PinShot

Lightweight Windows screenshot pinning tool. Capture up to 10 screenshots and keep them floating above all other windows.

PinShot is built for one focused job: quickly capture reference screenshots and keep them visible while you work. Snip any rectangular region, pin up to 10 resizable screenshots on top of every other window, then mark them up, copy, save, or extract text when needed.

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Download The App

Click Here First

Download PinShot from GitHub Releases: PinShot.zip

Do not use the green Code button if you only want to run the app. The Code button downloads the source code for developers.

How To Install

1. Open the latest release page.
2. Under Assets, download PinShot.zip.
3. Extract the zip file anywhere on your computer.
4. Open the extracted folder.
5. Double-click PinShot.exe.

No installer. No admin rights. No Python required.

On first launch, Windows SmartScreen may show "Unknown publisher" because this free release is currently unsigned. If you trust the GitHub download, click More info -> Run anyway.

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Preview

Demo images use mock data only.

Capture and pin while you work

Markup and sharing

Annotation tools	OCR to clipboard

Spotlight focus

Clipboard-ready screenshots

Features

Core workflow

• Capture up to 10 screenshots at the same time
• Every screenshot stays floating above all other windows
• Resize each pinned screenshot freely
• Close one screenshot or clear all pinned screenshots from the toolbar

Capture

• Drag-select any rectangular region across all monitors (full virtual desktop)
• Snap-to-window-edges while dragging (8 px threshold) — hold Shift for a perfect square
• Timed capture: 0 / 3 / 5 / 10 second delay (frozen-screen mode preserves dropdown menus)
• Live W × H readout while selecting
• Pixel-precise magnifier loupe at the cursor with a 21×21 zoom, crosshair, hex code and on-screen coordinates
• Esc cancels selection any time

Pinned screenshot windows

• Up to 10 floating, always-on-top, freely resizable screenshot windows simultaneously
• Indices reuse — closing #2 frees up #2 for the next capture
• One-click Close All in the toolbar

Markup tools (right-click any pinned screenshot)

Tool	What it does
Highlight	Translucent freehand stroke (RDP simplification + Catmull-Rom smoothing)
Rectangle	Outline a region
Rectangle (filled)	Translucent fill + outline
Ellipse / Ellipse (filled)	Outlined or translucent oval
Arrow	Sleek arrow with proportional head
Number	1, 2, 3 markers — auto-renumber on undo
Text	Inline text annotation with soft backdrop
Spotlight	Dim everything outside a chosen rectangle
Blur / Redact	Pixelate sensitive regions

• Colors: Yellow, Red, Green, or any custom hex
• Ctrl+Z undo per window — accumulates as you edit
• Adjustable Number Size (Small / Medium / Large / Extra Large) — DPI-aware, targets ~1 cm physical diameter

Sharing & extraction

• Auto-copied to clipboard the moment a screenshot is taken
• Copy to Clipboard (after edits) — supports both CF_DIB (Outlook, Word, Teams) and CF_PNG (modern web apps)
• Save As… — PNG (lossless, ~135 ms encode for 1080p), WebP (lossless, 35–65% smaller than PNG), JPEG (q92, optimised), BMP. Encodes happen on a background thread.
• Pick Color at Cursor — copies hex, shows OkLab/OKLCH readout + perceptual delta-E to white/black
• Magnify Region — floating loupe that follows the cursor on a pinned screenshot
• Grab Text — native Windows OCR copies extracted text straight to your clipboard

System tray

• Minimize the toolbar to the system tray
• Tray menu: Capture / Show PinShot / Quit
• Capture from the tray without restoring the toolbar

Persistence

Saved to %LOCALAPPDATA%\PinShot\pinshot.json:

• Last save folder
• Last delay choice
• Default tool / color / number size
• Toolbar position
• First-run dialog suppression

Crash logs at %LOCALAPPDATA%\PinShot\pinshot.log (rotating, capped at 512 KB × 2 backups).

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Performance

• Cold launch: ~0.6–0.8 sec from double-click to toolbar visible (PyInstaller --onedir with stripped stdlib modules)
• Stroke commit: ~1 ms regardless of how many strokes already exist (dirty-rect compositing)
• Resampling: LANCZOS for sharp display at any window size; 1:1 native rendering by default
• Single-instance enforcement via Win32 named mutex — second launch surfaces the existing toolbar instead of duplicating it
• Per-monitor DPI awareness so markup looks the right physical size on any monitor

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How to use

1. Launch PinShot.exe and click Capture.
2. Optionally pick a 3 / 5 / 10 sec delay from the dropdown.
3. Hover the screen — a magnifier loupe shows pixel detail.
4. Click and drag to select; snap to window edges or hold Shift for a square.
5. Release the mouse — the screenshot appears AND is auto-copied to your clipboard.
6. Resize the floating window by dragging its edges/corners.
7. Left-click and drag on a screenshot to apply the current markup tool.
8. Right-click for the full action menu (tool, color, number size, copy, save, OCR, magnify, undo, clear, close).
9. Drag the toolbar to reposition — PinShot remembers its location.
10. Click – to minimize to tray, ✕ to quit. Click the PinShot wordmark for the About dialog.

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Build from source

If you'd rather build the binary yourself:

# Requirements: Windows 10/11, Python 3.11+, pip
git clone https://github.com/<your-username>/pinshot.git
cd pinshot
pip install -r requirements.txt
build.bat

Output:

• dist\PinShot\PinShot.exe — the application (folder build, fast cold-start)
• dist\PinShot.zip — the distributable zip (drop anywhere and run)

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Repository layout

pinshot/
├── assets/               # README screenshots and short demo GIFs
├── screenshot_tool.py    # The whole app (single Python file)
├── pinshot.ico           # App icon
├── PinShot.spec          # PyInstaller build spec
├── build.bat             # One-shot build script
├── requirements.txt      # Pillow, PyInstaller, pystray, winrt-* (OCR)
├── README.md             # This file
├── NOTICE                # Ownership/provenance signature
└── LICENSE               # Personal use only

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License

Personal Use License — free for personal use only. Resale, redistribution, repackaging, sublicensing, and commercial exploitation are not allowed without written permission from Jim. Provided as-is, no warranty.

Project signature for ownership/provenance: PINSHOT-JIM-2026-PERSONAL-USE-7F3A9C2D. See NOTICE.

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Support the project

PinShot is built and maintained by Jim as a free product, with no ads, no telemetry, no paywall. If it saves you time or makes your day a little smoother, a star on this repo or a kind word goes a long way.

For questions, bugs, or feature requests, open an issue.