The page layout was broken and not fluid to contain larger images. However, these are being ironed out now and I see the service has become pretty steady. They were also kind enough to give me a Pro version to try it out.
Why go Pro?
GrabUp is originally intended to be a quickfire solution to share your images/screenshots whenever the need arises. Since the images are stored on their servers, they do delete old screenshots that haven’t been used for a while. So GrabUp isn’t a permanent solution.
Now, the Pro version of GrabUp, which is only $20, lets you host your images on your own server instead of GrabUp’s. You can thus make sure that your images are safe, if at all you wish to cherish them. The functionality of GrabUp remains the same.
There’s also the added advantage of watermarking your screenshots. Any PNG image of your choice will be added to the bottom right of your image.
My Take?
Although I’m happy with the price of the Pro license, I think the developers could offer a little more features with the Pro version. Some suggestions:
1. Like me, if someone is hosting the images on their own servers, why not have access to more than just 10 last taken screenshots?
2. Maybe it’s just me, but I’d like a way to tag the screenshots taken. Not multiple tags, just one. Something like a label. And then this could show up in the list of recently taken screenshots.
3. Keyboard shortcut key to pause GrabUp. Sometimes, I don’t want to upload the screenshot.
If these are incorporated into the Pro version, I don’t see why people wouldn’t pay $20 for this.
I first wrote about GrabUp here. GrabUp is available for Mac OS X only, for you Windows users, there’s VVCap.
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Two days from now, I complete 8 awesome months of using a Mac. My Mac Mini has been one of the two best purchases I’ve made, the second being my iPhone. These eight months have made me realize what I’ve been missing all these years and that there’s more to computing than viruses and 