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Studio setup · Beginner walkthrough

Your own Studio, from nothing.

No website, no domain, no hosting? Studio can run in a free Cloudflare account that belongs to you, with an address like snaps.yourname.workers.dev. You create the account and approve each step; an AI coding assistant on your computer does the technical part with the deploy tool in the Studio download. It creates the Studio app (a Cloudflare “Worker”), a storage space for your captures (“R2”) and a small database for your library and team (“D1”) in your account.

What you’ll end up with

A private library for your screenshots and screen recordings, branded share links on your own Studio address, and sign-in codes for your team. Every capture you upload with Maxisnap goes there, not to maxisnap.com.

What it costs

Studio is built to run on Cloudflare’s free plan, and your Studio dashboard shows how much storage you use. Cloudflare publishes R2's current free allowance and pricing.

Before we start, have these ready:

  • Maxisnap for Windows or Mac, signed in with the account that has Studio (get it here if not).
  • An AI coding assistant that can run commands on your computer, such as Claude Code, Codex or Cursor. Comfortable in a terminal? The developer route has the same commands.
  • A working email address (for your Cloudflare account).
  • A card or PayPal, in case Cloudflare asks for one before it turns storage on.

Create a Cloudflare account

  1. Open Cloudflare’s sign-up page (dash.cloudflare.com/sign-up) in your browser.
  2. Use an email address you check every day. A work address is fine. Pick a strong password and keep it somewhere safe.
  3. Confirm your email: Cloudflare sends a link. Click it before you go on, or some steps will be refused. Check your spam folder if it does not arrive.
  4. You can skip Cloudflare’s questions about adding a website. You don’t need one.

Your business already uses Cloudflare? Use that account instead and skip this step. For a new subdomain such as snaps.yourcompany.com, tell your assistant in step 4; the key in step 5 then needs three more permissions. If someone else looks after that account, show them the technical brief first.

Turn on storage

Your screenshots and videos are stored in Cloudflare R2. Turn it on once:

  1. In the Cloudflare dashboard, open Storage & databases > R2 > Overview.
  2. Complete Cloudflare’s checkout to add R2 to your account. Add a card or PayPal if Cloudflare asks.

If R2 is still off when your assistant checks the plan in step 7, the plan says so. Your Studio dashboard shows how much storage you use. Cloudflare's R2 documentation, read in October 2026, says R2 is free to get started with included free monthly usage, and that you are billed for your usage on a monthly basis.

Get Studio on your computer

  1. On Windows: in Maxisnap, open Settings → Account → Maxisnap Studio setup wizard, click Get started, then Download dashboard. Maxisnap saves the Studio ZIP to your Downloads folder and opens that folder.
  2. On a Mac: in Maxisnap, open Settings → Welcome & Help → Studio Setup Guide, click Get Started, then Download Dashboard. Maxisnap saves the Studio ZIP to your Downloads folder.
  3. Extract the ZIP: on Windows, right-click it and choose Extract All; on a Mac, double-click it. Inside the Studio folder are “Maxisnap Studio - Start Here.html”, AGENTS.md and a cloudflare folder.

Want your logo and colours from the start? Double-click “Maxisnap Studio - Start Here.html”, design your branding and click Lock in my branding; your assistant uses it (AGENTS.md tells it how). Or skip it and change the branding later in your dashboard under Branding.

Hand it to your AI assistant

  1. Open your AI coding assistant (Claude Code, Codex, Cursor or another one that can run commands on your computer).
  2. Copy the ready-made instructions from the Studio setup guide, replace the line in angle brackets with your Studio folder, and paste them in.
  3. Tell it you have no website and want the free Cloudflare edition. It reads AGENTS.md and explains each step before it does it.

The deploy tool needs Node.js 20 or later on your computer; your assistant can check whether it is there. The instructions tell your assistant to ask you before it creates anything, and not to delete or replace what is already in your account.

Give it a Cloudflare key

The deploy needs permission to create your Studio in your Cloudflare account. You give it with a Cloudflare API token, like a password just for this job. Your assistant asks you for it.

