How do I make a step-by-step guide on iPhone or iPad?

Start from a recording or from screenshots

There are two ways in, and you pick one when you import.

Start from	Use it when	What happens	Read more
A screen recording	You can do the task yourself	Walkthru finds the steps for you	Recording to a PDF guide
Screenshots	You only have pictures, such as a customer’s screenshots or design mockups	Each picture becomes one step, in the order you pick them	Screenshots to a guide

Record when you can. A recording catches every screen, including the ones you would have forgotten to screenshot, and it lets the video export use real footage. After import, the two routes meet: you can add screenshots to a guide that started as a recording, and replace any step’s picture from Photos.

Why a phone is different from a desktop

Desktop tools such as Scribe and Tango watch your clicks. A browser extension sees each click, takes a screenshot at that moment and reads the label of the button you clicked, so it can write a first draft of every step.

On an iPhone or iPad, no app can see another app’s touches. So Walkthru works from what the recording shows. The screen changing from one settled state to another is a step, and that can be measured from the pixels. Each step also gets a label for the kind of change: a new screen, a scroll, typing, a dialog, a toggle.

What it cannot measure is what you meant. So steps arrive without instructions, and markers are placed by you. That is deliberate: an instruction that is almost right is harder to catch than a blank one.

Turn each screen into a step

For each step in the editor:

• Write the instruction. See the tips below.
• Place a marker on the control the reader has to touch. There are tap, double-tap, press-and-hold and swipe markers, in seven colours. See showing taps in a screen recording.
• Cover private details. Walkthru reads each screenshot on the device and offers to cover email addresses, phone numbers, card numbers and other details it finds. See redacting a screenshot properly.
• Crop to the part of the screen that matters. The original stays in the guide.
• Add a heading or a tip where the reader needs context that is not an action.

What to write in each instruction

• Use the imperative. “Tap Transfer.” Not “The user should tap Transfer”, and not “The Transfer screen appears”. The reader wants an instruction, not a narration.
• Name the control the way the screen does. If the button says Send now, write Send now, capitalised the same way.
• One action per step. If an instruction contains “and then”, it is two steps.
• Say what confirms success when the result is not obvious. “The balance updates” tells the reader they are on track.

Choose the output

Export	Best for	Read more
PDF guide	A file to keep, print or attach, in three layouts	Recording to a PDF guide
Step images	A chat reply or a help-centre article; full-resolution PNGs	Screenshots from a recording
Markdown bundle	A docs site or a repository	Mobile SOP template
Video reel	Showing movement, with optional voiceover	Adding a voiceover

Not sure whether you need a document or a video? See screenshot guide or video tutorial.

Everything above happens on the device. Walkthru has no account and no server, so the recording, which holds whatever was on your screen, is never uploaded.

On iPad

Walkthru is the same app on iPad, with room to work. The editor shows the steps, the picture and the tools side by side. You can mark steps with Apple Pencil, drag a recording onto the library to import it, and use keyboard shortcuts: Command-I to import a recording, Command-Shift-I for screenshots, Command-Shift-R to record and Command-E to export.

Record an iPad task the same way, from Control Center. iPad screenshots keep their shape in the PDF. In a video, every step takes the shape of the first one, so a guide that mixes upright and sideways screens shows the odd ones with black bars.

Doing it by hand

For a short task you do once, the manual route is fine:

1. Take a screenshot of each screen: side button plus volume up, or side button plus Home button on models with a Home button.
2. Paste them in order into a document.
3. Crop each one, write the instruction, and draw a circle on the control with Markup.
4. Cover anything private with a solid shape, not a blur.

It gets slow as the steps add up, and slower when the app changes and you redo it.

Where to go next

• Writing a procedure for a team: the mobile SOP template.
• Making a printed guide for a family member: the cheat sheet for an older parent.
• The app changed after you published: updating a guide.
• Comparing tools: Scribe and Tango alternatives on iPhone.