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    Windows Guides
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    5 min read 6 stepsApril 20, 2026Verified April 2026

    How to Take Screenshots and Record Your Screen with Snipping Tool

    Capture any part of your screen as an image or record a video of what you're doing, using the free Snipping Tool built into Windows.

    At a Glance

    Category
    Windows Guides
    Difficulty
    Beginner
    Read Time
    5 min read
    Steps
    6
    Topics covered
    Snipping Tool
    screenshot
    screen recording
    Windows
    how-to

    In this guide (6 steps):

    1. 1.Open Snipping Tool
    2. 2.Choose your snip mode and capture
    3. 3.Use the delay timer for tricky screenshots
    4. 4.Annotate and save your screenshot
    5. 5.Record your screen with Snipping Tool
    6. 6.Find and share your screen recording
    1

    Open Snipping Tool

    ~27s
    Press the ⊞ Win+Shift+S keyboard shortcut to right away start a snip, or click the Start menu, type Snipping Tool, and press Enter to open the full app. Opening the full app gives you access to settings, delay timers, and the screen recording feature. The keyboard shortcut is the fastest way to take a quick screenshot on the fly.

    Quick Tip

    Pin Snipping Tool to your taskbar by right-clicking its icon and selecting Pin to taskbar — this makes taking screenshots much faster whenever you need one.

    2

    Choose your snip mode and capture

    ~23s
    When the Snipping Tool toolbar appears, choose one of four capture modes: Rectangular Snip (click and drag a rectangle — most common), Free-form Snip (draw any shape), Window Snip (click a specific window to capture just that app), or Full-screen Snip (captures everything on your screen at once). After selecting a mode, click and drag to make your selection. The screenshot is automatically copied to your clipboard.
    3

    Use the delay timer for tricky screenshots

    ~26s
    Some screenshots require you to capture something that disappears when you click — like a drop-down menu or a tooltip. Open the full Snipping Tool app and click the clock icon or set a delay of 3 or 5 seconds. This gives you time to set up what you want to capture before the snip automatically triggers. Click New Snip, then quickly set up the on-screen element you want to capture before the timer runs out.
    4

    Annotate and save your screenshot

    ~36s
    After capturing a screenshot, the Snipping Tool editor window opens automatically. Use the Pen tool to draw or circle things with a digital pen, or the Highlighter to mark text in yellow. Click the crop tool to trim the image further. When you are satisfied, click File then Save As to save it as a PNG or JPG image file, or click the Copy button to copy it to your clipboard and paste it directly into an email or document.

    Quick Tip

    If you want to quickly paste a screenshot into an email or message, press ⊞ Win+Shift+S, draw your rectangle, then go to your email and press Ctrl+V to paste it — no saving required.

    5

    Record your screen with Snipping Tool

    ~24s
    Open the full Snipping Tool app and click the video camera icon (Screen recording) at the top. Click New to start setting up a recording. Draw a rectangle around the area of the screen you want to record — or select the full screen. Click Start to begin recording. You will see a small recording indicator at the top of your screen. When finished, click the Stop button in the toolbar.
    6

    Find and share your screen recording

    ~38s
    After stopping your recording, the Snipping Tool editor shows a preview of your video. Click the Save icon or go to File then Save As to choose where to save the MP4 file. By default, recordings save to your Videos folder. You can then share the MP4 file by email, upload it to YouTube, or send it via text message. MP4 files play on virtually any device, including iPhones, Android phones, and smart TVs.

    Warning

    Screen recordings can create large files. A five-minute recording of a full screen may be 50-200 MB depending on your screen resolution. If you are emailing it, consider shortening the recording or uploading it to Google Drive or OneDrive first and sending a link instead.

    You Did It!

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    The Snipping Tool is a free program built into Windows. It captures screenshots — pictures of what is on your screen — and it can record video of your screen too.

    It has been part of Windows for many years. Microsoft gave it a big upgrade in Windows 11, adding a new design, a delay timer, an annotation pen, and screen recording.

    Screenshots are useful in many everyday situations: saving a photo of a confirmation number, capturing an error message to show a tech support person, documenting steps in a process, saving a recipe from a website, or capturing a conversation you want to keep. Instead of trying to describe what you see on screen to someone, you can send them a picture of it.

    The quickest way to take a screenshot on Windows is to press Win+Shift+S on your keyboard. This opens a small toolbar at the top of your screen and dims the display to show it is ready to capture. You then draw a rectangle around whatever you want to capture and it copies to your clipboard — ready to paste into an email, Word document, or image editor.

    The screen recording feature (new in Windows 11) lets you record a video of your screen so you can show someone how to do something, or save a video from a website that does not let you download it. Recordings save as MP4 video files on your computer.

    Snipping Tool also has an annotation feature that lets you draw on your screenshots with a digital pen or highlighter before saving them, which is helpful for pointing out specific parts of an image.

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    screenshot
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    Official Resources

    Microsoft SupportHow-To Geek — WindowsGCFGlobal — Windows Basics

    Sources used to create and verify this guide. View all sources →

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