How To Screen Record With Snipping Tool in Windows 11 & 10

Want to record your screen? The built-in Snipping Tool in Windows 11 and 10 makes it easy. Here’s how.

Snipping Tool is a built-in screenshot and screen recording tool in Windows. Generally, most Windows users only know that this tool can take screenshots. However, one of Snipping Tool’s lesser-known features is the ability to record your screen. The best thing is that, unlike many other tools, you can select between recording the entire screen or a part of the screen. Once recorded, the video recording is automatically saved to the “Screen Recordings” folder in your home directory.

In this quick and straightforward tutorial, I will show you how to screen record with Snipping Tool in simple and easy steps. Let’s get started.

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Steps to Screen Record With Snipping Tool

1. Open the Start menu by clicking the “Windows key” on the taskbar.
2. Search for “Snipping Tool” and click “Open“.
3. Click the “Record” icon on the top bar.
4. Click the “New” button on the top bar.
5. Select the area of the screen you want to record.
6. (Optional) You can mute or unmute the microphone and system audio from the top bar.
7. Click the “Start” button at the top.
8. After 3 seconds, the screen recording will start.
9. Once done, click the “Stop” icon to stop recording.
10. The screen recording will open for preview. Click the “Play” button to playback the recording.
11. Close the playback window.
12. The recording file is saved to the “Screen Recordings” folder in your home directory.

Detailed Steps (With Screenshots)

First, you need to open the Snipping Tool. To do that, press the Windows key on the taskbar, search for “Snipping Tool“, and click the “Open” button.

Once the snipping tool window opens, select the “Record” icon on the top bar and then click the “New” button.

As soon as you click it, your mouse turns into a crosshair. Click and drag to choose the area you want to record. To record full screen, place the crosshair in one corner and drag it diagonally to the other corner.

After selecting, you will see a new command bar at the top. You can mute or unmute the microphone and system sounds. For example, if you want to record your voice (assuming a microphone is connected to your system) while screen recording, unmute the Microphone icon.

Next, click the “Start” button.

As soon as you click it, you will see a 3-second countdown. After that, the Snipping Tool starts recording your screen.

While recording, you can pause it by clicking the “Pause” button. If you are done, click the “Stop” button to stop recording the screen.

After stopping, you will see a playback window. Click the “Play” button to playback and preview what you’ve recorded. Once done, you can close the playback window by clicking the “X” icon on the title bar.

Note: If you want to save the recording to a specific location, click the “Save as” icon on the top bar of the playback window.

The recording file is automatically saved to the “Screen Recordings” folder in your home directory.

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Where Does Snipping Tool Save Screen Recordings?

In both Windows 10 and Windows 11, Snipping Tool automatically saves screen recordings to a default location within your user profile’s “Videos\Screen Recordings” folder. The exact path is: “C:\Users\YourUsername\Videos\Screen Recordings”. Make sure you substitute your actual Windows username for “YourUsername”.

You can typically find this “Screen Recordings” folder by navigating to “This PC” > “Videos” in File Explorer (press Windows key + E to open File Explorer).

Editing Screen Recordings

While the Snipping Tool makes it easy to record your screen, it doesn’t have any dedicated options to edit your recordings. Even using the built-in Photos app, you can only trim the video.

For advanced editing, such as annotations, transitions, cutting, audio mixing, etc., you either have to use Microsoft Clipchamp, CapCut, Adobe Premiere Rush, Davinci Resolve, or some other video editing/annotating software.

Wrapping Up — Record Your Screen for Free with Snipping Tool

As you can see, for those who want to record the screen without any hassle or paying for extra software, Snipping Tool is the best choice. It covers all the basics, such as recording the microphone & system sounds, and the ability to choose which part of the screen to record. All the screen recordings are automatically saved to the “Screen Recordings” folder in your home directory. While it’s lacking in video editing features, you can use free software such as Microsoft Clipchamp, CapCut, or Adobe Premiere Rush to edit and annotate your screen recordings.

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If you have any questions or need help, comment below. I’ll be happy to assist.