---
title: "How to use the Snipping Tool"
url: "https://screenshot-laptop.com/windows/snipping-tool/"
platform: "Windows"
section: "Windows laptops"
updated: "2026-09-15"
license: "CC-BY-4.0"
attribution: "screenshot-laptop.com"
shortcuts:
  - "Win + Shift + S"
  - "Win + Shift + R"
  - "Ctrl + N"
---

# How to use the Snipping Tool

*The Snipping Tool's one irreplaceable feature is the delay timer — the only built-in way to screenshot a menu that closes the moment you click elsewhere.*

URL: https://screenshot-laptop.com/windows/snipping-tool/

## The short answer

- `Win` + `Shift` + `S` — Capture straight away
- `Win` + `Shift` + `R` — Record video instead (Windows 11)
- `Ctrl` + `N` — New capture from inside the app

## Opening it

Press `Win`, type *snip*, press `Enter`. Right-click the result and pin it to your taskbar if you'll use it often.

`Win`+`Shift`+`S` skips the app window entirely and goes straight to a capture, which is what you want most of the time. Open the full app when you need the timer, want to edit a capture you've already taken, or need to change settings.

## The four capture modes

- **Rectangle.** Drag a box. The default, and right for nine captures out of ten.
- **Window.** Hover over a window and click it. Captures it cropped to its edges, including rounded corners, without the desktop behind. `Alt`+`PrtSc` does the same job in two keys, [with one difference worth knowing](https://screenshot-laptop.com/windows/alt-print-screen/).
- **Full screen.** Every display at once, no dragging.
- **Freeform.** Draw an irregular shape by hand. Genuinely useful for circling one region of a diagram without a rectangle's worth of surrounding clutter.

## The delay timer

This is the feature worth knowing. Open menus, dropdowns, tooltips and right-click context menus all close the instant they lose keyboard focus — which is exactly what pressing a capture shortcut does. So they're impossible to capture by normal means.

1. Open the Snipping Tool app.
2. Click the clock icon and choose a delay: 3, 5 or 10 seconds.
3. Click **New**. The app gets out of the way.
4. Open the menu you want to capture and hold it open.
5. When the delay expires the screen dims mid-menu and you can drag your selection normally.

Five seconds is usually enough. Ten if you're navigating into a submenu.

## Annotating

After a capture, the image opens in the editor with a ballpoint pen, highlighter, eraser, ruler and crop tool. The ruler is easy to miss and the most useful of them — hold it against the canvas and draw along its edge for straight arrows and underlines, or scroll while hovering over it to rotate it to an angle.

`Ctrl`+`Z` undoes strokes one at a time. `Ctrl`+`S` saves, `Ctrl`+`C` copies the annotated version back to the clipboard. [More on annotation](https://screenshot-laptop.com/how-to/crop-and-annotate/).

## Settings to change immediately

Three dots, then Settings:

- **Automatically save original screenshots** — on. Otherwise a capture you forget to save exists only until your next copy.
- **Automatically copy changes** — on. Keeps the clipboard in sync with your annotations, so a paste doesn't silently drop them.
- **Ask to save edited screenshots** — on. Catches the case where you annotate, then close without saving.

## Text and redaction

On Windows 11, the text actions button reads any text in the capture and lets you copy it, with a separate control for blanking out email addresses and phone numbers. For a screenshot going into a public bug report or a forum post, that redaction step takes two seconds and saves a lot of regret.

The Snipping Tool is one of six routes to a capture on Windows; [the others are here](https://screenshot-laptop.com/windows/).

## Questions

**The Snipping Tool won't open. What now?**

Usually a broken app registration rather than a missing file. `Win`+`Shift`+`S` often still works even when the app window won't launch, which narrows it down quickly. [Full troubleshooting steps](https://screenshot-laptop.com/fix/snipping-tool-not-working/).

**Can the Snipping Tool capture a scrolling page?**

No. It captures only what's visible on screen. [Alternatives that do](https://screenshot-laptop.com/windows/scrolling-screenshot/).

**Is Snipping Tool the same on Windows 10?**

Not quite. Windows 10 has both an older Snipping Tool and a newer Snip & Sketch, and the delay timer lives in the older one. Windows 11 merged them, so the single app has everything. [Windows 10 detail](https://screenshot-laptop.com/windows/windows-10/).