Windows 10 Capture Screen Shortcut

[Yufei Labbe]

Thebuilt-in Snipping Tool lets you snap, save, annotate and share screenshots of all or a portion of your screen. It can also record a video -- with sound -- of a window on your desktop. The easiest way to call up the Snipping Tool is by using the keyboard shortcut Windows key + Shift + S.

Once you take your screenshot, it will be saved to your clipboard and show up momentarily as a notification in the lower-right corner of your screen. Click the notification to open the screenshot in the Snipping Tool app to annotate, save or share it. (If you miss the notification, open the notification panel and you'll see it sitting there.)

To start recording a video, you need to highlight a portion of your screen and then click Start from the small panel at the top of your screen. You can choose to record system audio or sound from the microphone -- or both.

If you search for the Snipping Tool from the taskbar or open it from the Start menu's alphabetical list of apps, it will open a small window instead of the tiny panel at the top of the screen. From here, you need to click the New button in the upper left to initiate a screen capture and open the small panel. It's an extra step to proceed this way, but it also lets you delay a screenshot by 3, 5 or 10 seconds.

After opening the Snipping Tool, click the New button to begin the screenshot process. The default snip type is rectangular, but you can also take free-form, full-screen and window snips.

You can also set the PrtScn button to open the Snipping Tool by going to Settings > Accessibility > Keyboard and toggling on Use the Print screen key to open screen capture.

To capture your entire screen and automatically save the screenshot, tap the Windows key + Print Screen key. Your screen will briefly go dim to indicate you've just taken a screenshot, and the screenshot will be saved to the Pictures > Screenshots folder.

To take a quick screenshot of the active window, use the keyboard shortcut Alt + PrtScn. This will snap your currently active window and copy the screenshot to the clipboard. You'll need to open the shot in an image editor to save it.

You can use the Game bar to snap a screenshot, whether you're in the middle of playing a game or not. First, you'll need to enable the Game bar from the settings page by making sure you've toggled on Record game clips, screenshots and broadcasts using Game bar. Once enabled, hit the Windows key + G key to call up the Game bar. From here, you can click the screenshot button in the Game bar or use the default keyboard shortcut Windows key + Alt + PrtScn to snap a full-screen screenshot. To set your own Game bar screenshot keyboard shortcut, to Settings > Gaming > Game bar.

If you're rocking a Microsoft Surface device, you can use the physical (well, sort of physical) buttons to take a screenshot of your entire screen -- similar to how you would take a screenshot on any other phone or tablet. To do this, hold down the Windows logo touch button at the bottom of your Surface screen and hit the physical volume-down button on the side of the tablet. The screen will dim briefly and the screenshot will be automatically saved to the Pictures > Screenshots folder.

The screenshot will be copied to your clipboard, or you can save it to your screenshots folder. To save the file, paste the screenshot into any program that allows you to insert images, like Microsoft Word or Paint.

To take a screenshot on Windows 10 or Windows 11 and automatically save the file to the Screenshots folder, press the Windows key + PrtScn. Your screen will go dim and a screenshot of your entire screen will be saved to the folder.

The Windows 10 Snip & Sketch app is the best way to screenshot on Windows if you're looking to customize, annotate, or share your screen captures. This is the best way to annotate your screenshots before sharing them, as it gives you editing capabilities like an eraser, a ruler, and cropping tools.

To activate Snip & Sketch, use the keyboard shortcut Windows Key + Shift + S. Your screen will go dim and a mini menu will appear at the top of your screen, giving you the option to take a rectangular, free-form, window, or full-screen capture.

Although the Snipping Tool exists in Windows 10, it's not usually the screenshot tool you'll want to use. In Windows 11, the Snipping Tool got a major upgrade and it's now the best way to take custom screenshots.

To start the Snipping Tool in Windows 11, you can search for it or press the Windows Key + Shift + S. Like Snip & Sketch, your screen will go dim and a toolbar of screenshot options will appear at the top of the screen. This toolbar will let you take a rectangular, freeform, full-window, or a full-screen capture, as well as time your screenshot for the amount of seconds you'll need to pull up the window you need to capture.

