Capture pop-up menus with Windows 10’s new delayed Snipping tool

Microsoft is upping its screenshot game in Windows 10 with a slight improvement to its Snipping tool. The Snipping tool now features a time-delay shutter option, which lets you take cropped and uncropped screenshots of previously un-snippable items, such as pop-up menus.

In earlier versions of Windows, the Snipping tool can only be used to capture items that don’t involve mouse movements. The only way to capture pop-up menus and tooltips in Windows 7 and 8 is to use the old-fashioned method of setting up your screenshot, hitting the PrintScreen button on your keyboard, and then pasting the image in Paint for cropping and saving.

But with the new Delay option in Windows 10, you can now easily grab screenshots of pop-up menus. Here’s how to do it:

First, open up the Snipping tool and click Delay to choose your delay time in seconds. You can choose between 0 and 5 seconds (the default is 0).

Once you’ve chosen your delay time, choose the type of snip you want to make by clicking the arrow next to New (free-form, rectangular, window, or full-screen).

Click New to start the snipping process. Unlike a regular snip, the screen will not immediately fade out for you to create your snip. Instead, you will have between 1 and 5 seconds, depending on the delay you chose, to set up your screenshot. Now is the time to right-click and open that pop-up menu you so desperately want to capture.

After the time is up, the screen will freeze and fade out so you can create your snip. Any pop-up menus that were open when the screen froze will stay open.

Create your snip by drawing a line or a rectangle around the part of the screen you want to capture if you chose free-form or rectangular; if you chose window or full-screen, your snip will be automatically created when the screen freezes. Click the Save button to save your screenshot.