Snipping Tool not working on Windows 11 is one of those problems with a surprisingly small set of actual causes. Most reports fall into: won’t open at all, opens then crashes immediately, captures a black screen instead of the screen content, or the keyboard shortcut (Win+Shift+S) does nothing. This fits into the wider topic we cover in our Complete Guide to Fixing Windows, Browser, and Software Errors.
The cause is usually either a corrupted Snipping Tool installation or a clipboard/screenshot-related Windows permission issue. Both are quick to fix.
Fastest test: press Win+Shift+S. If the screen dims and shows the selection toolbar → Snipping Tool’s core function is working, and a different issue is causing the specific problem you noticed. If nothing happens → the keyboard shortcut is broken or Snipping Tool isn’t running.
Fix 1: Repair or reset the Snipping Tool
Settings → Apps → Installed apps → search “Snipping Tool” → three-dot menu → Advanced options → Repair first. Repair attempts to fix the installation without clearing data. If that doesn’t work: Reset, which clears all stored data and settings.
After repairing or resetting: test immediately. This resolves the majority of “Snipping Tool won’t open” and “opens then closes” issues because the cause is usually installation corruption that Repair fixes without needing to uninstall anything.
Fix 2: Reinstall via PowerShell
If Repair didn’t help: administrator PowerShell →
Get-AppxPackage *SnippingTool* | Remove-AppxPackageThen restart and open Microsoft Store → search “Snipping Tool” → Install. A fresh install from the Store resolves cases where the existing installation has deeper corruption that Repair can’t address.
Alternatively: the Store often updates Snipping Tool automatically. Check whether there’s a pending update: Microsoft Store → Library → look for Snipping Tool in the update list → Update if available. An outdated Snipping Tool version may be incompatible with a recent Windows update.
Fix 3: Win+Shift+S shortcut not working
If the keyboard shortcut does nothing but Snipping Tool opens normally from Start: the shortcut is broken independently from the app. This usually means one of:
- Windows notification permissions are preventing the screenshot overlay from appearing
- Another application has intercepted the Win+Shift+S shortcut
- The Print Screen key behavior has a conflict (Settings → Accessibility → Keyboard → “Use the Print Screen button to open Snipping Tool”)
For the notification permission issue: Settings → System → Notifications → Snipping Tool → confirm notifications are On. The screenshot capture overlay uses Windows’ notification system — if notifications are off for Snipping Tool, the overlay doesn’t display. Turning notifications on and testing again resolves this immediately.
Fix 4: Focus Assist blocking the capture
When Focus Assist (Do Not Disturb) is active: the Snipping Tool overlay is suppressed because it’s treated as a notification. Win+Shift+S appears to do nothing — the overlay was blocked. Check the notification area (click the notification area at bottom right) for a Focus or DND indicator. Turning it off and testing confirms whether this was the cause.
Fix 5: Black screen capture
Snipping Tool opens and allows a selection, but the captured image is black rather than showing screen content. This is a specific GPU/display driver issue where screenshot capture can’t read the framebuffer correctly. Usually tied to hardware acceleration or the display pipeline.
GPU driver update from the manufacturer’s website typically resolves this. Also: if the display is connected via DisplayPort 1.4 with DSC (Display Stream Compression) enabled: some GPU driver versions can’t capture from DSC-compressed displays. Disabling DSC in the GPU control panel (if the display resolution supports non-compressed output) or updating the GPU driver to a version that handles DSC capture fixes this.
Fix 6: Protected content and DRM
Attempting to screenshot DRM-protected content — Netflix in the Edge browser, Disney+ in the Windows app, Spotify’s Now Playing screen, some streaming services — produces a black area where the protected content was. This is intentional and correct: the content protection system prevents screen capture of the protected region. The rest of the screen captures normally; only the protected content area is black.
There’s no fix for this from the user side. Content protection is implemented at the OS level and can’t be bypassed by any screenshot tool, built-in or third-party.