Once you've taken your screenshot, it can be copied to your clipboard, saved to the Screenshots folder, or printed right away. If you click the preview that pops up in the bottom-right corner of your screen, you'll be able to save and edit it further.

Quick tip: If the Game Bar doesn't open, make sure it's enabled. To do that, press the Windows key + I to open the settings app and head to Gaming > Xbox Game Bar. Then, turn on the toggle to enable Game Bar for "recording game clips, chatting with friends, and receiving game invites."

Screenshots and video clips captured by the Game Bar are saved in PNG and MP4 format and you can find them in the Videos > Captures folder in File Explorer. You can also find them through the Game Bar's Gallery, by clicking Show my captures > See my captures underneath the screenshot and recording buttons in the Capture menu.

To take a screenshot on Windows 10 with a Microsoft Surface device, press the Power Button + Volume Up Button. The screen will go dim, and your screenshot will save to the Pictures > Screenshots folder.

I'm able to launch the snipping tool, select an option and then copy based on my selection. Is there a way to launch a default snipping option so that I can create partial screen screenshots without using a third-party tool?

Both OneNote and SnagIt implement this perfectly. If OneNote is running, pressing winkey+S allows me to click and drag any portion of the screen, including pop-out menus with selections that are active. SnagIt does almost the exact same thing, invoked by the prt screen key.

If you don't want to run the snipping tool then there is a shortcut to take a shot of active window in Windows 8. Press the Alt+PrtSc, but it will copy the current windows screen shot to clipboard(it will not save it directly like Win+PrtSc) if you want to save it you need mspaint windows open and just paste it there and save it.

Type Snipping Tool in Windows 8 Mainscreen. Just Right Click or Select it,and from the APPBAR you can go to the Open File Location and there you have the Snipping Tool. create your Shortcut.After that the Steps are the same...

A lot of good answers here, but I don't see any that directly answer the OP (some mention 3rd party tools, which are great, but it's good to know defaults on a bare system, as asked, so to answer the OP using default key options in Windows ("Is there a way to launch a default snipping action"), here are the options available using just OS hotkeys (except for one, creating a hotkey for Snipping Tool has to be done manually as noted above). Note: Mouse Keys (a function in the Ease of Access tools, as noted above by Peter Pompeii above), are not in any way required for this, and will not help with any of the below.

Create hotkey for Snipping Tool. Quicker way than above: Just open Start, type "snip" to see the Snipping Tool, right-click on it in Start menu then select "Open file location" which will open Explorer in the folder where the Snipping Tool Start menu shortcut is located, right-click on that and in Properties adjust the shortcut key (I just used F5 here in line with Sant14's post above).

You can change the default action when you double-click on the OneNote tray icon by right-clicking on that and going to OneNote icon defaults. Changing this to "Take screen clipping" will make that the default when you double click on this tray icon. You can optionally change the key used for this here: -the-onenote-screen-clipping-and-new-side-note-keyboard-shortcuts/

I have used the "shorctut" mechanism specified by Sant14 in Windows 7 for some time, and the result is as "Head of catering" is asking for. The Snipping tool opens using the shortcut key (in my case Ctrl+Shift+S, and immediately opens "rectangular select" mode.

I'm not sure I understand your question, but if you're just trying to get rectangular regions or individual windows using the snipping tool, just click the down arrow next to the "new" button to choose different selection methods:

Other solutions here just print the entire screen or launch Snipping Tool but don't start a snip. This AutoHotkey script exactly replicates the Windows 7 behavior: you hit Win+S, your crosshairs come up, you click and drag, your snip is copied to the clipboard and Snipping Tool is closed. You do need to enable the Snipping Tool option "Always copy snips to keyboard".

Steps:Launch the snipping toolRight click on the icon in the taskbar and choose "pin this program to the traskbar"Drag the icon to be the first on the bar (farthest left)Win+1 will now launch Snipping Tool

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