How ShareX Handles Sharing and Uploading Captured Files

ShareX can send a screenshot, recording, text snippet, or any other file to a destination you choose, and it can do so automatically as part of a capture workflow. The site describes it as a free, open source Windows tool that lets you "capture or record any area of your screen and share it with a single press of a key," and it "allows uploading images, text or other types of files to many supported destinations you can choose from." If you want one keystroke to end with a link on your clipboard, ShareX is built for that; if you only want local files, you can skip uploading entirely.

What can be uploaded

The upload path is not limited to screenshots. According to the site, ShareX supports uploading:

• Images
• Text
• Other types of files

This matters because the same after-capture pipeline can handle a region screenshot, a full-screen capture, a GIF recording, or a file you drag in from disk.

Where files can go

ShareX supports "a wide range of destinations you can choose from," and the site points to dedicated setup guides for three object-storage services:

Beyond those named guides, the site highlights "Advanced custom uploader support," which is the mechanism for pointing ShareX at a destination that isn't built in. The site does not list every supported host, so treat the built-in list as something to check inside the app rather than something to assume from the homepage.

How the upload fits into a capture

Sharing is one stage of a configurable workflow, not a separate app. The site lists these upload-related after-capture tasks:

• Show "Before upload" window
• Upload image to host
• Delete file locally

That combination is what makes hands-off sharing possible: capture, optionally review, upload, then remove the local copy. Two practical notes:

• "Show 'Before upload' window" is the checkpoint. Enable it when you want to confirm the destination or edit the file name before anything leaves your machine; disable it for fully automatic uploads.
• "Delete file locally" removes your local copy after the upload step. Only turn this on if you're confident the remote copy is the one you want to keep.

Other after-capture tasks in the same menu handle the local side — copy image to clipboard, pin to screen, save to file, save as, save a thumbnail, open in the image editor, or run OCR and QR scanning — so you can mix local and remote actions in one workflow.

An example workflow

Say you want every region screenshot to land in cloud storage and put a link on your clipboard:

1. Set up your destination using the relevant guide (for example, the Amazon S3, Google Cloud Storage, or Cloudflare R2 guide) or a custom uploader.
2. In the after-capture tasks, enable Upload image to host.
3. Enable Copy file to clipboard or Copy file path to clipboard if you want the result ready to paste.
4. Leave Show "Before upload" window off for one-press sharing, or on if you want to review first.
5. Capture a region and confirm the file appears at your destination and the link is on your clipboard.

If the upload doesn't happen, the usual causes are a destination that hasn't been configured or authorized, or an after-capture task that was never enabled — the capture itself will still succeed locally.

Choosing whether to upload at all

Uploading is optional. If your work stays on your machine, use the save, clipboard, pin-to-screen, or image-editor tasks and leave the upload task off. Turn uploading on when you need a link to hand to someone else, and use the "Before upload" window when the destination or file name needs a check first.

The site also notes ShareX is "completely free," open source, ad-free, lightweight, and "privacy first," with over 18 years of active development and support for a long list of interface languages including English, Simplified Chinese, and Traditional Chinese.