A fast, bloat-free screenshot tool for Windows.
Full-featured Greenshot replacement — no plugins, no cloud, no telemetry.
Greenshot is great, but it ships with a dozen cloud upload plugins, enterprise integrations, OAuth infrastructure, and a full .NET plugin loading system that most people never use. SwiftShot strips all of that out and focuses on what matters: capturing screenshots fast, annotating them, and getting back to work.
| Greenshot Bloat | SwiftShot |
|---|---|
| Imgur / Dropbox / Box / Flickr plugins | No cloud uploads — your screenshots stay local |
| Jira / Confluence integrations | No enterprise dependencies |
| Office COM interop | No Office requirement |
| Plugin discovery & loading system | No plugin overhead |
| OAuth / API key infrastructure | Zero network calls (except optional update check) |
| .NET Framework + 12 plugin DLLs | Python + PyQt5 — two packages |
- PrintScreen Menu — press PrintScreen and pick any mode from a popup
- Region Capture — drag to select with smart edge snapping to window borders
- Freehand Region — draw any arbitrary shape
- Window Capture — click any window with Greenshot-exact behavior (animated highlight, PgUp/PgDown to walk the window hierarchy)
- Fullscreen / Per-Monitor — capture one monitor or all of them
- Last Region — re-capture the same area instantly
- Scrolling Capture — auto-scroll and stitch an entire scrollable window into one tall image
- OCR Region — select an area and extract text using Windows built-in OCR or Tesseract
- Timed Capture — select your region first, then a countdown gives you time to hover tooltips, open menus, or interact with the screen before the shot fires
A full annotation editor opens after every capture (configurable).
| Tool | Key | |
|---|---|---|
| Select / Pan | V |
Pan canvas, drag-and-drop export |
| Crop | C |
Crop with rule-of-thirds guides |
| Rectangle | R |
Outlined or filled rectangles |
| Ellipse | E |
Outlined or filled ellipses |
| Line | L |
Straight lines |
| Arrow | A |
Lines with arrowheads |
| Freehand | F |
Free-form pen strokes |
| Text | T |
Multi-line text with font picker |
| Highlight | H |
Semi-transparent marker |
| Obfuscate | O |
Pixelate or blur sensitive areas |
| Step Number | N |
Auto-incrementing numbered badges |
| Ruler | M |
Measure pixel distances |
| Eyedropper | I |
Pick any color from the image |
Additional editor features: unlimited undo/redo, auto-crop, rotate/flip, brightness/contrast/grayscale/invert adjustments, border/shadow/rounded corners, image diff overlay, quick-annotate templates (bug report, tutorial, redact), zoom with Ctrl+scroll, pan with Space+drag, recent colors bar, drag-and-drop export to other apps, and dirty-state tracking.
Pin any screenshot as an always-on-top borderless floating window. Drag to reposition, scroll to resize, right-click for opacity controls. Open as many as you want.
A thumbnail panel of recent captures with quick actions: re-open in editor, copy to clipboard, pin to desktop, or delete.
Monitors the clipboard and auto-opens the editor when a new image is copied from any application.
All shortcuts are remappable through Settings with a live key recorder — click the field, press your combo, done.
| Default Hotkey | Action |
|---|---|
PrintScreen |
Capture menu popup |
Alt+PrintScreen |
Window capture |
Ctrl+PrintScreen |
Fullscreen / monitor picker |
Shift+PrintScreen |
Last region re-capture |
OCR, freehand, and scrolling capture can also be bound to custom hotkeys.
Press Space during region selection to switch to window mode (and vice versa) without restarting the capture.
Full Catppuccin Mocha color scheme across every window, dialog, menu, and overlay.
git clone https://github.com/SysAdminDoc/SwiftShot.git
cd SwiftShot
pip install -r requirements.txt
python main.pyRequirements: Python 3.8+ and Windows 10/11.
Download SwiftShot-Portable.exe from Releases. Single file, no install, no Python needed. Run from anywhere.
Download SwiftShot-Setup.exe from Releases. Includes Start Menu shortcut, optional auto-start, and a proper uninstaller in Add/Remove Programs.
The build script creates both a portable .exe and a Windows installer. All you need is Python 3.8+ — everything else is handled automatically.
# Full build (portable + installer)
.\Build-SwiftShot.ps1
# Portable only (no Inno Setup required)
.\Build-SwiftShot.ps1 -PortableOnly
# Clean rebuild
.\Build-SwiftShot.ps1 -Clean
# Debug build (console window visible)
.\Build-SwiftShot.ps1 -Clean -DebugBuildThe script will:
- Verify Python 3.8+ and Inno Setup 6 (optional)
- Create an isolated build venv with PyInstaller
- Generate multi-resolution icon from source
- Build
SwiftShot-Portable.exe(single file, ~25 MB) - Build
SwiftShot-Setup.exevia Inno Setup (if available)
Both outputs are fully self-contained — no Python or runtime needed on end-user machines.
Inno Setup is only needed for the installer build. Get it free from jrsoftware.org. Portable builds work without it.
Settings are stored in %APPDATA%\SwiftShot\swiftshot.json. Access them from the tray icon menu or within the editor.
Available tabs: General, Capture, Hotkeys, Output, Editor, Frame, Advanced.
Notable settings include after-capture action (editor / save / clipboard), output format and filename pattern, timed capture duration, clipboard watcher, and launch-at-startup.
Settings can be exported/imported as JSON and reset to defaults at any time.
Enable the timer checkbox in the capture menu or in Settings > Capture. The workflow is:
- Press PrintScreen and select your region or window as usual
- The overlay closes and a countdown begins (1–30 seconds, configurable)
- Interact with the screen — hover tooltips, open context menus, type into fields
- When the timer ends, SwiftShot takes a fresh screenshot of that exact region
This is designed for capturing UI elements that require manual interaction, like dropdown menus, hover states, or drag operations.
main.py Entry point, logging, crash handler
app.py System tray, hotkey management, capture orchestration
capture.py Screenshot engine (Win32 GDI + Qt fallback)
overlay.py Region selector with edge snapping
window_picker.py Window capture with animated highlight
editor.py Full annotation editor (1,920 lines)
config.py JSON settings with backup, import/export
settings_dialog.py Preferences UI with hotkey recorder
hotkeys.py WH_KEYBOARD_LL global keyboard hook
capture_menu.py PrintScreen popup menu with timer controls
ocr.py Windows WinRT OCR + Tesseract fallback
ocr_dialog.py OCR result display
theme.py Catppuccin Mocha dark theme
monitor_picker.py Multi-monitor selection dialog
pin_window.py Always-on-top floating screenshot windows
capture_history.py Recent captures thumbnail panel
countdown_overlay.py Animated countdown timer overlay
scrolling_capture.py Auto-scroll and stitch capture
updater.py GitHub release update checker
logger.py Rotating file logger
utils.py Virtual geometry, color helpers, startup registry
generate_icon.py Programmatic icon generation for builds
22 Python modules — 7,600+ lines of code — zero external services.
| Package | Purpose |
|---|---|
| PyQt5 | GUI framework |
| Pillow | Image processing for scrolling capture stitching |
That's it. OCR uses the Windows built-in WinRT OCR engine (no install needed on Windows 10/11) with an optional Tesseract fallback.