  1. In Cloudflare, open My Profile → API Tokens (dash.cloudflare.com/profile/api-tokens), click Create Token and make a custom token.
  2. Give it the permissions your assistant lists from AGENTS.md: Account Settings Read, Workers Scripts Edit, Workers R2 Storage Edit and D1 Edit. For a subdomain of your own domain, also Zone Read, DNS Read and Workers Routes Read.
  3. Create the token, copy it, and paste it into the terminal yourself when your assistant asks for it.

The deploy tool reads the token from the CLOUDFLARE_API_TOKEN environment variable of that terminal session. The technical brief says what each permission is used for. Once your Studio is running you can delete the token; your Studio keeps working, and updating or removing it later needs a new one.

Pick your Studio’s address

  1. Tell your assistant a Studio name with lowercase letters, numbers and dashes. The default is snaps.
  2. If your Cloudflare account has no workers.dev name yet, the plan asks for one and your assistant asks you. It is shared by everything in this account and hard to change later, so your company name is a good choice.

Your address becomes something like snaps.yourcompany.workers.dev. You can add your own domain later without losing anything.

Check the plan, then create your Studio

Nothing has been created yet. Your assistant first runs the plan and shows it to you: “Will create” lists one Worker, one R2 bucket and one D1 database (and your workers.dev name if it is new), and “Will not touch” lists everything else in the account. If the Worker name is already in use, the plan stops and you pick another; the bucket and the database take the next free name.

  1. When the plan looks right, tell your assistant to go ahead. Only then does it create your Studio.
  2. If the deploy stops half-way, running the same command again continues from where it stopped without creating anything twice.

Save your Admin key and connect Maxisnap

  1. The deploy shows your Studio’s address and its Admin key, once. Keep the key somewhere safe, like your password manager. You sign in to your dashboard with it.
  2. It also writes deployment.json in the Studio’s cloudflare folder. Keep that file: updating or removing your Studio later uses it.
  3. Connect Maxisnap with the address and the key:
    • Maxisnap for Windows: open Settings → Account → Maxisnap Studio setup wizard, click “Get started”, then “Next” until step 4, “Connect Maxisnap”. Paste your Studio’s address and key, click “Test connection”, then “Next”, then “Finish & Save” on the last page. The Admin key from setup works, and so does an upload code from People & access in your dashboard.
    • Maxisnap for Mac: open Settings → Welcome & Help → Studio Setup Guide and choose “I already have a dashboard”. Paste your Studio’s address and key, click “Test Connection”, then “Next”, then “Finish & Save”.
  4. Capture something and click Upload in the editor (on Windows, Ctrl+Alt+7 captures a region and uploads it straight away). The share link lands on your clipboard.
  5. Open your Studio’s address in your browser and sign in with the Admin key to see your library.

Upload size. Maxisnap for Windows and Maxisnap for Mac send each upload to a Cloudflare Studio in one request, which it accepts up to 25 MB per file.

Next steps: add your team in the dashboard under People & access (everyone gets their own code and role), and change your logo or colours any time under Branding.

You’re done

Your captures now live in your own Cloudflare account, and share links follow the access rules you set in your Studio dashboard.

To revoke the Cloudflare key or remove the Studio later, see “Changing your mind” in the Studio setup guide.

Anything confusing? Send a screenshot and a description to support@maxisnap.com and a person will write back.

Manual alternative · Not the Studio dashboard

Upload files straight to your own R2 bucket

This older route skips the Studio app and its database. Maxisnap uploads each file directly to an R2 bucket you create, as a custom S3 upload destination. You get a plain file link, without the Studio library, team codes, access rules or branded share pages. Use it if you only want your files in your own bucket.

You need a Cloudflare account (step 1 above), then follow these steps. Steps M4 to M6 show Maxisnap for Windows. In Maxisnap for Mac, open Destinations in the Maxisnap window and fill in Connect Your Own Storage (S3-compatible) with the values from step M3 and a public link address from step M6 (Maxisnap for Mac asks for it when you connect), then click Test and Connect.

Turn on R2 storage

R2 is Cloudflare’s object storage. It is where your screenshots are going to live.

  1. In the Cloudflare dashboard, select Storage & databases > R2 > Overview.
  2. Complete the checkout flow to add an R2 subscription to your account.
  3. Cloudflare's R2 documentation, read in October 2026, says R2 is free to get started with included free monthly usage, and that you are billed for your usage on a monthly basis. Review Cloudflare's billing requirements before you confirm.

