Lightscreen is a great, ultra-simple tool for saving screenshots. The program is built for Windows and is free to download!
Here at Holyfile, we have covered many tools over the years that let you take screenshots. Some are very advanced and can also edit images or even record your screen, while others focus on simplicity. Lightscreen falls into the latter category and is extremely easy to use.
This page is divided into sections, including how to install Lightscreen and get started. We’ll also cover key features, like using keyboard shortcuts so you don’t need to open the app every time. Finally, we recommend a more advanced alternative to Lightscreen if you want a tool with extra functionality.
Availability and installation
Lightscreen’s interface is in English, and it’s available only for Windows. Fortunately, there are many alternatives that work on other operating systems, which we’ll mention later.
Installing Lightscreen is very straightforward. Click the download button on this page to visit the official Lightscreen website, where you can get the installer. Then just run it to get started.
You can install Lightscreen as a regular app or run it in “portable mode.” If you choose portable mode, Lightscreen is placed in a folder that you can take with you—for example, copy it to a USB drive and use it on other PCs. If you only plan to use Lightscreen on your own computer, the “Normal installation” option is perfectly fine.
In our test on a PC running Windows 11, the installation took only a moment.
Basic functionality
Once Lightscreen is installed and running, you’ll find its icon in the system tray at the bottom-right of your screen. Right-click the icon for options to open Lightscreen or jump straight to the settings.
When Lightscreen is open, you’ll see three large buttons. The first captures your entire screen. The middle button lets you select a specific area to capture. The third button on the right allows you to capture a specific application window.
You can choose where Lightscreen saves your images, as well as the quality and image format, in the app’s settings, shown below.
Screenshots can be saved as PNG, JPG, or BMP.
Because Lightscreen focuses on simplicity, it doesn’t include a built-in image editor. If you want to add arrows, lines, or annotations to your screenshots, you’ll need to do that afterward in another program. The alternative we recommend at the end of this page includes a built-in editor.
Keyboard shortcuts
If you don’t want to open the Lightscreen window every time, you can capture screenshots using keyboard shortcuts. You can enable and customize these hotkeys in Lightscreen’s settings.
You decide which hotkeys to use. Lightscreen suggests defaults for each function, but it’s best to avoid conflicts with shortcuts used by your other apps.
Online upload and other settings
Even though Lightscreen is very simple, it still offers a few extra features worth mentioning.
For example, there’s an option to upload screenshots online. We haven’t tested this part ourselves, but you can configure Lightscreen to automatically upload your screenshots to Imgur.
There are also a handful of other settings to explore, some of which are shown in the GIF above. Overall, Lightscreen keeps things minimal.
More advanced tools
If you want to try other tools with the same core functionality as Lightscreen, there are plenty to choose from. We even have an entire software category here at Holyfile dedicated to screen capture apps, which you can find at this link. Here you’ll find options for Windows, Mac, and Linux.
If Lightscreen feels a bit too basic and you’re specifically looking for something more advanced, we recommend trying Sniptool. We’ve written a review you can read right here. Its interface is shown below.
Sniptool can do almost everything Lightscreen can, plus it includes a handy editor for annotating your screenshots. You can add text, arrows, and more—great for highlighting exactly what you want others to notice.
Sniptool can also record screen videos, which is extremely useful when you need to show something as a video instead of a still image.
Download Lightscreen
