How to take screenshots on Windows

Everyone runs into this speedbump eventually.

I get it: You’re reading an article or scrolling through your social feeds and you see something you want to share with a friend. Unfortunately, the easiest way to do that would be via screenshot, and you don’t actually know how to do that on a Windows PC. The good news is that’s really not a difficult problem to solve these days.

Here’s how it works.

How to take screenshots on Windows

Unlike MacOS, which has a screenshot feature built-in at the OS level, Microsoft has opted to put an app into modern versions of Windows called Snipping Tool. This is the key to taking screenshots on Windows, according to the mothership itself.

Before we get into all the wonders of Snipping Tool, I should mention that there’s one way to take screenshots on Windows that has always worked. Simply find the “Print Screen” button on your keyboard and press it to take a screenshot, which should automatically be pasted to your clipboard. For basic screenshots, this might be all you need. Pressing the Windows key + Shift + S will also do this, in case you’d rather press three buttons instead of one.

But for anything a little more complicated, such a screenshot that only includes one window or needs cropping, Snipping Tool is the way to go. You can find it by pressing the Windows key and searching for it in the search bar. Snipping Tool will let you choose what shape you want your screenshot to be, which windows you want to screenshot, or even annotate a screenshot with text or drawings.

If you want, you can always put Snipping Tool on your taskbar, too.

In short, Snipping Tool is the way to screenshot on Windows 11. However, the Print Screen button will work just as well a lot of the time. It’s up to you to figure out what’s the best method for any scenario. Have fun out there, folks. Just remember to always crop to the point of focus.