ShareX has been around for almost two decades, but in its 19 years as a screen capture app, it has never received an update as large as the one that just shipped to testers. ShareX version 22.0.0 brings a massive number of changes to a completely overhauled app.

The update adds native screen recording, a new screen recorder bar, and support for recording content at 120 FPS. It also brings a number of quality-of-life changes, such as a restart button for screen recordings and the option to show or hide the screen recorder timer and recording button labels.

Screenshot functionality has also expanded. Several preexisting tools have been redesigned, and new tools have been added as well.

Since the update changes so much, it is expected to be less stable than other releases. But if you'd like to give it a try, you can download the preview of ShareX version 22.0.0.

Here's the entire change log from ShareX:

• Screen recording changes:
  • Added native screen recording support without relying on FFmpeg, enabled by default. ShareX
    • Added support for recording system audio.
    • Added support for recording microphone audio.
    • Added support for recording camera overlays. ShareX
  • Added a screen recorder bar that allows users to configure recording options before starting a recording: ShareX
    • Start delay.
    • System audio.
    • Microphone.
    • Camera.
    • Cursor.
    • Mouse highlighter.
  • Increased the screen recording FPS limit to 120.
  • Added an "Automatically start mouse highlighter" option for screen recording.
  • Added a "Restart" button to the screen recorder bar and system tray menu.
  • Added an option to show or hide the screen recording timer.
  • Added an option to show or hide screen recording button labels.
  • Recorder devices are no longer bundled.
• Added HDR screenshot color corrector option (Task settings -> Capture).
• ShareX installer and assemblies are now code-signed using a certificate provided by Ember Swan. Xenthys
• Added a warning before running unsigned installers.
• Added a wide range of new tools and redesigned all existing tools from scratch:
  • Screen & color:
    • Color picker
    • Mouse highlighter ShareX
    • Pin to screen
    • Ruler ShareX
    • Screen color picker
  • Images:
    • Background remover
    • Icon converter
    • Image beautifier
    • Image combiner
    • Image comparer
    • Image converter
    • Image editor
    • Image effects
    • Image resizer ShareX
    • Image splitter
    • Image thumbnailer
    • Image viewer
    • Image watermark
  • Video:
    • Animated GIF maker
    • Animated GIF trimmer ShareX
    • Video converter
    • Video player
    • Video thumbnailer
    • Video trimmer ShareX
  • Data & text:
    • Analyze image
    • Hash checker
    • Index folder
    • Metadata
    • OCR
    • QR code
    • Remote storage browser (supports Amazon S3, SFTP, FTPS, and FTP) ShareX
  • System:
    • Borderless window
    • Clipboard viewer
    • Inspect window
    • Monitor test
    • Network monitor ShareX
  • Added categorized grid layout for tools menu.
  • Added edit button to tools menu to be able to hide or show tools. ShareX
  • Include video files in image history window.
  • Added "Trim video" context menu option to main window and history windows.
  • Added "Trim animated GIF" context menu option to main window and history windows.
  • Added drag-and-drop upload overlay to main window.
  • Added customizable task buttons to bottom of notifications.
  • Added notification button size option.
  • Added search support to setting windows.
  • Upgraded project to .NET 10.
  • Update FFmpeg to 9.0.
  • Added Czech language support.
  • Added Swedish language support.
  • Added Hindi language support.
  • Added Thai language support.
  • Added Danish language support.
  • Translated all newly redesigned ShareX windows into 28 languages from scratch.
  • Improve smart eraser with edge-matching fills.
  • Added easter egg to about window.
  • Added easter egg to image editor. ShareX
  • Added support for Amazon S3 multi-part uploads.
  • Added an option to upload Amazon S3 parts concurrently. CubityFirst
  • Support remote deletion of Amazon S3 uploads.
  • Added img.fish file uploader.
  • Added Immich file uploader.
  • Added MEGA file uploader.
  • Migrate uPaste uploader to API v2.
  • Removed Vault.ooo file uploader.
  • Show start screen on first application run.
  • Added an always on top toggle to the main window title bar.
  • Added a theme toggle to the main window title bar. ShareX
  • Added cursor centered zoom support to image viewer with Ctrl + Mouse wheel.
  • Reset image viewer zoom with Middle click.
  • Added PNG compression level option.
  • Added PNG filter option.
  • Added JPEG chroma subsampling option.
  • Added adaptive quantizer GIF quality option.
  • Added BMP bit depth option.

