How to make Windows Snipping Tool always save image instead of putting it in clipboard
I take many screenshots on my Windows 10 laptop.
I sometimes use Windows Snipping Tool (WinShiftS which opens the little bar at the top and you can take a snip of the window, whole screen or custom selected part of it. Now the problem is that it only saves the picture in clipboard. To save it as an image somewhere, people paste it in paint and save the paint file, which is too much to do.
I tried using the Windows Game Bar Capture (WinG and then capture button) settings, but that only allows whole screen to be snipped.
So how to make snip tool save your picture somewhere? Is there a shorter way?
34 Answers
I don't know of any way to have the built-in Windows Snip & Sketch (Based on your mention of the Win+Shift+S shortcut, I assume you mean this and not the older Snipping Tool) automatically save your images. However there are a few things you can do instead of opening Paint and pasting/saving there:
- After you snip an area, you should get a notification popup in the bottom-right corner of your screen, like the below image. Clicking this will open a Snip & Sketch window where you can save the image directly.
- Use the Paste Into File utility. This will add a right-click context menu item that will save your clipboard contents to a file.
- Use a 3rd-party screenshot program, such as Greenshot or ShareX. Both will allow you to automatically save screenshots to a folder, along with many other features.
Snip and Sketch stores your screen clips automatically.
After upgrading from Windows 10 version 1909 to 20H2, screenclippinghost.exe (the process behind Snip and Sketch) now seems to automatically store the images here:
%LocalAppData%\Packages\MicrosoftWindows.Client.CBS_cw5n1h2txyewy\TempState\ScreenClip
Rather than here:%LocalAppData%\Packages\Microsoft.Windows.ShellExperienceHost_cw5n1h2txyewy\TempState\ScreenClip
Some third-party products have the capability to automatically save the screenshots to a folder.
For example, see the open-sourcegreenshot.
More screenshot tools can be found in the articleBest Free Screen Capture Tool, and some may also have this feature.
The Snip & Sketch tool copies to the clipboard but will also save the image to a temp file. The temp file of the image is stored at following locations:
C:\Users%USERNAME%\AppData\Local\Packages\Microsoft.Windows.ShellExperienceHost_cw5n1h2txyewy\TempState\ScreenClip
or
%LOCALAPPDATA%\Packages\Microsoft.Windows.ShellExperienceHost_cw5n1h2txyewy\TempState\ScreenClip
For more details, please refer to the following thread:
If you don't want to go above locations to find captured screenshot, simply press Windows key + PrtScr to take screenshot.
Now either open MS Paint program and press Ctrl+V. Edit and save your screenshot.
Or open File Explorer and locate Pictures library. Under Screenshots folder, you'll find the captured screenshot.
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