Earlier this year, I uninstalled ShareX because Snipping Tool had absorbed most of what my third-party screenshot apps did. For quick grabs, that still holds. However, a few weeks later, I needed an entire Windows Settings page in one image, and Snipping Tool had no way to give me one. So ShareX came back, and rather than picking a winner, I gave each app its own job.
Scrolling capture is the job Snipping Tool still can't touch
Snipping Tool captures only what fits on the screen. That's fine for a dialog box, but it falls apart when I need a long Settings page for an article or a full web article I want to keep for reference. Taking three or four snips, pasting them into Paint, and lining them up by hand works, but it eats ten minutes I'd rather spend writing.
ShareX builds that long image on its own. I open its main window, click Capture > Scrolling capture, and drag a box around the part of the page that scrolls. ShareX then scrolls the page itself, compares each new screenshot with the previous one, and adds only the newly revealed content to the bottom of a single image.
Once it finishes, a small indicator shows up in the upper-right corner. Green means a clean capture, yellow means some screenshots didn't line up perfectly, and red means it failed right at the start.
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It isn't flawless, though. Sticky headers, autoplaying videos, and hover effects can throw off that comparison, so I leave them out of the selection and move my cursor onto the scrollbar. For pages in Edge, Screenshot > Capture full page also works, but it can't reach anything outside the browser.
One keypress in ShareX saves and names a capture my way
Snipping Tool copies every capture to the clipboard, and with auto-save on, it also drops a file into Pictures > Screenshots with a name like Screenshot 2026-09-23 101530.png. After a few hundred of those, the folder tells me when I took each shot and nothing about what's in it.
ShareX, on the other hand, lets me decide what happens after every capture. The After capture tasks menu in its main window lists those actions, and I keep only two ticked: Copy image to clipboard and Save image to file. Every capture lands on my clipboard for pasting and on disk as a backup, without a save dialog in between.
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Naming is where ShareX pulls further ahead. In Task settings > File naming under Upload, I set the window capture pattern to %pn_%y-%mo-%d_%h-%mi-%s, which starts each file name with the app I captured. A window capture of ShareX itself now saves as ShareX_2026-09-23_13-44-38, and ShareX already sorts everything into monthly subfolders.
Guide Q&A
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From TweakTown's coverage of this guide.
How can ShareX scrolling captures be troubleshot when sticky elements or animations cause misaligned screenshots?
How does ShareX handle scrolling capture for long Windows Settings pages compared with browser pages?
How can ShareX filename patterns be customized for different capture types and folder organization?
What actions can ShareX automate through its After capture tasks beyond copying and saving images?
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ShareX can also upload captures to Imgur, Google Drive, OneDrive, FTP servers, and dozens of other destinations. I don't use any of them. Since version 19.0.1, automatic upload is off by default on new installs, and I've left it that way because a screenshot with an email address in it shouldn't reach a public image host by accident.
Snipping Tool still wins the quick, throwaway grabs
None of this makes Snipping Tool redundant.
Snipping Tool also has a few tricks I still prefer.
So my rule is simple. If a screenshot is going to be pasted and forgotten, it goes through Snipping Tool. If it needs a name, a folder, or content longer than one screen, ShareX handles it.
Split the hotkeys so the two apps stop fighting
ShareX is free and open source under the GPLv3 license, with no ads, trial, or paid tier. The current release is ShareX 21.0, and you can grab it from the ShareX website or the Microsoft Store. Expect a roughly 100MB installer, since ShareX now bundles its own .NET runtime.
If you prefer installing and updating apps from a single Windows command, open Terminal and run winget install ShareX.ShareX instead.
By default, ShareX assigns its capture hotkeys to Print Screen and its combinations, including
On my PC, the result is inconsistent. ShareX gets Print Screen while its window is open, but Snipping Tool takes it back once I minimize ShareX.
To give ShareX Print Screen outright, open Settings, go to Bluetooth & devices > Keyboard, and switch off "Use the Print screen key to open screen capture." Then open ShareX, click Hotkey settings, and check that every row shows a green marker.
To keep Print Screen for Snipping Tool instead, leave the toggle on and move ShareX. In Hotkey settings, click the combination next to a task, press one that avoids the bare Print Screen key, such as
The same split works for the rest of your utilities
Running two screenshot apps sounds wasteful, but here the cost is one extra tray icon. The same test works elsewhere on your PC. Keep the built-in tool for quick jobs, and keep a specialist only for what Windows still can't do. Clipboard managers, file search, and color pickers are good candidates, and a full list of the Windows 11 settings I change covers the rest.