If you've only used the Snipping Tool on Windows 11, you may be a bit overwhelmed by all of the options within ShareX. But the defaults in ShareX make it easy to start using the app. I've been using CTRL+Print Screen all morning to grab screenshots.

The revamped ShareX is impressive, but the main reason I love the app is that it lets you save screenshots as a JPEG. That's a small feature that's been around for ages, but it still remains unavailable in Snipping Tool.

I've only had ShareX version 22.0.0 for a few hours, but in that time the app has performed quickly. It's so snappy that it feels native to Windows 11. If you take a few minutes to customize ShareX's settings and shortcuts, it can become a powerful tool that justifies running at startup.

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Microsoft's Photos app is about to get a major upgrade. Microsoft recently highlighted how the app is faster, more efficient, and full of new features. The upgraded Photos app will feature a new Gallery, Editor, and Viewer.

Details about the new Photos app were shared in a Microsoft blog post, but images and videos have since shown off the level of improvement we can expect.

Based on early impressions of the app, the new Photos experience could be a go-to way to view and edit images on Windows 11 rather than an app you scroll past after right-clicking and selecting "Open with."

New features

The three main additions to the Photos app are the new Gallery, Editor, and Viewer. Those experiences are designed to, "help you rediscover and organize your collection, give you more capable tools for your favorite shots, and make the everyday experience faster," according to Microsoft.

The new Gallery gathers together photos from your PC, OneDrive, and iCloud into a single space. You can then search for images using text, filter photos to see specific people, or browse Moments created by the app or albums you've organized.

You can use natural language to find images in your gallery, such as searching "sunset at the beach." That saves you the hassle of searching for specific file names.

The new Editor loads 25 percent faster, according to Microsoft. It includes tools to crop, enhance, repair, and stylize photos.

Microsoft rebuilt the new Editor from the ground up with WinUI 3, which is the modern framework used to create apps. Notably, only certain parts of the new Photos app are built with WinUI 3.

On top of the normal features you'd expect from an editor, such as cropping an image, the new Photos app has some advanced features like Relight. With that tool, you can add up to three light sources to an image and dynamically adjust lighting in the photo.

Microsoft added support for editing and saving HEIC and WebP images as well as the ability to preserve the color and contrast of HDR photos throughout the editing process.

The new Viewer in the Photos app is also called "native" by Microsoft, though the blog post does not specify that it is built with WinUI 3. It now has better support for HDR viewing and supports more file types, including SVG files.

Speed improvements

I'm excited to try the new features in the Photos app, but the speed of the app is what has stood out to me the most. Diego Baca, Microsoft's Vice President of Design for Windows, shared a video showing the new gallery.

Baca scrolls within the Photos gallery and hundreds of photo previews load instantly. Even when pausing the video, there is only one instance of stuttering or the app having to take a moment to load images.

I thought for a moment I may have been judging the old Photos gallery too harshly, but a quick test put that concern to rest. Scrolling through my gallery on my main PC, which does not have the improved Photos app yet, I can watch thumbnails load one at a time. It's like switching from dial-up internet to broadband.

Several parts of the app have been sped up, such as Viewer launching 15 percent faster on average and up to 30 percent faster for HEIC images.

Earlier this year, we covered Microsoft's Rudy Huyn assembling a team to work on Windows apps. We've seen some of the fruits of that team already, but the new Photos app is by far the biggest improvement connected to them.

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