Introduction — Snipdeck docs

Snipdeck is a keyboard-driven screen-snipping app for Windows and Linux from ReviseTouch. You capture a region; snips stay floating on top of your other windows, you mark them up, they are OCR-indexed in the background, and you search them all from one gallery. It is a native Rust app with a Slint UI. This page explains what Snipdeck is, the ideas behind it, and where to go next in this guide.

What Snipdeck is

Snipdeck is a free and open-source (MIT-licensed) snipping tool. It lives in the system tray, ready to capture the moment you hold a modifier and drag a region: Win + drag on Windows, Super+Alt + drag on GNOME. The global hotkeys and the gallery’s New button start a capture too.

Unlike the built-in snipping tool, Snipdeck is built around a deck of snips: every capture can stay on top of your other windows as a lightweight floating window, and every capture is also filed into a searchable gallery and indexed by OCR. That combination (capture, keep on top, mark up, and search) is what Snipdeck is for.

Platforms

Platform	Status
Windows 10 and 11 (x64)	Everything. A single portable `.exe`, no installer.
Linux, GNOME (x64)	With the bundled GNOME Shell extension: `Super`+`Alt` + drag capture, snips placed where they were captured and kept above other windows, OCR, the color picker.
Linux, other desktops (x64)	Capture from the hotkeys and the toolbar, OCR, the color picker. No modifier + drag gesture; on Wayland, snips are not placed where they were captured and do not stay above other windows.
macOS	Not yet.

See Installation for the details and the reasons.

Principles

A handful of principles shape how Snipdeck works:

Keyboard-driven. The primary capture gesture is a modifier plus a drag, with modifiers deciding what happens to the result. There is no menu to click through first. Editors and popups close on Esc.
Floating-first. Captures default to staying on top as borderless windows you can drag, resize, pin, crop, rotate, and dismiss.
Local and private. Capture and OCR happen entirely on your machine. OCR uses the built-in Windows.Media.Ocr engine on Windows and your system’s Tesseract on Linux. No model download, no network. The two actions that send anything off your machine, upload and translate, both ask you first.
Native and lightweight. Snipdeck is a native Rust app with a Slint UI. A single-threaded event loop drives the interface while OS hooks and blocking work run on their own threads.
Open source. The full source is available under the MIT license, and the architecture is documented so you can read, build, and contribute.

Headline capabilities

Capability	What it does
Modifier + drag capture	Hold `Win` on Windows, or `Super`+`Alt` on GNOME, and drag a region; the other modifiers decide whether the snip floats, goes to the clipboard, lands in the gallery only, or some combination.
Freeze-first capture	On Windows, `Win`+`Shift`+`Space` dims and freezes the screen before you select, so hover tooltips stay captured. On Linux, the hotkeys and the New button already start by freezing the screen.
Floating snips	Captures stay on top as lightweight, borderless windows you can drag, resize, pin, crop, rotate/flip, and dismiss.
Annotation editor	Pen, highlighter, shapes, arrows, and text with a full HSV color wheel, adjustable size and opacity, zoom, and undo/redo.
Collage	Combine several snips into one image with grid, justified-rows, or masonry layouts.
Built-in OCR	Every snip is OCR-indexed in the background, fully local.
OCR + Translate	Read a snip’s text in another language; star the target languages you use most.
Gallery	Full-text search over OCR text, window info, monitor, and path; filter by status, content, size, and date.
Share and upload	On Windows, the share sheet and a new email via Simple MAPI; on Linux, your mail client (`xdg-email`). Opening in the system image editor and uploading to an image host work on both. Every upload asks first.
23 languages	Picked from your OS locale; switch from ⋯ → Language in the toolbar.
Light and dark themes	Dark by default; switch with ⋯ → Dark theme.
Tray and launch at login	Lives in the system tray. With Launch at Login on, Snipdeck starts hidden in the tray when you sign in; on Windows it does not touch the registry.

Capture gestures at a glance

On Windows, hold Win and drag a region with the left mouse button; on GNOME the same gesture uses Super+Alt. Add modifiers to change what happens to the snip:

Windows	GNOME	Result
`Win` + drag	`Super`+`Alt` + drag	Floating snip on screen
`Win`+`Ctrl` + drag	`Super`+`Alt`+`Ctrl` + drag	Floating snip and copy to clipboard
`Win`+`Alt` + drag	No gesture; use the hotkey	Clipboard only (not added to the gallery)
`Win`+`Shift` + drag	`Super`+`Alt`+`Shift` + drag	Gallery only (no floating window)
`Win`+`Ctrl`+`Shift` + drag	`Super`+`Alt`+`Ctrl`+`Shift` + drag	Gallery and clipboard, no floating window

Who it is for

Snipdeck is built for people who take a lot of screenshots and want to do something with them:

Developers and testers who keep reference UI on top while coding, capture hover-sensitive states with freeze-first, and grab error text with OCR.
Support and documentation writers who mark up snips, build collages, and search a growing pile of captures by their text.
Anyone who values privacy and wants capture and indexing to stay on their machine, with anything that leaves it gated behind explicit consent.

How this guide is organized

The pages are grouped so you can start quickly and dig deeper as you go.

Getting started

Installation: the portable .exe on Windows, install.sh on Linux, or a build from source.
Quick start: your first capture, step by step.
Capture shortcuts: the modifier + drag matrix, freeze-first capture, and the global hotkeys.
FAQ: short answers to common questions.

Capturing

Floating snips: the on-top windows and everything you can do with them.

Editing

Annotation editor: pen, highlighter, shapes, arrows, and text on a single snip.
Collage editor: combine several snips into one image.

Text and translation

OCR: how local, background text recognition works.
OCR + translate: read a snip’s text in another language.

Managing snips

Gallery and search: the toolbar, full-text search, and filters.
Sharing and export: sharing, email, the system editor, and image-host upload.

Reference

Keyboard shortcuts: every key, in one place.
Settings: where data lives and the settings.json keys you can edit.
Languages: the 23 supported UI languages and how the language is chosen.
Privacy and security: what stays local, launch at login, and the upload consent window.
Architecture: the event loop, threading model, and module map.
Troubleshooting: fixes for common problems.

Made by ReviseTouch

Snipdeck is a free, open-source app from ReviseTouch, where we build developer tools and AI products.

Next steps

Installation: get Snipdeck running.
Quick start: take your first snip.
Capture shortcuts: learn the modifier + drag matrix.
Privacy and security: understand what stays on your machine.