Create a bucket

A “bucket” is a named folder in R2. This is where your screenshots will be stored.

  1. In the R2 dashboard, click Create bucket.
  2. Give it a name. Something like yourname-snaps. Cloudflare's documentation says bucket names can only contain lowercase letters, numbers, and hyphens.
  3. Under Location, keep the default unless you need a specific location.
  4. Click Create bucket.

Remember this name. You’ll need it in Maxisnap in a minute. Example: yourname-snaps.

Get your API credentials

Maxisnap needs permission to write to your bucket. This is done with a “token”, like a password just for this one app.

  1. On the R2 Overview page, under Account Details, select Manage next to API Tokens.
  2. Select Create Account API token or Create User API token.
  3. Give the token a name like “Maxisnap Desktop”.
  4. Under Permissions, choose Object Read & Write. Not admin, not read-only: just read & write.
  5. Choose Apply to specific buckets only and pick your bucket name (yourname-snaps).
  6. Select the same Create Account API token or Create User API token button to finish.

Copy these values.

Cloudflare's documentation says you will not be able to access the Secret Access Key again after this step, so copy and record the values now.

  • Access Key ID — looks like a1b2c3d4e5f6...
  • Secret Access Key — longer, looks like 7g8h9i0j...
  • S3 endpoint — Cloudflare's documentation gives it as https://<ACCOUNT_ID>.r2.cloudflarestorage.com

Paste them into a scratch file (e.g. Notepad). You need them in the next step.

Connect Maxisnap for Windows to your bucket

Now back to your computer.

  1. Open Maxisnap. Click the tray icon (bottom-right), then Settings.
  2. Open the Upload page.
  3. Click Add. Because you have Studio, this opens the new-server form.
  4. Fill in Name: “My R2 bucket” (any friendly name).
  5. Set Type to S3 / Cloudflare R2.
  6. Fill in the fields from the previous step:
    • Endpoint — paste your S3 endpoint.
    • Region — leave as auto.
    • Bucket — yourname-snaps.
    • Key ID — your Access Key ID.
    • Key secret — your Secret Access Key.
    • Key prefix — leave empty (or set screenshots/ if you want them in a subfolder).
    • URL prefix — leave this empty for now. You come back to it in step M6.
  7. Click Test connection. You should see a success message in a second or two.
  8. Click Save.

Stuck on Test connection? Check that the Endpoint URL has the full https:// prefix, and that the Bucket name matches exactly (case matters).

Take a test screenshot

Close Settings. Press Ctrl+Alt+5 (Maxisnap for Windows) and drag out a region. After you click Upload in the editor, Maxisnap should push the file to your R2 bucket.

Check that it arrived: go back to Cloudflare R2, click your bucket, and look for a file named something like ms_a1b2c3d4e5.png. If it’s there, Maxisnap is uploading to your own storage.

It works. You have a private screenshot bucket for your uploads. Next, choose whether to make bucket links public.

Choose public file links (optional)

By default R2 buckets are private, which means Maxisnap can upload but you can’t just share the URL with a friend. You have two options to make them shareable. Anyone with a public bucket URL can open the file; Studio dashboard roles and passwords do not apply.

Option A — Cloudflare development URL (for testing)

  1. In R2, click your bucket, then the Settings tab.
  2. Under Public Development URL, select Enable and confirm public access by typing allow.
  3. Cloudflare then shows the Public Bucket URL, on an r2.dev subdomain.
  4. Back in Maxisnap → Settings → Upload, edit your server and paste that URL into the URL prefix field. Click Save.

Now when you upload a screenshot and Maxisnap copies the link, it is on that r2.dev address.

Option B — Use your own domain

If you already own a domain (e.g. snap.yourname.com) you can connect it to the bucket. Cloudflare's public buckets guide has the steps. Then set URL prefix to https://snap.yourname.com.

Don’t own a domain? Any domain registrar sells them. Cloudflare’s public buckets guide, read in October 2026, says r2.dev access is rate-limited and meant for development. Use a custom domain for regular sharing.

You can always come back to Settings → Upload in Maxisnap and switch back to Maxisnap Cloud as the active server if you change your mind. Your R2 server settings are saved and can be used again with one click.