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Snap has two kinds of shortcut, and the difference matters.
  • Global shortcuts are registered with the operating system. They fire from the system tray with Snap’s window closed — which is the whole point of a capture tool.
  • Window shortcuts work only when Snap has focus, like any other application’s.
All are rebindable in Settings ▸ Shortcuts.

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Global — capture

A global shortcut can fail to register. On a stock Windows 11, the Snipping Tool already owns Print and Shift Print — so two of Snap’s defaults being refused is the normal case, not an edge case.Settings ▸ Shortcuts shows which bindings were refused and what the operating system said about it. Either rebind Snap’s shortcut, or turn off the Windows setting that gives the Snipping Tool the Print key.
The capture actions are also bound as window shortcuts. If the operating system grants the global binding it consumes the key first, so there is no double capture; if it refuses, the window binding still works while Snap has focus.

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Window — library

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Window — editing

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Window — annotate

Single letters, matching the tool rail in the design. These are bound but the tools themselves are not built yet.

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Window — view and application

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Why some keys only work in context

Del, F2 and the single-letter annotation keys are handled by whichever view has focus rather than being registered application-wide. A window-wide Del would delete a capture while you were editing text in a field, and a global T would make typing impossible.

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The tray

A global shortcut is only worth having if Snap is still running when its window is closed. Closing the window hides Snap to the system tray by default; the tray icon reopens it, and quitting is explicit. If you turn the tray icon off in Settings ▸ System, closing the window really does quit — otherwise Snap would become an unreachable background process.