OpenSnip

A fast, no-nonsense screenshot and screen recording tool for Windows and Linux. Built because the built-in Snipping Tool kept getting in the way.

Press Win + Shift + S (or Print Screen), drag, done: it's on your clipboard and saved to disk. Press Win + Shift + R to record a video of any part of the screen, with system sound (and your mic, if you turn it on). No delay, no toast notifications, no extra windows.

Why it's better than Snipping Tool

• Instant. The screen freezes the moment you press the shortcut, so menus and tooltips stay put while you select.
• Same muscle memory. Win + Shift + S and Win + Shift + R open OpenSnip instead of the Snipping Tool. Prefer something else? Set any shortcut you like, which helps on keyboards without a Print Screen key.
• Pixel-perfect on any monitor setup. Mixed DPIs and 4K + 1440p side by side work fine, with no blurry or offset captures.
• Click a window to grab just that window, or drag any region. A magnifier with pixel coordinates and color helps you line up the edges.
• Copies to the clipboard as real PNG, so pasting into Discord, Slack, browsers and docs keeps full quality.
• Auto-save to the folder of your choice as PNG or JPG, optionally sorted into monthly folders.
• Small preview in the corner that disappears by itself. Click it to annotate, or drag it straight into any app as a file.
• Annotate in one click: arrows, boxes, pen, highlighter, text, and pixelate-to-redact. Every edit is copied to the clipboard automatically.
• Pin snips on top of everything. Resize them from any corner or edge, zoom, and adjust their opacity.
• Screen recording to MP4 (H.264, hardware accelerated) with system sound and an optional microphone, pause, mic mute, and controls that never show up in the video.
• Repeat the last region with a shortcut, which is handy for before/after shots.
• Small (about 1.5 MB), runs in the tray, and needs no installer.

Shortcuts

Anywhere

Keys	Action
Win + Shift + S	Snip
Win + Shift + R	Start / stop recording
PrtSc	Snip
Shift + PrtSc	Snip after a delay (3 s by default, so you can open menus)
Ctrl + PrtSc	Re-capture the last region
Click the tray icon	Snip (or stop recording)

Right-click the tray icon for the same actions, plus Pin image from clipboard, Open image in editor…, links to both folders, Settings… and Exit.

Change any of the keyboard shortcuts in Settings → Shortcuts: click Change and press any combo. You can also give "snip after delay" and "repeat last region" their own shortcuts, or turn off the Print Screen key entirely. Alt+PrtSc and Win+PrtSc still do what Windows normally does.

While selecting (snip or record)

Input	Action
Drag	Select a region
Click	Grab the highlighted window (or the whole monitor on the desktop)
F	Whole monitor under the cursor
A	All monitors (snips only)
Enter	Grab what's highlighted
Arrow keys	Nudge the cursor 1 px (Shift for 10 px)
Esc / right-click	Cancel the current drag, or cancel

Editor

Keys	Tool / action
A	Arrow
R	Box
D	Pen
H	Highlighter
T	Text (Enter to finish, Shift+Enter for a new line)
B	Redact (pixelate)
1–6	Colors
hold Shift	Straight lines, 45° arrows, squares
Ctrl+Z / Ctrl+Y	Undo / redo
Ctrl+C	Copy (edits also copy automatically)
Ctrl+S	Save as PNG or JPEG
P	Pin on top of everything
Esc	Close

Pinned images

• Drag to move.
• Drag any corner or edge to resize. The image keeps its proportions; hold Shift to stretch freely.
• Scroll to zoom, or Ctrl + scroll to change opacity. Press 1 to go back to actual size.
• Double-click or Esc to close, and right-click for more options.

Screen recording

Press Win + Shift + R (or choose Record video from the tray menu), then pick an area, a window or a whole monitor the same way you would for a screenshot. After an optional 3-2-1 countdown, a red outline marks what's being recorded, and a small bar lets you pause, mute your mic, stop, or throw the recording away. The outline and bar are hidden from the video itself.

A recording covers one monitor: a selection that crosses monitor edges is clipped to the monitor containing most of it.

When you stop, the MP4 is saved to Videos\OpenSnip and copied to the clipboard by default, so you can paste it straight into Discord, Slack or a folder. A preview pops up that plays the video when clicked.

