ShareX is a free, open-source Windows program for taking screenshots, recording the screen and sending the results to a file host, cloud storage or link shortener. ShareX uses a task chain. After each capture, it runs the steps the user has switched on, such as annotating, saving, uploading and copying the link. One hotkey can therefore take a screenshot all the way to a shareable URL.
Capture modes
ShareX can capture the full screen, the active window or the active monitor, or a window or monitor picked from a menu. In region capture, the user drags a rectangle, ellipse or freehand shape. Multi-region mode keeps several shapes on screen and captures them together. The selection overlay also works as a drawing surface. The user can add arrows, text, step numbers, blur or pixelation before finishing the capture.
Scrolling capture builds one tall image from a page that does not fit on screen. ShareX scrolls the selected area itself, compares each new screenshot with the one before, trims the overlap and joins the rest. Fixed sidebars, playing video or hover effects can break the matching. It therefore works best when the user selects only the scrolling content.
Screen recording
ShareX records screen activity as video or as an animated GIF.
After-capture tasks
Each capture goes through the after-capture tasks the user has enabled. Image steps include applying an effect preset, opening the editor, copying to the clipboard, pinning the image on top of other windows, printing and saving to a folder. Other steps run text recognition, scan for a QR code, upload the file or pass it to an external program. Workflows link a chosen set of steps to a hotkey, so one key can save locally while another uploads and copies a short link.
Image editor
The ShareX editor offers shapes, arrows, text, speech balloons, auto-numbered steps, a magnifier and a spotlight that darkens everything outside a selected area. Blur, pixelate and a smart eraser hide private details. Annotations stay movable until they are flattened into the image. Canvas tools crop the image, cut out a strip and join the remaining parts, and add padding, rounded corners, shadows or a background. Effect presets apply saved sequences of changes, such as borders, resizing, color adjustments and filters, to the whole image.
Upload destinations
ShareX uploads images, text and files to many built-in hosting services and to cloud storage such as Amazon S3, Google Cloud Storage and Cloudflare R2. Uploads can come from captures, files, the clipboard, dragged items or a watched folder. Once the upload finishes, the link can be shortened, copied, opened or shown as a QR code. For self-hosted or unsupported services, a custom uploader defines the HTTP request and how to read the returned link. Users can share the uploader with others as a file.
Other tools
ShareX also includes utilities that work outside the capture chain. They include a pixel ruler, a screen color picker, OCR based on Windows’ built-in text recognition, and a QR code generator and reader. The tools also include image conversion and watermarking, local background removal, a video converter and trimmer, and a file hash checker.
License
ShareX is free, released under the GPL-3.0 license with public source code, shows no advertisements and needs no account.
