[Fix] Win+Shift+S not working in Windows 10 or 11

The Win + Shift + S keyboard shortcut, powered by the Snip & Sketch tool, allows you to quickly take a screenshot of a particular screen area or the entire screen. Some users are facing a situation where the hotkey combination doesn’t work on their Windows 10 computer. For instance, nothing may happen when you use the hotkeys. Or you don’t get the Snip & Sketch screen capture notification in the Taskbar notification area.

Let’s see how to fix the Snip & Sketch screen clipping feature in Windows 10 or Windows 11.

[Fix] Win+Shift+S Screen Clip hotkey not working

One of the steps below should fix the Win + Shift + S Snip & Sketch screen clipping capability for you.

1) Check the Snip & Sketch hotkey setting

The Snip & Sketch hotkey combination can be changed in Settings. It could be possible that the Print Screen button is chosen as the Snip & Sketch hotkey.

1. Click Start → Settings → Ease of Access → Keyboard
2. If you want to use Win + Shift + S for snipping, disable “Use the PrtScn button to open screen snipping.”
   

Or, you may have the above option enabled and test if the Snip & Sketch hotkey works by pressing the Print Screen key. This can be helpful, especially if a third-party program has taken over the Win + Shift + S hotkey combination.

2) Enable the Clipboard history

Some users have indicated that turning on the clipboard history feature helped fix the Snip & Sketch issue.

1. Open the Settings window, and click System → Clipboard.
2. Turn on Clipboard history.

3) Enable Snip & Sketch switch notifications

1. Open the Settings window, and click System → Notification & actions.
2. Enable the toggle switch named “Get Notifications from apps and other senders”
3. Under “Get Notifications from these senders,” enable the toggle switch for Snip & Sketch.Important: On Windows 11, you’ll have to enable notifications for “Snipping Tool” instead. The old Snipping Tool and Snip & Sketch apps are replaced by the new Snipping Tool in Windows 11. There is no “Snip & Sketch” in Windows 11.
   

Note: Regardless of your notification or Focus Assist setting, the screen clip would be copied to the Windows clipboard anyway. If you wish to test that out, you can open a Paint window and paste the image from the clipboard. Under the hood, the Snip & Sketch tool also saves your screen clip to a temporary folder.

4) Turn off Focus Assist

Focus assist (also called “Quiet Hours” in earlier versions of Windows 10) allows you to avoid distracting notifications when you need to stay focused, and is set by default to activate automatically under certain conditions. The Focus Assist feature may be hiding the Snip & Sketch notifications on your device.

You can turn focus assist on or off via the action center icon on the taskbar or through Settings.

1. Open Start → Settings → click System → Focus Assist
2. Turn off Focus Assist.
3. Click “Customize your priority list” under the “Priority only” mode.
4. Ensure that Snip & Sketch is added to the list of apps in the “Priority list” screen.
5. After setting Focus Assist to Off or Priority Mode, close the Settings window.

(Some users have reported that even though their Focus Assist was Off, they had to manually re-add the Snip & Sketch app to the priority list to make the Snip & Sketch notifications work.)

The next time you use the Win + Shift + S and create a screen clip, you should see a notification area message like this:

Clicking on it will open the Snip & Sketch window from where you can edit, annotate, or share the image.

(To know how the Winkey+Shift+S hotkey works, check out the article Screenshot a Portion of the Screen using Winkey+Shift+S.)

5) Reset Snip & Sketch

If the above settings don’t help, see if resetting Snip & Sketch helps.

1. Open Settings → Apps → Apps & Features.
2. Select Snip & Sketch from the list.
3. Click the Advanced options link.
4. In the resulting screen, click Reset.

See also How to Reset a Windows 10 App When it Fails to Work.

6) Uninstall and Reinstall Snip & Sketch

Try uninstalling Snip & Sketch and reinstalling it.

1. Open Settings → Apps → Apps & Features.
2. Select Snip & Sketch from the list.
3. Click Uninstall.

Reinstall Snip & Sketch

Next, reinstall Snip & Sketch using PowerShell. Open PowerShell as administrator and run the following command:

Get-AppxPackage Microsoft.ScreenSketch | Foreach {Add-AppxPackage -DisableDevelopmentMode -Register "$($_.InstallLocation)\AppXManifest.xml"}

Important: On Windows 11, you’ll need to uninstall “Snipping Tool” via Apps & Features. Then, open Store, look for “Snipping Tool” and reinstall it.

7) Incompatible 3rd party software

Third-party software may be interfering with the Snip & Sketch screen clipping functionality.

Examples:

Win+Shift+S snipping tool breaks when maxto is running
https://github.com/digitalcreations/MaxTo/issues/386

Win + Shift + S shortcut not working - CorelDRAW Graphics Suite 2020:
https://community.coreldraw.com/talk/coreldraw-graphics-suite-2020/f/coreldraw-graphics-suite-2020-for-windows/62012/win-shift-s-shortcut-not-working

For instance, with Snip & Sketch, you may be able to select a screen region, but the mouse may stay in cross-hairs when you release the click. And nothing may be saved to the clipboard.

It’s advisable to clean boot Windows and see if the Snip & Sketch screen clipping feature works properly.

8) Reinstall Windows Shell Components to fix “ms-screenclip” error

On some devices, the error “You'll need a new app to open this ms-screenclip link” appears when clicking on the New (snip) button in Snip & Sketch window.

If you’re getting the above error, reinstall the Windows Feature Experience Pack Feature on Demand package.

Feature: Windows Feature Experience Pack

Capability Name: Windows.Client.ShellComponents~~~~0.0.1.0
Sample package name: Microsoft-Windows-UserExperience-Desktop-Package~31bf3856ad364e35~amd64~~.cab
Install size: 44.15MB
Satellites: No
Availability: Windows 10, version 2004 and later.

Reinstall Shell Components (Windows Feature Pack)

To reinstall the Windows Feature Experience Pack, follow these steps:

• Make sure your system is connected to the internet.
• Run the following command in an admin Command Prompt window.

  DISM /Online /Add-Capability /CapabilityName:Windows.Client.ShellComponents~~~~0.0.1.0

This reinstalls the Windows Client Shell Components (Windows Feature Experience Pack.)

If the above command doesn’t work for some reason, you may try to uninstall the component first and then reinstall it using the following steps:

1. Run the following command in an admin Command Prompt window.

   DISM /Online /Remove-Capability /CapabilityName:Windows.Client.ShellComponents~~~~0.0.1.0

2. Restart Windows.
3. Then, run the following command to reinstall the

   DISM /Online /Add-Capability /CapabilityName:Windows.Client.ShellComponents~~~~0.0.1.0

   You should see the following output when the command finishes execution:

   [==========================100.0%==========================]
   The operation completed successfully.

Reinstall Snip & Sketch

Next, reinstall Snip & Sketch using PowerShell. Open PowerShell as administrator and run the following command:

Get-AppxPackage Microsoft.ScreenSketch | Foreach {Add-AppxPackage -DisableDevelopmentMode -Register "$($_.InstallLocation)\AppXManifest.xml"}

After reinstalling it, the ms-screenclip protocol association should be fixed.

(You can check it via Settings → Apps → Default apps → Choose default apps by protocol.)

The New snip button in the Snip & Sketch app should now work correctly!

Did one of the above methods help? And, if so, which one? Let’s know in the Comments section below.