Options in Settings → Recording: system sound, microphone (and which one), 30 or 60 fps, quality, mouse cursor, the countdown, and whether to copy the file to the clipboard. The microphone is only opened when you turn it on.

Settings

Right-click the tray icon and choose Settings…. There's a page for each area:

• Capture: copy to clipboard, what happens after a snip (preview, editor or nothing), how long the preview stays, the magnifier, and the delayed-snip length.
• Saving: auto-save, the screenshot and recording folders, PNG or JPG, and monthly subfolders.
• Recording: sound, microphone, frame rate, quality, cursor, and countdown.
• Shortcuts: every global shortcut, plus the Print Screen key.
• General: start with Windows, open the settings folder, and reset to defaults.

Changes apply immediately.

Install

1. Download OpenSnip.exe from Releases and put it anywhere.
   • OpenSnip.exe is small but needs the .NET 9 Desktop Runtime. If it's missing, the app will show a prompt to install it on first launch.
   • OpenSnip-standalone.exe is larger but needs nothing installed.
2. Optionally, build it yourself (see below).
3. Run it. It lives in the system tray. Turn on Settings → General → Start OpenSnip when Windows starts if you want it on every boot.

Requirements: Windows 10 (version 2004 or later) or Windows 11, 64-bit. Screen recording also needs the Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable (x64), which most PCs already have.

The Windows Snipping Tool still opens?

OpenSnip intercepts its shortcuts before Windows sees them, so this normally just works. If Print Screen still opens the Snipping Tool on your machine, turn off Settings → Accessibility → Keyboard → "Use the Print screen key to open screen capture" (on Windows 10 that's Settings → Ease of Access → Keyboard). If something else grabs one of the shortcuts first, pick a different one in Settings → Shortcuts.

Something not working?

Run OpenSnip.exe --diagnostics to write a report (displays, audio devices, and whether the recorder can start) to %APPDATA%\OpenSnip\diagnostics.txt, and attach it to an issue along with %APPDATA%\OpenSnip\error.log if there is one.

Linux

The Linux app is a separate native Avalonia build. It covers screenshots, annotation, pinned images, global shortcuts and screen recording on X11.

What works: X11 capture through libX11, with maim, ImageMagick import and scrot as fallbacks; Wayland capture through the xdg-desktop-portal Screenshot API, with grim, gnome-screenshot and spectacle as fallbacks; region, window, monitor and all-monitor selection with a pixel-grid magnifier showing coordinates and color, and one overlay window per screen at its scale; clipboard as PNG; auto-save as PNG or JPG; preview; annotation; pinned images (under the pointer on X11, centered on Wayland); tray icon; global shortcuts and MP4 recording on X11; and settings. X11 capture includes outputs left of or above the origin.

Install: download OpenSnip-linux-x64.tar.gz from Releases, then:

tar -xzf OpenSnip-linux-x64.tar.gz
cd OpenSnip-linux-x64
./install.sh

The installer copies the binary to ~/.local/bin/opensnip, so make sure ~/.local/bin is on your PATH.

Requirements: x64 Linux; X11 or Wayland with xdg-desktop-portal; xclip (X11) or wl-clipboard (Wayland) for clipboard support; ffmpeg for screen recording. A tray host is optional. Without one, Settings opens on launch and closing it quits OpenSnip, unless a pin or editor is still open. opensnip --pin opens only the pin, and opensnip --edit file.png opens only the editor.

Shortcuts

On X11, OpenSnip uses the same shortcuts as Windows. The defaults are Win + Shift + S, PrtSc, Shift + PrtSc, and Ctrl + PrtSc. Change them in Settings → Shortcuts. Alt + PrtSc and Win + PrtSc stay with the desktop, as does any chord the desktop already owns.

Recording has no built-in global shortcut; bind opensnip --record in the desktop settings.

On Wayland, bind opensnip --snip, opensnip --snip-delay, or opensnip --repeat in the desktop's shortcut settings. Use opensnip --pin to pin the clipboard image, opensnip --pin file.png to pin a file, opensnip --edit file.png to edit an image, and opensnip --settings to open settings.

Selecting a region

Input	Action
Drag	Select a region
Click	Grab the highlighted window, or the monitor under the cursor
F	Whole monitor under the cursor
A	All monitors
Enter	Grab what's selected
Arrow keys	Nudge the cursor 1 px (Shift for 10 px)
Esc / right-click	Cancel the current drag, or cancel

On X11 the outline follows the window under the pointer. On Wayland a click grabs the monitor.

