This free screenshot tool replaced Snipping Tool, ShareX, and everything else for me

Taking a screenshot on Windows is a chore. We do have the Snipping Tool on Windows; it's built-in and reliable, but painfully basic. It interrupts the workflow by opening new windows, lacks an advanced annotation feature, and makes saving files a mess.

That's why I switched to PixPin for screenshots on Windows. It's arguably the most powerful tool I have used to date. It makes taking a screenshot on Windows easy and accessible, and it adds a nice bonus to my productivity.

Why does using PixPin make sense?

It's not just about the screenshot; it's the experience

The name is a giveaway; it takes pix and pins them. Where do pictures stick? To my screen like a digital sticky note. If you have ever used Snipaste, then PixPin will feel like its spiritual successor. PixPin is snappy, lightweight, and feature-rich.

It adds features other tools lack, such as long-scrolling screenshots and built-in OCR. It operates on the philosophy of invisible utility: it sits quietly in the system tray, uses negligible RAM, and only appears when I need it.

How to get started with PixPin?

It's quick and easy to get it running

PixPin respects my time; the installation is clean, free of bloatware, and doesn't require any extras to work. We can easily download PixPin from its official website or from the Microsoft Store.

Once PixPin is downloaded and installed, we are all set. Yes, seriously, as easy as that. I don't need to do any extra tinkering. Once it's installed, it automatically sets up the shortcuts to take and pin screenshots.

The default shortcuts are:

1. Ctrl + 1: To take screenshots.
2. Ctrl + 2: Paste the screenshot on your screen directly as a floating window.

Once PixPin is up and running, head into the settings and ensure Auto-detect UI elements is enabled. This feature allows the tool to intelligently snap to windows, buttons, or panels when I hover over them, creating perfect screenshots without manual adjustment.

What makes PixPin better

It's the little things that make a bigger impact

When I first came across PixPin, I thought of it as just another screenshot tool. I didn't think much of it until I decided to give it a try. Little features in PixPin that most of us don't pay attention to added significant value to my work.

The pin feature is a productivity hack

This is the feature that added the most value. With the standard snipping tool, take a snip, copy it, and then paste it into another app like MS Word or Slack. If I want to reference that data, I need to Alt+Tab back and forth.

With PixPin, we can pin the screenshot. The image stays pinned across all windows to be used as a reference. This comes in handy in more ways than one. For instance, if you are a coder, you can pin the documentation while you write code; for writers, you can pin your research notes; and for designers, you can pin the color palette for reference.

It sounds simple, but keeping a visual data source pinned to the top of all windows as we work across applications drastically reduces cognitive load and improves focus on the task at hand.

Built-in offline OCR

We have all been there: we need to copy text from a YouTube video, a protected PDF, or an error message that won't let us highlight it. PixPin has a built-in text extractor. It is a paid feature, but I find it worth it.

When you take a screenshot, you click the small "Text" icon (or press a hotkey), and it instantly converts the image data into editable text. Unlike Microsoft's PowerToys Text Extractor, which can sometimes be finicky to trigger, PixPin integrates this directly into the snipping interface.

Furthermore, it works offline, meaning the data isn't sent to a cloud server for processing, which is a significant win for privacy and speed.

Long screenshots and GIFs

This is the feature that truly sets it apart from Snipaste. More often than not, a webpage or a document is longer than the screen I am on. In normal circumstances, I need to use a browser extension to take screenshots, but you can avoid that with PixPin. It lets you take long screenshots on any screen you want.

All I need to do is start taking screenshots, select the area, click the long Screenshot button in tools, and scroll; the software stitches the images together into a single, seamless screenshot.

Additionally, PixPin includes a lightweight GIF recorder. If I want to record a bug, show someone how to navigate the menu, or I don't want to launch OBS. All I need to do is select an area and hit record from the toolbar to generate lightweight GIFs.

The PixPin is perfect until it's not

Caveats that you should be aware of

The first thing to note about PixPin is that it's not open source. Unlike ShareX, where the code is public and verifiable, PixPin is closed. While there are no reports of malicious activity, and the features' offline nature is reassuring, we can't really see what the code is doing.

Also, PixPin can not automatically upload your images to Imgur, shorten the link with Bit.ly, and then post it to Twitter in a single click. It lacks the automation engine that makes ShareX a favorite among system administrators and DevOps professionals.

However, most users do not need automated FTP uploads; they want to share a picture of their screen without a headache. PixPin feels significantly less janky than ShareX and is more powerful than Windows Snipping Tool.

Take screenshots that are actually useful

PixPin has successfully become the modern default in my workflow. It navigates the perfect middle ground. It's not as dauntingly complex as ShareX, but it is miles ahead of the bare-bones Windows Snipping Tool. This app turns static images into dynamic productivity assets.