Greenshot — Fast Open Source Screenshot Tool for Windows

Introduction

Greenshot is a free, open-source screenshot tool for Windows designed for productivity. It lives in the system tray and captures screenshots with a single hotkey, then lets you annotate, highlight, or obfuscate areas before saving or sharing. It is widely used by developers for bug reports and documentation.

What Greenshot Does

• Captures full screen, active window, or custom rectangular regions via hotkeys
• Provides a built-in image editor with arrows, text, highlights, and shapes
• Obfuscates sensitive information with blur or pixelation tools
• Exports directly to clipboard, file, printer, email, or cloud services
• Supports plugins for Imgur, Jira, Confluence, Office, and more

Architecture Overview

Greenshot is a .NET Framework (C#) Windows Forms application. It registers global hotkeys via the Windows API and uses GDI+ for screen capture and image manipulation. The plugin system uses a simple interface-based architecture allowing third-party export destinations. The editor operates on a layered canvas model where annotations are separate objects on top of the captured image.

Self-Hosting & Configuration

• Install via Chocolatey, winget, or the .exe installer from the official site
• Runs in the system tray; right-click the icon to access settings
• Configure hotkeys for different capture modes in Preferences > Hotkeys
• Set default output destination (clipboard, file, editor) in Preferences > Output
• Install plugins for Jira, Confluence, Dropbox, or Imgur via Preferences > Plugins

Key Features

• Instant capture with configurable global hotkeys (default: Print Screen)
• Built-in editor with professional annotation tools
• Obfuscation (blur/pixelate) for hiding sensitive data in screenshots
• Plugin architecture for direct upload to issue trackers and cloud storage
• Lightweight system tray app with minimal resource usage

Comparison with Similar Tools

• ShareX — More features (screen recording, OCR) but more complex; Greenshot is simpler and faster to use
• Snipping Tool — Built into Windows but lacks annotation and plugin support
• Lightshot — Simpler but proprietary and ad-supported
• Flameshot — Linux-focused open source alternative with similar annotation features
• Snagit — Professional-grade with more features, but expensive and proprietary

FAQ

Q: Is Greenshot available on macOS or Linux? A: The main version is Windows-only. A macOS port existed but is no longer actively maintained.

Q: Can Greenshot capture scrolling pages? A: The open source version does not support scrolling capture. Use the Internet Explorer capture plugin for web pages.

Q: How do I upload screenshots directly to Jira? A: Install the Jira plugin from Preferences > Plugins, configure your Jira URL and credentials, then select Jira as the export destination.

Q: Does it support delayed capture? A: Yes. Use the region capture with a delay setting in the preferences to capture tooltips or menus.

Sources

• https://github.com/greenshot/greenshot
• https://getgreenshot.org