Updated on 2026/10/08 to Version: 2.0.5
🖼️ Window Snipping Tool V2 – The Features That Make This a Must Have
Built in AutoHotkey v2 — capture any region of your screen, pull text out of an image with OCR, and turn a screenshot into a floating, annotatable clip that stays on top while you work.
The built-in Windows Snipping Tool is fine for the occasional screenshot — but if you grab screens dozens of times a day, every extra click adds up. The Window Snipping Tool is a lightweight AutoHotkey v2 utility that lives in your tray and gives you instant, hotkey-driven capture, OCR, and on-screen annotation. Drag, drop, done.
What It Does
Three core hotkeys, each fully customizable in the Preferences GUI:
| Hotkey | Action |
|---|---|
| Win + Drag | Snip a region and open it as a floating clip window |
| Win + Ctrl + Drag | OCR a region — pull text directly to the clipboard |
| Win + Shift + Drag | Delayed capture with a visible countdown border |
Floating Clip Windows
When you snip, the result doesn’t vanish into a clipboard limbo — it opens as a small, always-on-top window that stays anchored while you work in other apps. Perfect for referencing a number from a spreadsheet, comparing two screens side-by-side, or showing a teammate what you’re talking about.
Every clip window supports a built-in shortcut set:
| Shortcut | Effect |
|---|---|
| Ctrl + C | Copy the clip to clipboard |
| Ctrl + S | Save the clip to your configured folder |
| Ctrl + T | Add a text annotation on top of the clip |
| Ctrl + F | Highlight a section (semi-transparent overlay) |
| Ctrl + A | Draw an arrow to point at something |
| Ctrl + Z | Undo the last annotation (up to 20 steps back) |
| + / – | Resize the clip window on the fly |
| Ctrl + Esc | Close the topmost clip |
Real OCR, Right From Your Screen
Need to grab text from an image, a PDF you can’t select, an error dialog, or a video frame? Drag a box around it with the OCR hotkey and the text is on your clipboard. Configurable source and target language for translation workflows too.
Everything Is Configurable
A clean Preferences GUI lets you customize:
- All three capture hotkeys (modifier combinations of your choice)
- Default save folder for Ctrl+S
- Countdown duration for delayed captures
- Highlight color and opacity
- Text annotation colors (text + background)
- Arrow color
- Default resize step percentage
- OCR source and target languages
- Whether to start with Windows
Settings persist in an INI file in your AppData folder, so nothing follows you around your system registry and uninstalling means deleting one folder.
Why You’ll Love It
It feels native. There’s no app to launch, no panel to wait for — just hit your hotkey, drag, and the clip is in front of you. Once you’ve used it for a week, the stock Windows snip starts feeling clunky.
Get the Window Snipping Tool
Lifetime download, one-time purchase. Includes the compiled .exe so you don’t need AutoHotkey installed to run it.
Built by Joe Glines at the-Automator.com — where AutoHotkey gets put to work.
