Greenshot is an open source screenshot utility originally for Windows, but now available for macOS as well. It’s simple to configure and stays out of the user’s way unless activated with a shortcut key. There are a million screenshot programs, but let’s take a look at why Greenshot is a solid choice.
A little background info on Greenshot
The program was first developed and released in 2007 by developers Thomas Braun, Jens Klingen, and Robin Krom. Development remains active on both the Windows and macOS versions, although the Mac version is only available through the App Store.
Greenshot features
Both Windows and macOS have their respective built-in screenshot tools, but many people may not be satisfied or familiar with them. The traditional way to take a screenshot in Windows was to push the “print screen” key, open the Paint program, paste the screenshot there, and crop. These steps add up and can be tedious for someone wanting to capture more than a few screenshots.
Capture source
The first choice you’ll make when using Greenshot is what you want to capture. You can choose a window, a region that you manually select yourself, or previous region you’ve captured before.
Dynamic destination
After capturing a screenshot, you need to decide what to do with it. You can configure Greenshot to automatically copy to clipboard, email it, open it for editing, etc. There are times where someone might want to snap screenshots for a tutorial and just want to output image files quickly without going through a menu. For other times, you might want to choose what to do with the screenshots you capture manually.
Thanks to Greenshot’s quick preferences in the system tray, it’s very easy to quickly change modes depending on the use case.
Annotations and Effects
Sometimes we need to add annotations to our screenshots for better clarity. Other times we want to blur out irrelevant or sensitive information before posting or sending. Greenshot makes this really easy and is basically a one-stop-shop when dealing with capturing and editing your screenshots.
Final Thoughts
I have personally used Greenshot as my dedicated program for taking screenshots for several years. In particular, I often need to take a large amount of screenshots and include them in presentations when using WPS Office. The ability to either output all snaps to a folder for later organizing or to dynamically copy them to the clipboard is very convenient and makes my workflow much easier. If you’re the type of person still manually taking screenshots by print screening and pasting into other apps, I highly recommend this piece of software.
Link: Download it!
Excellent program. I use it all the time. Much better than print screening and cropping.
Saves a lot of time for a complex task.