How to Take Screenshots of Your Windows 10 or Windows 11 Lock Screen and/or Sign-in Screen

How to Take Screenshots of Your Windows 10 or Windows 11 Lock Screen and/or Sign-in Screen

We’ve never featured this tip/trick before,  and we’re not sure how useful it will be for you, I am sure some of you will find this interesting and maybe even useful.

Sometimes I discover new tips and tricks just by fiddling around with my computers. Yes, after all these years, I still loved to play around with PCs. So yesterday I decided to figure out the best ways to take screenshots of the Lock screens and Sign-in screens on Windows 10 and Windows 11.

Taking a screenshot of the Windows 10 or 11 Lock screen is straightforward and not difficult at all.  Taking screenshots of the sign-in screen is not as easy.

Let’s do the easy ones first.

How to take a screenshot of the Windows Lock screen (Windows 10 & Windows 11)

1.) Press the Windows key plus the L key to bring up the Lock screen

2.) While viewing the Lock screen press the Windows key and the Print Screen key. The Print Screen key may be labeled Prt Scr or something similar. If you’re using a laptop, you may need to hold down the Fn key + the Windows key + the Print Screen key.

3.) Log back into Windows.

4. As soon as you’ve logged back in, open your favorite image editor, and click on Edit > Paste. You’ll see your Lock screen image and all you need to do is edit it if you wish or just save it. If you don’t have a favorite image editor, type PAINT in the taskbar search and press Enter when you see Paint appear. When the paint app opens, press CTRL+V to paste your screenshot into the app. After that, you can edit the image or save it to your computer.

Above: The Windows 10 Lock screen.

Above: The Windows 11 Lock screen

Yep. That’s it! That’s how you can take and save a screenshot of your Windows 10 or Windows 11 Lock screen.

How to take a screenshot of  your Login screen on Windows 10

This will not be as easy as the Lock screen, but once you get the hang of it, it’s not all that hard.

First, type SNIP & SKETCH in the taskbar search and press Enter to open Snip & Sketch.

Next, click on the down-arrow and set the delay to “Snip in 10 seconds”

Now, immediately press the Windows key + L to show the Lock screen, then swipe, or click the Lock screen to reveal the Sign-in screen. Wait. You’ll see a faint outline appear when Snip & Sketch takes the screenshot.

Log back into your PC and you see a small Snip & Sketch toolbar at the top of your screen.

Click on the rectangle to capture a full-screen and you’ll see your image in Snip & Sketch

Now all you need to do is save the screenshot to your computer.

Above: The Windows 10 Sign-in screen.

All done!

How to take a screenshot of  your Login screen on Windows 11

Type SNIPPING TOOL in the taskbar search.  When the Snipping Tool opens, click the down arrow just to the right of “No delay” and choose “Snip in 10 seconds”.

Now, that you have the delay set to 10 seconds,  while it’s not necessary it will save you time if you select “Window mode” for the image shape. Now when all that is done click on “New”. Immediately press the Windows key + L key to show the Lock screen, then swipe or click the Lock screen to reveal the Sign-in screen.

You may or may not see a brief flash appear when the Snipping Tool takes the screenshot – makes sure you wait at least 10 seconds before logging back into your PC.  Now Log into your computer and you’ll see a small toolbar for the Snipping Tool at the top-center of your screen.

If you selected Windows Mode above you don’t have to do anything else. If not, click on the Rectangle icon now.

The Snipping Tool automatically saves your screenshot to the Pictures > Screenshot folder. It will be named something like “Screenshot_20230117_102538” (the day/time the screenshot was captured). You can, of course, rename it whatever you like. 

And after all that, here’s the screenshot of my Windows 11 Sign-in screen.

Now you know how to take screenshots of your Windows 10 and Windows 11 Lock screens and Sign-in screens.