Glossary
Full-page screenshot
The whole page in one image — and the four things that make that harder than a flag.
By Roger Campos · Last updated: September 2026
TL;DR
A full-page screenshot is an image of a web page's entire scrollable height, not only the visible viewport. The browser renders the page as if its window were as tall as the document and captures that. Lazy-loaded images, sticky headers, infinite scroll and a maximum image height make it harder than it sounds.
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How it works
How it is taken
A viewport screenshot is what fits in the window: 1350 × 797 CSS pixels, say. A full-page one asks the browser to render beyond the viewport — Chrome's DevTools Protocol does it in one pass — so the image is as tall as the document. The other way is to scroll and stitch tiles together, which repeats a position: fixed header once per tile.
In practice
What breaks it
- Lazy-loaded images. They load when scrolled into view. Capture without scrolling and the lower half of the page is empty boxes.
- Infinite scroll. The page grows as long as you scroll it, so the capture needs a limit.
- Maximum height. Chrome's rendering surface tops out at 16,384 device pixels; past that a capture comes back truncated or blank rather than failing.
- Viewport-sized sections. A hero set to
100vhis as tall as the viewport you chose, so the viewport height changes the picture. - Overlays. Cookie banners and chat widgets sit on top of the content in every capture.
URLpipe
Full-page screenshots in URLpipe
/screenshot captures the full page by default. Before capturing, the engine scrolls through the page once so lazy images load, bounded in steps and height so a feed cannot run forever, then returns to the top and renders in one pass, so a fixed header appears once, where it belongs. The image is at most 16,384 pixels tall (full_page_max_height lowers it); a taller page is captured down to that height.
{
"url": "https://example.com",
"sync": true,
"page_options": { "block_cookie_banners": true },
"screenshot_options": { "format": "webp", "quality": 80, "hide_selectors": ["#chat-widget"] }
}WebP is usually the smallest format for a long page. Set full_page: false for the viewport only, or selector to capture one element.
Try it
Full-page screenshot, on a page you choose
Related terms
FAQ
Frequently asked questions
Why are images missing from my full-page screenshot?
How tall can a full-page screenshot be?
Why does the header appear several times?
See it on your own pages.
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