qgn

Screenshots for Windows.
Ctrl+Q, drag, it's on your clipboard.

free · open source · no account

try it here: drag a region, click for all of it, or press ctrl+q

what

QGN is a screenshot and screen recording tool for Windows 10 and 11. It sits in the tray. You press a key, you drag, and the picture is on your clipboard before the overlay has finished closing. No window to manage, no save dialog, no editor you didn't ask for.

When you do want an editor, there is a good one. Arrows, text, redaction, crops that stay editable, and frames and backgrounds for the screenshots that go in a README or a tweet.

keys

ctrl+q
drag a region. release, and it's copied.
click
a whole window, exactly its edges.
alt on release
adjust the selection before it's taken.
space
the whole display.
shift
a square.
ctrl while dragging
ignore the window edges it snaps to.
ctrl+shift+q
record a region, with your mic and system audio.

All of them can be rebound.

agents

A screenshot is the fastest way to show a coding agent what is wrong. ctrl+q, drag over the broken thing, paste into Claude Code, Codex or a chat. No file to save, no path to type, nothing left on your desktop.

after

Every capture lands on a small card in the corner. Drag it into Slack, an email or an editor. Pin it so it stays, even across a reboot. Re-copy it. The last twelve stay in the tray menu, so a card you dismissed is not gone.

Open one in Studio. Markup draws on the pixels: arrows, shapes, text, numbered callouts, redaction that can't be undone by the reader, a crop. Every mark stays editable after you place it. Compose puts the capture on a gradient or wallpaper, in a browser or window frame, with padding and a shadow, at the aspect ratio you need.

Recordings get the same tools, plus a trim, zoom keyframes made from your own clicks, and export to MP4, WebM, GIF or animated WebP. MP4 and WebM encode faster than real time.

won't

No account. No cloud. No subscription. No upload button you might hit by mistake, and no link to your screen sitting on someone else's server.

The app talks to one server: GitHub, to see if there is a new version. It has no analytics. The source is right here if you would rather check than trust me.

inside

Yes, it's Electron, so the installer is about 85 MB. Inside: vanilla JavaScript, one main.js, plain HTML for each window. No framework, no build step for the UI. Sharp for images, WebCodecs for video. MIT licensed.

latest

0.1.20 · 2026-09-07
The capture overlay can no longer get stuck on screen

every release, written up properly. It updates itself.

vs

  • Snipping Tool is built in and fine. QGN adds window snapping, cards you can drag out, and a real editor.
  • ShareX does everything. QGN does less, on purpose, with fewer settings.
  • Greenshot is the old favourite. QGN adds recording and frames.
  • Lightshot is as quick, but closed, with an upload button.
  • Snagit is the pro tool, and it costs money every year.
  • CleanShot X is the one Mac people love. It doesn't run on Windows. This is my answer to that.

install

  1. Download QGN-Setup.exe from the latest release.
  2. It isn't code signed yet. If SmartScreen stops you, choose More info, then Run anyway.
  3. Press ctrl+q.