Time delay and screen capture for notifications
To capture a notification, tooltip, or other UI element that disappears when you interact with it: Snipping Tool has a timer feature. Open Snipping Tool from Start → click the timer icon (the alarm clock icon in the toolbar) → set 3–10 seconds → click New or the camera icon → interact to show the element you want to capture → the capture happens after the timer, getting the element in view.
This timer feature is specifically designed for capturing transient UI states and is one of Snipping Tool’s most useful but underused features — particularly for capturing tooltip text, right-click menus, or dropdown states that disappear when the mouse moves.
Our guide on Windows 11 apps not opening covers the AppxPackage reinstall approach for Store apps that have deeper corruption than Repair can address — the PowerShell method above applies to any Store app with the same syntax. For the notification permission issue affecting multiple apps, our notification and taskbar guide covers the Windows notification infrastructure. Microsoft’s Snipping Tool documentation covers the annotation features, the multi-screen capture delay configuration, and the keyboard shortcut customisation for users who want different shortcuts than the defaults.
Clipboard history and screenshot retention
After a snip: the captured image goes to the clipboard. If clipboard history is enabled (Settings → System → Clipboard → Clipboard history → On), screenshots accumulate in the clipboard history (Win+V to view). When clipboard history is disabled: only the most recent snip is available on the clipboard, replaced by the next thing you copy. Users who expect snips to be “saved” somewhere often discover they’ve been overwriting them each time.
Snipping Tool also has an autosave feature: when you capture and close Snipping Tool without saving, Windows 11 saves recent snips to the Screenshots folder in Pictures (File Explorer → Pictures → Screenshots). This happens automatically. If snips are “disappearing”: they’re being replaced by newer ones in the clipboard while the file copies accumulate in the Screenshots folder — open that folder to find all recent captures.
Multiple monitors and capture area selection
On multi-monitor setups with monitors at different scales or resolutions: the Win+Shift+S overlay sometimes appears on only one monitor, or the capture doesn’t respect the DPI scaling correctly on the secondary monitor. If trying to capture from a specific monitor and the selection tool appears on the wrong one or the capture is scaled incorrectly: move the application window you want to capture to the primary monitor temporarily, take the screenshot, then move it back.
Snipping Tool in “full screen” mode (the rightmost icon in the selection mode toolbar) captures all connected displays simultaneously. For capturing a specific window on a secondary monitor: use the “Window” mode rather than “Rectangle” mode — Window mode captures the entire selected window regardless of which monitor it’s on and handles DPI scaling correctly per-window.
Third-party screenshot tools conflicting with Win+Shift+S
Screenshot utilities like ShareX, Greenshot, Lightshot, and others often claim the Win+Shift+S shortcut during installation as their own capture trigger. When two applications claim the same shortcut: the last-installed one typically wins, and Windows’ Snipping Tool shortcut appears to do nothing because it’s being intercepted by the third-party tool.
Check the third-party screenshot tool’s shortcut settings and either change its shortcut to something else (most tools let you customise bindings) or disable the Win+Shift+S binding in that tool. After freeing the shortcut: Windows’ built-in capture function responds again. If you prefer the third-party tool: just let it keep the shortcut and use the third-party tool intentionally — there’s nothing wrong with this approach if you prefer its functionality.
Snipping Tool and Remote Desktop sessions
Win+Shift+S from within a Remote Desktop session captures the local machine’s screen, not the remote session’s screen. This is Windows by design: keyboard shortcuts in RDP sessions are generally handled by the local machine rather than forwarded to the remote session. To capture the remote session’s screen: use the Snipping Tool installed on the remote machine, access it through the remote session’s Start menu, and capture from there. Alternatively: taking a screenshot on the remote machine and retrieving it via the clipboard (RDP clipboard sharing) is usually faster than launching Snipping Tool remotely.
