This free tool does everything the Snipping Tool does and about ten things it doesn’t

Date:

The Sundarban


The Sundarban 4

Printed Apr 4, 2026, 5:00 PM EDT

Manuviraj is a tech fanatic who covers Residence windows, macOS, and retrocomputing. Drawn to both the good judgment and the creativity of technology, he’s especially attracted to how of us fill interaction with tech and the files superhighway every day.

He holds an English Literature level. His fascination with tech grew alongside a luxuriate in for speculative worlds: cyberpunk and sci-fi literature shaped the manner he thinks about the device forward for machines and humans sharing residence. 

Outside the show, Manuviraj’s world runs on two wheels and simply sound. He’s into motorcycling, often exploring sleek tune, and tinkering with digital tools suitable to perceive what they’re capable of. Whether he’s breaking down advanced instrument topics or diving into niche corners of tech culture, he’s driven by the identical thing: determining how things work, and how they would possibly perchance perchance well work greater. It’s seemingly you’ll per chance presumably additionally additionally be taught his work on his Substack.

I write about tech every day, and taking screenshots in Residence windows is a mountainous section of my work. And for the longest time, I relied on the Residence windows Snipping Tool for taking screenshots and doing overall annotation. It’s in actuality no longer that awful, and most recent Residence windows updates fill made Snipping Tool even greater: it now entails Lickety-split Markup, a color picker, and show recording. Then another time, it mild falls fast when put next to my most recent favorite, Greenshot, a steady-weight, free, and commence-source screenshot tool.

Greenshot lets me scheme greater than suitable overall editing

Obfuscation, auto-cropping, speech bubbles, it’s all there

Surely one of the most evident Snipping Tool misses is the lack of a simply image editor. Certain, it’s seemingly you’ll per chance presumably presumably additionally click the Edit in Paint possibility and originate your edits there, but it’s an added step to one thing that wishes to be there from the procure-dawdle. What you scheme procure in the Snipping Tool itself is overall markup, cropping, and optical image recognition (OCR). Granted, these points are in most cases enough for the average user who seldom takes screenshots, but they don’t virtually prick it for users who raise screenshots generally and are attempting to switch them in additional ways.

Greenshot comes with a more fleshed-out editor, which is impressive pondering how gentle-weight the tool is. Surely one of my favorite points is the ability to obfuscate sensitive files in the editor itself: this lets me veil my electronic mail, the IMEI, and other sensitive tool files when taking readers thru obvious Residence windows Settings that show them. Additionally, there’s a counter that lets me quantity a pair of steps in one screenshot. And this is suitable the tip of the iceberg. Greenshot additionally permits you to add speech bubbles, text packing containers, shapes (or draw freehand), and scheme presets to your screenshots. Another time, that you can no longer use these points all the time, but they are there when you’d like them.

The Sundarban Greenshot_logo

Greenshot

OS

Residence windows, macOS

Particular person Pricing

Residence windows (Free), macOS (Paid)

Greenshot is a free, commence-source screenshot tool for Residence windows that captures areas, residence windows, or your elephantine show, then permits you to annotate, obfuscate, and export your shots straight away to Design of enterprise apps, electronic mail, or the cloud.

In phrases of show grab mechanics, Greenshot can grab the total show, a disclose window, a disclose space, and repeat space grab. Indubitably, it’s seemingly you’ll per chance presumably presumably additionally space up hotkeys for all these actions. I additionally prefer Greenshot’s zoomed-in show grab cursor over Snipping Tool’s: it’s quite purposeful when you adore to need to be staunch in your different.

A few ways to assign my screenshots

The rich characteristic space is rarely in actuality limited to suitable shooting and editing

The Sundarban Destination tab in Greenshot Settings

Another benefit of Greenshot over Snipping Tool is its integration with other tools. It’s seemingly you’ll per chance presumably additionally raise a screenshot, edit it, and straight away upload it to Dropbox, Imgur, Jira, or Photobucket in a single click. Appropriate be unsleeping to make a different these plugins at the time of set up. Oh, and it’s seemingly you’ll per chance presumably presumably additionally add photos straight away to Microsoft Discover, PowerPoint, Excel, OneNote, and Outlook utilizing the Greenshot editor itself. Over time, this protects you quite rather a lot of time if it’s vital to carry out these actions continually.

It’s seemingly you’ll per chance presumably additionally additionally resolve what happens after you grab a screenshot. Shall we remark, when you happen to like to fill all captured photos uploaded to Dropbox without being opened in the editor first, it’s seemingly you’ll per chance presumably presumably additionally scheme so quite without distress. Proceed to Preferences -> Vacation problem, and tick the possibility for what you adore to need to happen after screenshot grab. It’s seemingly you’ll per chance presumably additionally pick out a pair of actions, too. It’s seemingly you’ll per chance presumably additionally configure Greenshot to replica your image to the clipboard and upload it to Flickr at the identical time. Another time, these alternatives

The Sundarban A laptop with ShareX icon on screen and Windows 11 wallpaper in background

Connected

Close in the Preferences window, and click on the Output tab. Right here, it’s seemingly you’ll per chance presumably presumably additionally resolve where screenshots are saved by default and the structure they’re saved in. K, frigid, even Snipping Tool lets me scheme that. But what about how screenshots are named: Greenshot permits you to alter this too. It’s seemingly you’ll per chance presumably additionally outline the filename pattern and even procure directories dynamically utilizing the Filename pattern text box. Click on the demand brand subsequent to it to understand how exactly to form in the arguments.

The build aside Greenshot falls fast

Snipping Tool mild has about a methods up its sleeve

Despite all its shortcomings, Snipping Tool does some things greater than Greenshot. The first is OCR. Greenshot does fill a “Windows 10 OCR” button in its editor. Greenshot’s OCR plugin (requiring MODI install) used to be unreliable in tests; Snipping Tool’s native OCR excels. Snipping Tool’s OCR characteristic, on the other hand, worked quite without problems. Snipping Tool additionally has a Lickety-split Redact characteristic that mechanically redacts electronic mail addresses and phone numbers. It’s seemingly you’ll per chance presumably additionally custom redact any text by deciding on it and pressing CTRL + R. In case your obfuscation wants are limited to text, this is greater than enough.

What about show recordings? Successfully, Greenshot is strictly for screenshots, whereas Snipping Tool is a capable show recording tool. There’s additionally the Bing Visible Search integration in Snipping Tool,

 » …
Read More

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Share post:

Subscribe

small-seo-tools

Popular

More like this
Related