Best windows screenshot utility

If you want something a little more powerful, you can launch the Snipping Tool included with Windows 7, 8, and It can you take screenshots of your full screen, a single window, or an area of your screen. You can set a delay of up to five seconds if you need time to set up a screenshot after clicking the button. Other screenshot utilities are more packed with features, but Windows includes surprisingly capable tools you can use on any computer, without installing anything extra.

Greenshot is one of the most popular screenshot utilities for Windows. You can press one of its user-configurable keyboard shortcuts or right-click the system tray icon and select an option to start taking a screenshot. This tool can take screenshots of your full desktop, a window, a region, or the last region you took a screenshot of.

The Preferences window includes a variety of options, including a screenshot delay if you need time to set up screenshots after initiating them. This is important if, for example, you want to show a shot of an open menu that pressing the Alt or Ctrl key might close. The included External Command Plugin lets you add programs to this list. Where Greenshot hides in your system tray and offers a minimal interface, PicPick provides a modern Windows interface complete with a ribbon bar.

If you take multiple screenshots, PicPick shows them all in its editor using tabs. While PicPick has a slick interface, what really sets it apart from Greenshot is its editing interface. You can use PicPick to resize and crop screenshots, apply effects, insert text, and add stamps like numbers and arrows to annotate your screenshots before sharing them.

If you just want a screenshot tool to get out of your way and let you share screenshots or work with them in your preferred image editor, Greenshot is superior. If you want a screenshot program to give you simple editing and annotation tools, PicPick is the best. Skitch was another screenshot utility with basic annotation features that people liked, but Evernote has discontinued Skitch for Windows.

PicPick is a pretty good alternative to Skitch. This application can automatically upload screenshots you take to over 80 destinations, from Dropbox to FTP servers and Amazon S3.

You can configure ShareX to automatically perform a variety of capture and upload tasks every time you take a screenshot, too. For example, every time you take a screenshot, you could have ShareX automatically save it to your hard drive, add a watermark, and upload it to a server of your choice. After the upload is complete, ShareX can automatically copy the URL of the uploaded image to your clipboard and share it on Twitter.

I also wasn't a fan of the way its text annotation required a white box around all your text. Greenshot is a slightly less feature-filled, yet similar app to PickPic. We mention it because it's popular, but we don't see any advantage to using it over PickPic. Still, if you don't like PickPic for whatever reason, Greenshot is one of the most similar apps you'll find for free. Lastly, if all you want is basic screenshot taking, you can try Windows' built-in Snipping Tool or the slightly more feature-filled Lightscreen.

Snipping Tool lets you capture screenshots and that's it, while Lightscreen offers a delay before taking, the ability to choose your format and save location, and a few other basic features.

Lightscreen is very lightweight, which is nice, so if you don't need features like a built-in editor, it's a great tool to try. Many of you undoubtedly have your own favorite screenshot tool, so if we didn't mention it here, tell us about it in the comments. Lifehacker's App Directory is a new and growing directory of recommendations for the best applications and tools in a number of given categories. Unfortunately, the image editor offered by Greenshot might is a bit too complex for editing a screenshot.

If you are no problem with it, then Greenshot is a nice screenshot you can try. Shots is a simple screenshot tool. It is a cross-platform screenshot tool. In addition to Windows, you can also install it on Linux and Mac. Shots only offers a single screenshot mode. You can only capture the entire screen of your Windows 10 desktop with it. There is no option to select a window or region.

Even so, you can instantly crop the captured screen as well as adding arrow or rectangle element. You can also blur certain area of the captured screen.

The delay feature offered by Shots allows you to capture certain action in your computer. Shots allows you to instantly share the screenshot to social media or save it online to Dropbox or Imgur. Shots is the screenshot I personally use on my daily basis.

Shots has one thing in common to ShareX. It is released as an open source software. If you want, you can see the source code of this software on its official GitHub page. Lightshot is another simple screenshot tool. In opposite to Shots, Lightshot requires you to select the screen area you want to capture. Lightshot offers a pretty simple editor, but it is the thing that this tool want to offer indeed. You can instantly add text to the captured screen as well as adding arrow, straight line and rectangle shape.

In addition to saving the screenshot to your computer, you can also instantly share it to social media. Monosnap allows you to capture your desktop screen, whether the entire screen or just selected region.

If you need to, you can also record your desktop with it. Monosnap also offers an easy to use editor which will automatically open after it captured the screen. You can instantly add an arrow to the screenshot or mark certain area with a rectangle shape. It is also possible if you want to blur certain area.

Monosnap itself is a cloud-based screenshot tool. If you want, you can also upload your screenshots to the Monosnap server for anywhere access. Unlike six first screenshot tools above which are available as free software, Screenpresso is released as a freemium software.

Free-form snip — This lets you draw a free-form shape around an object of your choosing. Rectangular snip — With the rectangular snip, you can drag the cursor around a particular object, so you can form a rectangular frame.

Window snip — The window snip lets you choose a particular window that you want to capture. There are different ways to access the Windows snipping tool , depending on the Windows OS version that you have:. Click the Start button on the taskbar, and type snipping tool in the search box. Select the Snipping Tool from the results.

When it comes to the snipping tool , Windows 10 has a one-up over previous versions. It offers a larger variety of markup tools, as well as a ruler. Moreover, you can easily access the app without having to go through the search bar. Go to the lower-right corner of your screen to access the search bar. Similar to how you open the Windows snipping tool on Windows 10, you also need to select the Start button on your Windows 7 device.

Type snipping tool in the search box, and select the Snipping Tool from the results displayed. To optimize your use of the Windows snipping tool, here are some helpful snipping tool shortcut keys you can try:. Mac devices also come with their own snipping tool. This snipping tool for Mac is versatile, letting you take screenshots and more. Formerly known as Grab, this built-in tool lets you capture the entire screen, capture a window, or take a screenshot of just a portion of your screen.

Using the snipping tool for Mac is as easy as pressing and holding several keys at the same time. To take a screenshot on a Mac device, press and hold the following keys simultaneously: Shift, Command, and 3. Once a thumbnail appears on your screen, you can click it to start editing your screenshot.

If you only want to capture a small portion of the screen, you can do so by pressing and holding the following keys at the same time: Shift, Command, and 4. Once a crosshair icon appears, use this to select the area you want to capture by dragging it to the said area. If you want to move your selection, then press and hold the Space bar while dragging the area.