RustShot is a fast, lightweight screenshot and annotation tool for Windows. It combines familiar region capture with a native editor, configurable global shortcuts, automatic workflows, and low-overhead tray operation.
- 86.46% less RAM
- 64.76% faster startup
- 70.61% faster copying
- 45.49% faster screenshot activation
RustShot is distributed through GitHub Releases
as a portable 64-bit Windows application. No installer is required: extract the ZIP and run
rustshot.exe on Windows 10 or Windows 11.
- Full-screen capture for the monitor under the pointer or the complete virtual desktop.
- Resizable region selection with move and edge controls.
- Pen, highlighter, line, arrow, rectangle, ellipse, text, and callout tools.
- Secure redaction, pixelation, crop, object editing, and undo/redo.
- Lossless clipboard export, PNG/JPEG saving, and native printing.
- Optional automatic copy and automatic save after region selection.
- Configurable global shortcuts and remembered editor preferences.
- Native Windows interface with no browser or webview runtime.
- Local-only operation with no telemetry or upload service.
RustShot starts in the system tray. The default shortcuts are:
| Shortcut | Action |
|---|---|
Ctrl+Shift+F10 |
Select and edit a region |
Ctrl+Shift+F11 |
Capture and save the current monitor |
The tray menu provides capture commands, the screenshots folder, settings, diagnostics, and quit. Shortcuts, output format, monitor scope, cursor capture, automatic copy, and automatic save are all configurable from Settings.
After selecting a region, annotations remain editable until export.
| Key | Action |
|---|---|
V |
Select, move, resize, or restyle an object |
P, H, L, A |
Pen, highlighter, line, arrow |
R, E |
Rectangle, ellipse |
T, Q |
Text box, callout; Shift+Enter inserts a line break |
B, M |
Secure redaction, pixelation |
D / Delete |
Delete the object under the pointer or selected object |
G |
Crop the captured region |
I, K |
Eyedropper, custom color picker |
U / Ctrl+Z |
Undo |
Y / Ctrl+Y |
Redo |
X |
Clear annotations |
S, C, O |
Save As, copy, print |
Enter |
Copy |
Escape |
Cancel the active edit or capture |
Secure redaction is flattened into opaque black pixels in the exported image. Pixelation is also applied directly to exported pixels rather than stored as a removable overlay.
RustShot stores its configuration and bounded diagnostic log in the current Windows user's application configuration directory. Screenshots are never included in logs.
Supported settings include:
- independent full-screen and region shortcuts;
- current-monitor or virtual-desktop capture;
- optional cursor inclusion;
- PNG compression and JPEG quality;
- automatic region copy and save;
- autosave destination; and
- last-used editor tool, color, and stroke width.
The Create diagnostic report tray command produces a reviewable text report containing version, architecture, relevant settings, paths, and recent errors.
The repository includes a repeatable, black-box Windows benchmark against Lightshot. In the published 30-iteration run, both applications completed every measured trial successfully:
| Metric | Lightshot | RustShot |
|---|---|---|
| Overlay activation, median | 94.46 ms | 51.49 ms |
| Overlay activation, p95 | 100.24 ms | 62.86 ms |
| Copy completion, median | 122.16 ms | 35.90 ms |
| Private memory | 20.91 MiB | 2.83 MiB |
Results are specific to the recorded machine and configuration. The complete methodology and environment are available in the benchmark report.
Requirements:
- 64-bit Windows 10 or Windows 11
- Rust 1.88 or newer
- Visual Studio Build Tools with the Desktop development with C++ workload
cargo build --release --locked
.\target\release\rustshot.exeRustShot is available under the MIT License.