Experimenting with new tools is part of my job. I’ve even made myself use random, lesser-known browsers as my daily driver for months on end—all to give them a fair shot. But through all the app-hopping and device-switching, a few tools stick around. Usually, because I know there’s nothing else like them out there. ShareX is one of those.
I’ve tried many of the best screenshot apps for Windows—PickPick, Greenshot, Snagit, you name it. But I keep coming back to ShareX. It’s free, packed with features, and has an image editor that’s just unmatched. And I don’t see anything replacing it anytime soon.
Capturing screenshots with ShareX
Many ways to capture screenshots
ShareX makes capturing precise screenshots ridiculously easy. When you hover over your screen to select an area, it shows a magnified view of your cursor position. This zoomed-in preview lets you start from the exact pixel you’re aiming for. You can screenshot only active windows, rectangular regions, freehand selections, elliptical areas, or let ShareX automatically detect windows and UI elements.
The delayed screenshot feature is nothing new, but it’s there. Set a timer for 5 or 10 seconds, and you have enough time to open menus or hover states that disappear the moment you press a key. You can capture specific resolutions through the Capture menu, which is perfect when you need consistent screenshot sizes for documentation or tutorials.
Buried deep under other capture options is its Auto Capture feature. Found under the Workflows tab, it lets you select a region and set a repeat interval, say every 10 seconds. ShareX will then automatically capture that exact area at your chosen interval until you stop it. This comes in handy when you need to take multiple screenshots in a sequence without launching ShareX manually each time.
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Windows
- Developer
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ShareX
More screen capture features
Screen recording, GIFs, live annotation
The latest updates to the Windows Snipping Tool have a live annotation feature; however, ShareX does it better. While capturing, you can add arrows, text, blur sensitive information, or highlight important areas, all before the screenshot is even captured. This way, you won’t miss critical details that you might forget during post-editing, and you don’t need to open an editor for simple markups.
ShareX also handles screen recording and GIF creation. While it’s useful for quick recordings and creating animated tutorials, I’ll be honest, for serious video work, dedicated tools like OBS still offer better quality and more control over multiple audio sources. But for quick screen recordings or GIF captures for my work, ShareX gets the job done without installing a dedicated GIF maker or screen recorder.
Excellent built-in editor
Unmatched image editor and annotation tool in a free app
ShareX’s built-in image editor puts most paid screenshot tools to shame. It includes all the standard annotation tools you’d expect, including arrows, text, shapes, and highlighting. But it goes way beyond basics with features I haven’t found in other free tools.
The smart eraser is a good example of it. In addition to the blur and pixelate effects, it also has a smart eraser that intelligently matches the background color and pattern to completely mask private data. Your screenshots look clean and professional, and not like someone went wild with a mosaic filter.
The built-in editor includes practical features such as step counters for creating tutorials, speech bubbles for adding context, and a magnify tool for highlighting small details. You can resize images, crop them, add borders, apply effects, and even create torn-edge effects. Every edit is non-destructive until you save, so that you can experiment freely.
Advanced features
Keyboard shortcuts, custom profiles, and auto-upload options
Beyond the basics, ShareX has tons of productivity features for power users. You can customize keyboard shortcuts for every single action. From capturing specific monitor regions to uploading to different cloud services, I’ve set up shortcuts that let me capture, annotate, and upload.
You can create different workflows for different tasks. For instance, create one profile for work documentation that automatically adds watermarks and uploads to your preferred cloud service, and another profile for personal use skips the editor and copies directly to your clipboard. You can switch between profiles instantly from the system tray.
ShareX supports over 80 different upload destinations, including Imgur, Google Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive, and FTP servers. You can chain multiple actions together to automatically capture, resize to specific dimensions, add a watermark, save locally, upload to cloud storage, and copy the share link to your clipboard.
ShareX is my go-to screenshot tool for Windows
After years of daily use, ShareX has become as essential to my Windows setup as my browser or text editor. It handles everything from quick screenshots to complex documentation workflows without costing a penny.
ShareX looks intimidating at first—the interface resembles a typical bloated Windows app, with menus and options everywhere. But the basics are simple: click the ShareX icon in your system tray to capture a screenshot, and it’s automatically saved. Double-click the icon to open your task list, where you can edit, annotate, or share any screenshot.
It’s completely free and open-source, yet it offers more features than most paid alternatives. If you’re on Windows and need a reliable screenshot tool, ShareX is worth the initial learning curve.