ShareX is a free screenshot and screen recording tool for Windows that has been the power user's choice for years. One hotkey captures a region, window, monitor or scrolling page; another records video or a GIF. The built-in editor adds arrows, text, step numbers, blur and pixelation for hiding private details, and after each capture ShareX can copy, save, print, run OCR, scan a QR code or upload, in whatever order you set.
Uploading is where it stands apart: it sends images, text and files to dozens of destinations, including your own Amazon S3, Google Cloud Storage or Cloudflare R2 bucket, then copies or shortens the link for you, and you can define custom uploaders for anything else. Around that sit many small utilities: a colour picker, ruler, pin-to-screen, image combiner and resizer, video converter and trimmer, hash checker and more.
It is GPL-3.0, with about 40,400 stars and 300 contributors, at v21.0.0 when scanned, with no ads and no account required. It is Windows only; Mac and Linux users need a different tool.
- Repository: github.com/ShareX/ShareX
- Licence: GPL-3.0 (GNU General Public License v3.0)
- Language: C#. Stars: 40.4K. Forks: 4,002. Last push: Oct 26, 2026.
- Scan: safe, Oct 26, 2026, commit f3ae963
Who it is for
Windows users who take a lot of screenshots: developers filing bug reports, support teams, technical writers, QA testers and anyone who shares quick screen recordings.
Getting started
1. Install with winget (or download from getsharex.com, the Microsoft Store or Steam)
winget install ShareX.ShareXBefore your first capture, open the after-capture and after-upload task settings and choose what should happen automatically, so nothing is uploaded unless you want it to be.
Safety scan
We cloned ShareX/ShareX at commit f3ae963 on Oct 26, 2026 and ran the checks described on the GitHub Tools page: credential patterns, decode-and-execute code, install-time scripts, committed binaries, risky CI workflows, every host the code talks to, known vulnerabilities in pinned dependencies, and project hygiene. A person read every hit. This is what we found.
- No secrets and no install hooks across 1,807 files and about 266,000 lines of C#.
- The one pattern hit is ShareX.UploadersLib/TextUploaders/Pastebin.cs building the raw URL of a paste you uploaded to Pastebin. Every upload destination is one you choose and configure.
- The one committed binary is ShareX.Steam/steam_api.dll, Valve's Steamworks library used only by the Steam edition.
- No lockfiles the scanner can check (the project uses NuGet package references), so no dependency advisories are reported either way.
- 3 workflows, none using pull_request_target; none of the 7 third-party actions is pinned to a commit. A security policy is present, and its OpenSSF Scorecard is 5.3 out of 10.
What the scanner counted
| Check | Result |
|---|---|
| Secrets | None found. |
| Suspicious code | 1 pattern hit found and read; every one is listed under the raw findings. |
| Install-time code | None: nothing runs at install beyond the package manager itself. |
| Committed binaries | 1 executable or compiled object committed; listed under the raw findings. |
| CI workflows | 3 workflows. None use pull_request_target. 7 of 7 third-party actions pinned to a tag rather than a commit. |
| Network hosts | 40 distinct hosts referenced from source; most often www.gnu.org, trac.ffmpeg.org, www.googleapis.com, en.wikipedia.org. No URLs to bare IP addresses. |
| Known vulnerabilities | No lockfile to check: dependencies are declared as ranges, so what gets installed is whatever is current on the day. |
| Project hygiene | Has security policy, licence file. Missing automated dependency updates, CodeQL, contributing guide. |
| OpenSSF Scorecard | 5.3 out of 10, as of Oct 19, 2026. |
The raw findings
Every hit the scanner wrote out, with a link to the exact line at the scanned commit. Secrets candidates are redacted.
Pattern hits (1)
| Where | Rule | Match |
|---|---|---|
| ShareX.UploadersLib/TextUploaders/Pastebin.cs:125 | exfil-host | ur.URL = "https://pastebin.com/raw/" + id; |
Committed binaries (1)
ShareX.Steam/steam_api.dll: PE (Windows executable), 267 KB
By the numbers
| Stars | 40.4K |
|---|---|
| Forks | 4,002 |
| Contributors | 300 |
| Commits | 9,722 |
| Open issues | 619 |
| Open pull requests | 0 |
| Releases | 91 |
| Latest release | v21.0.0 |
| Licence | GPL-3.0 |
| Main language | C# |
| Project age | 13 years |
| Last push | Oct 26, 2026 |
| Tracked files | 1,807 |
| Lines of code | 266.4K |
| Checkout size | 30 MB |
Lines by language: C# 244.6K, JSON 19K, PowerShell 1,760, YAML 597, Markdown 278, CSS 88.
Questions
Is ShareX free?
Yes. ShareX is GPL-3.0 and completely free, with no ads, no account and no paid version. The Microsoft Store and Steam editions are free too.
Does ShareX upload my screenshots automatically?
Only if the after-capture tasks tell it to. You choose whether each capture is copied, saved, edited or uploaded, and which service receives uploads, so check those settings once after installing.
Is there a ShareX for Mac or Linux?
No. ShareX is Windows only. It is built on .NET and Windows APIs, and there is no official Mac or Linux version.
This post is part of GitHub Tools, where every repository is cloned and scanned before it is written up. The scan is a snapshot of one commit on one day; the repository has moved on since, so check it before you install.