Print Screen key and Snipping Tool integration
Settings → Accessibility → Keyboard → “Print Screen shortcut” → “Use the Print Screen button to open Snipping Tool.” When enabled, pressing the Print Screen key (PrtSc) opens Snipping Tool instead of silently copying the screen to the clipboard. Some users enable this then wonder why their Print Screen key no longer copies directly to the clipboard — this is the setting that changed that behaviour. If you want Print Screen to copy to clipboard again: disable this setting.
Conversely: if you’re trying to use Print Screen for Snipping Tool and it’s not opening Snipping Tool when pressed: check this setting is On, and check that no other application is intercepting the Print Screen key (some keyboards have software that intercepts PrtSc for their own functions).
Snipping Tool video capture
Snipping Tool on Windows 11 (version 11.2304 onwards) includes a screen video recording feature. Click the camera/video toggle in the Snipping Tool toolbar. This records a region of the screen as an MP4 video — useful for recording short clips, demonstrating software behaviour, or capturing animated content that a screenshot can’t represent.
Video capture has more system requirements than screenshot capture: it uses the GPU hardware encoder. If video recording shows a black preview or fails to record: hardware acceleration for video encoding needs to be available. On machines with integrated graphics, video recording may be slower but should still work; on machines with dedicated GPUs, it’s typically fast and smooth. The recorded videos save to the same Screenshots folder as screenshots.
Windows 11 version and Snipping Tool features
Snipping Tool has received significant feature updates in Windows 11 — text extraction (OCR), video recording, and improved annotation tools all appeared in post-22H2 versions. If features described in recent guides aren’t visible in Snipping Tool: check the app version (Snipping Tool → about, accessible via the three-dot menu). If the version is significantly older: update from the Microsoft Store. Sometimes the Snipping Tool included in the base Windows 11 installation is outdated and the Store version has additional features that the Windows Settings repair doesn’t update.
Text extraction (OCR) from screenshots
A feature many users don’t know about: Snipping Tool can extract text from a captured image. After taking a screenshot in Snipping Tool: click the “Text actions” button (T icon) in the toolbar → Snipping Tool runs OCR and highlights the detected text → click “Copy all text” to get the text on the clipboard. This works on screenshots of documents, code, error messages, or any readable text in the image.
This OCR feature requires Windows 11 22H2 or later and Snipping Tool version 11.2312 or later. If the Text actions button doesn’t appear: update Snipping Tool from the Microsoft Store.
When nothing works: alternative capture methods
If Snipping Tool is genuinely broken and reinstalling isn’t immediately practical:
- Alt+Print Screen: captures the active window to clipboard (works without Snipping Tool)
- Windows+Print Screen: captures the full screen and saves to Pictures → Screenshots automatically
- Xbox Game Bar (Win+G): Win+Alt+Print Screen captures the active window. Works even when Snipping Tool doesn’t because it’s a different application
- Edge’s built-in screenshot: Ctrl+Shift+S in Edge for web page screenshots (scrolling and partial captures)
These alternatives cover the immediate need while Snipping Tool is repaired. The Xbox Game Bar’s capture in particular often works when Snipping Tool fails because it uses a different screenshot pipeline that bypasses whatever is blocking Snipping Tool’s standard capture method.
And if Snipping Tool is working but you’re regularly frustrated by the default behaviour: Settings → Apps → Advanced options → Launch at login can be set so Snipping Tool’s tray icon is always available. Combined with turning On “Automatically copy to clipboard” in Snipping Tool’s settings (the gear icon → Automatically save screenshots), captures go straight to both the clipboard and the file system without any extra clicks — matching the workflow that many users who switched from Windows 10’s Snipping Tool expect. Our guide on Windows 11 System Restore Not Working covers an adjacent issue.
One more note: Snipping Tool is one of the most frequently updated Windows 11 apps — Microsoft releases updates through the Store often, sometimes weekly. If a specific feature isn’t working or a bug appeared recently: checking for and installing the latest Store update for Snipping Tool is always worth trying before any repair or reinstall, since the bug may already be fixed in a version that just hasn’t been installed yet. See also Windows 11 Notifications Not Working for a related case.
