Free screenshot software that's actually worth installing

Four free tools cover everything the built-in ones miss. The rest of this category is bundled adware, and it's worth knowing how to tell the difference.

Updated 15 September 2026

ShareX#

Windows. Open source.

The most capable capture tool in existence, free or paid. Scrolling capture, OCR, screen recording to GIF or MP4, upload to more than eighty destinations, and a workflow engine where a single hotkey can capture a region, blur detected faces, upload it, shorten the URL and copy the link.

The cost is the interface. Opening ShareX for the first time presents dozens of options with no obvious starting point, and its defaults are not what most people want. Budget an hour.

Install it if you capture constantly, or need scrolling capture and upload without paying.

Greenshot#

Windows. Open source.

Small, quick, and finished — it does what it does and stops. Region and window capture, a straightforward annotation editor, and export to file, clipboard, printer, email or Office.

Its best feature is the obfuscate tool: select an area and blur or pixelate it in two clicks. For screenshots containing email addresses, account numbers or customer names, that's the feature you'll use every day.

Install it if you want a capture tool rather than a hobby.

Shottr#

Mac. Free for personal use.

Closes both of macOS's real gaps — scrolling capture and text recognition — in a tool that launches instantly and stays out of the way. Also has a pixel-measuring tool and colour picker that designers tend to keep.

Install it if you're on a Mac and need scrolling capture without paying for CleanShot X.

Flameshot#

Linux, with Windows builds. Open source.

Annotation-first: capture a region and the drawing tools appear around the selection immediately, all keyboard-driven. No editor window, no save dialog, no interruption.

Install it if you're on Linux, or you prefer keyboard workflows.

Browser-based, nothing installed#

For one capture on a machine you don't control, browser developer tools already do full-page capture with nothing installed. The developer-tools method — and if you want it as a one-click button, the extension trade-offs are worth reading first.

Firefox has it built into the right-click menu. That's often the whole answer.

How to spot a bad free tool#

This category attracts adware, so a checklist:

• Does it require an account before the first capture? Walk away. A local tool has no reason to need one.
• Does the installer offer a browser extension, a search bar or a "PC optimiser"? Walk away.
• Is there a source repository or a company behind it? ShareX, Greenshot and Flameshot are all open source with public commit histories. Anonymous tools with only a download page are a risk.
• Where does it upload to? Any tool with a sharing feature is sending your screenshots to a server. Check whose, and whether links are public or private by default.
• Did you find it on a download aggregator? Those sites repackage installers with bundled software. Always download from the project's own site.

Before installing any of these, the tools overview sets out the four gaps that actually justify one.