When a full page screenshot is too large to use

The size is not a defect. A 1,440 pixel wide page, 20,000 pixels tall, on a 2x display, is 2,880 by 40,000 device pixels — 115 million pixels, which is roughly 60 times a photograph from a phone camera. PNG stores it losslessly, so the file is large because the image is large. Capturing at native density is deliberate, and part of how the capture engine works.

What each option costs

Figures for a typical 2,880 by 30,000 pixel capture.

PNG, as captured

40 to 80 MB

JPG at high quality

4 to 10 MB

JPG at medium quality

1 to 3 MB

PDF, A4 portrait

3 to 8 MB

Captured at 67% browser zoom

About 45% of the original

Cropped to one section

Proportional to the crop

Choosing between them

JPG, when the content is mostly visual

Compression artefacts cluster around hard edges, which means small text and thin borders are exactly where JPG looks worst. For a page that is mostly imagery it is invisible; for a dense table it is not.

PDF, when someone has to read it

Paginating at A4 gives a document that opens anywhere and prints. For anything over about 15,000 pixels this is usually the right answer regardless of file size. See PDF export.

Zoom out before capturing

Ctrl+Minus to 80% or 67% reduces the rendered page height directly, so fewer pixels are captured in the first place. This is the only option that also makes the capture faster.

Crop to what matters

Most full page captures are shared to show one thing. Cropping is the first tool in the editor. Cropping in the editor before exporting often takes an 80 MB file to under 2 MB with no loss at all in what the recipient needed to see.