How to capture part of a Chromebook screen

Ctrl + Shift + Show windows opens a toolbar rather than taking a shot straight away, which is why it seems like nothing happened.

Updated 15 September 2026

Step by step#

Press Ctrl+Shift+Show windows — the key with the rectangle-and-lines icon. The screen dims and a toolbar appears near the bottom with a camera and camcorder icon, plus three shape buttons: full screen, region, window.

Region is selected by default. Drag a rectangle, and before you commit you can adjust it — the box has draggable handles on every side and corner. Click Capture inside the selection when it's right.

That adjustment step is what separates ChromeOS from Windows and macOS, where releasing the mouse ends the capture. Here you can nudge an edge two pixels without starting over.

Window mode highlights each window as you hover. Click to capture it cropped to its edges.

Esc closes the toolbar. The mode you picked is remembered next time, which occasionally means the toolbar opens in video mode a week later and you wonder why there's a countdown.

Getting it onto the clipboard#

ChromeOS always writes a file. But the notification that follows each capture carries a Copy to clipboard button, and clicking it makes the image available to Ctrl+V.

The file still exists in Downloads either way, which means heavy screenshotting quietly fills local storage. Worth clearing out occasionally.

Selecting precisely#

• Drag from any corner in any direction.
• The pixel dimensions appear inside the selection as you drag.
• Adjust with the handles after releasing — nothing is committed until you click Capture.
• Tapping the full screen button captures immediately with no drag.

With a stylus#

On stylus-equipped Chromebooks, the pen menu in the shelf has Capture region and Capture screen options. Capture region lets you draw the area with the pen, then opens the result for annotation straight away — the quickest capture-and-mark-up path on any of the three operating systems.

Where it lands, and what to do next#

Downloads, plus Tote at the left of the shelf. From Tote you can drag a fresh capture straight into a Gmail draft, a Docs file or a chat window.

To crop or annotate further, open it in the built-in Gallery app: crop, rotate, resize, and basic pen annotation, all offline. More on annotation

Full-screen and window captures work differently again; the Chromebook overview covers all three.