Snipping Tool in Windows 11 can take a screenshot with Win + Shift + S and record your screen with Win + Shift + R.
The steps below come from Microsoft's Windows Learning Center guide to Snipping Tool, dated February 26, 2026. That page is written for the US market and warns that features may change and vary by region.
Take a screenshot with Win + Shift + S
- Press Win + Shift + S. The capture overlay appears.
- Pick a capture mode from the toolbar at the top (see below).
- Select the area you want.
- The snip is copied to your clipboard. Paste it anywhere with Ctrl + V, or open the editor to mark it up and save it.
If you prefer the full app, press the Windows key and type Snipping Tool. Once it's open, right-click its taskbar icon and choose Pin to taskbar so it's one click away next time.
The four capture modes
| Mode | What it grabs |
|---|---|
| Rectangle | An area you drag out |
| Freeform | Any shape you draw |
| Window | A single app window |
| Full-Screen | Everything on screen |
Microsoft says Snipping Tool works across multiple monitors.
Where your Snipping Tool screenshots go
This is the part most people trip over. According to Microsoft's guide, every snip is copied to the clipboard as soon as you select the area. Treat the clipboard as the one place you can count on finding it, and save a file yourself when you need one:
- Paste it first. Open Paint, a chat window or a document and press Ctrl + V. If the image appears, you still have it. Don't copy anything else before you've used or saved it, or it will be replaced.
- Save it from the editor. Open the snip in the editor, choose save, and pick PNG or JPG. Now you have a file in a folder you chose.
Screen recordings work differently: they save automatically to Videos > Screen Recordings.
Record your screen with Win + Shift + R
- Press Win + Shift + R, or open Snipping Tool and switch the toggle from Snip to Record.
- Select the part of the screen you want to record.
- If you want to talk over the video, turn the microphone toggle on.
- Select Start.
- When you're done, select Stop. The video saves automatically to Videos > Screen Recordings.
On audio: Microsoft's guide mentions only the microphone toggle for voiceover. It says nothing about capturing system sound, recording length limits or the file format, so don't count on those without checking in the app.
Copy text from a screenshot with Text Actions
After you take a capture, click Text Actions. Snipping Tool highlights all the text it detects, and you can copy it. This is handy for error messages, text inside images, or anything you can't select normally.
The same page lists a few other built-in helpers:
- Quick Redact finds sensitive details such as an email address or phone number and blacks them out. Microsoft footnotes that language support may be limited.
- QR codes in a screenshot are recognised, and the tool offers to open the link.
- Perfect screenshot adjusts the capture area to frame on-screen content tightly.
- Color picker grabs exact colour values from the screen.
Microsoft doesn't state which Windows 11 versions or PCs get these features, so if you don't see one, it may not have reached your device.
Editing before you save
The editor lets you crop, draw with a pen or highlighter (touch writing works too), and add shapes such as rectangles and arrows. Then save, copy, or share. Ctrl + C copies the edited image.
When Win + Shift + S does nothing
Microsoft's troubleshooting advice for a dead shortcut is to make sure Snipping Tool is enabled in Settings > Accessibility > Keyboard, and that no other app is overriding the shortcut. Screenshot utilities and keyboard remapping tools are the usual suspects for the second one; close them and try again.
In the meantime, open Snipping Tool from Start (press the Windows key and type Snipping Tool) and take your capture from the app window.
Snipping Tool can't capture scrolling pages
Snipping Tool can't capture a scrolling webpage natively, per Microsoft's FAQ.