While recording, F and A record the monitor under the cursor. A recording stays on that one monitor.

Screen recording

Choose Record video in the tray, or run opensnip --record, then pick a region the same way as a snip. On X11, ffmpeg writes an H.264 MP4. A red outline and a bar (pause, microphone, stop, discard) stay on screen and are left out of the file. Videos go to ~/Videos/OpenSnip. Wayland sessions do not record.

Annotating

Click the preview to annotate, or drag it to drop the file. The tray command Open image in editor… and opensnip --edit file.png open an existing image. Settings can open the editor instead of the preview. Keys match the editor table above. Pin (P) is Windows-only. Edits are copied to the clipboard.

Command line

opensnip --record              # record a region (X11, needs ffmpeg)
opensnip --pin                # pin the clipboard image
opensnip --pin file.png       # pin a file
opensnip --capture file.png   # capture the whole desktop without UI
opensnip --edit file.png      # open an image in the editor
opensnip --diagnostics [file] # print (and optionally write) a diagnostic report
opensnip --help

Build from source

From the repository root:

dotnet publish linux/OpenSnip.Linux.csproj -c Release -r linux-x64 --self-contained true -p:PublishSingleFile=true -p:IncludeNativeLibrariesForSelfExtract=true -p:EnableCompressionInSingleFile=true -p:DebugType=none -o dist/linux

Where things live

• Screenshots: ~/Pictures/OpenSnip by default
• Recordings: ~/Videos/OpenSnip by default
• Settings: ~/.config/OpenSnip/settings.json
• Crash log: ~/.config/OpenSnip/error.log

Build from source

Linux users should see the Linux section above; the Linux app has its own publish command.

git clone https://github.com/DevanMetz/OpenSnip
cd OpenSnip/src
dotnet publish -c Release -p:PublishSingleFile=true -o ../dist

Requires the .NET 9 SDK on Windows. The result is dist/OpenSnip.exe. The project targets x64 because the recording library is native.

For a fully standalone exe that doesn't need the runtime installed (much larger), add --self-contained true.

Where things live

• Screenshots: Pictures\OpenSnip by default
• Recordings: Videos\OpenSnip by default
• Settings: %APPDATA%\OpenSnip\settings.json
• Crash log, if anything goes wrong: %APPDATA%\OpenSnip\error.log

Contributing

Issues and pull requests are welcome. The code is plain WinForms + GDI+; recording uses ScreenRecorderLib. The Linux app is native Avalonia.

File	What it does
src/TrayApp.cs	Tray icon, global shortcuts, snip and record flow
src/CaptureOverlay.cs	Frozen-screen selection overlay (snips and recordings)
src/EditorForm.cs / src/Shapes.cs	Annotation editor and shapes
src/Recording.cs	Recording session, red outline, and control bar
src/SettingsForm.cs	The Settings window
src/SmallWindows.cs	Preview thumbnail, countdown, pinned images
src/Hotkeys.cs	Shortcut parsing and matching
src/KeyboardHook.cs	Low-level keyboard hook (on its own thread)
src/Imaging.cs	Screen capture, window detection, clipboard, saving, icon
linux/Program.cs / linux/App.cs	Linux app startup, single instance, tray and snip flow
linux/Capture.cs / linux/DBus.cs	X11, Wayland portal and external capture backends
linux/X11Windows.cs	Top-level X11 windows for click-to-capture
linux/OverlayWindow.cs / linux/Magnifier.cs	Per-monitor Linux selection overlays and pixel magnifier
linux/MonitorMap.cs	Desktop-pixel mapping for mixed-DPI snips
linux/RecordingSession.cs	X11 recording, red outline, and control bar
linux/PinWindow.cs	Linux pinned images
linux/Annotation.cs	Annotation shapes for the Linux editor
linux/EditorWindow.cs	Linux annotation editor
linux/SettingsWindow.cs	Linux Settings window
linux/HotkeyChord.cs	Shortcut parsing, matching, and grab planning
linux/X11Hotkeys.cs	X11 global shortcuts
tests/OpenSnip.Tests	Linux regression tests (capture, window detection, images, command line)

License

MIT. Screen recording is powered by ScreenRecorderLib (MIT).