Paste Image to Download
Copy a picture anywhere — a screenshot, an image on a web page, a frame from a design tool — then press Ctrl+V here and save it as a file. The picture stays on your device.
Runs on your device — pictures are never uploadedCtrl+V
Press Ctrl+V to paste your picture
on a Mac it is Cmd+V — or click to choose a file, or drop one here
PNG · JPG · WebP · GIF
This saves what is on the clipboard, so it can only be as good as what was copied. Copying an image from a web page gives you the version that page was showing, which is often a resized one rather than the original — if you need the full-size file, right-click and use "Save image as" instead.
How it works
Three steps, no account, and the picture never leaves your computer.
Copy the picture
Take a screenshot with Win+Shift+S, or right-click an image on a web page and choose "Copy image". Anything that puts a picture on the clipboard works.
Press Ctrl+V on this page
The picture appears straight away. Cmd+V on a Mac. If you are on a phone, tap the box and choose the picture instead — there is no keyboard to paste with.
Name it and save it
Give the file a name you will recognise later and press the button. Pick JPG or WebP first if you want it smaller than the PNG the clipboard hands over.
What people paste in here
A screenshot that is only on the clipboard
Win+Shift+S puts the snip on the clipboard and nowhere else. If the notification has gone, this is the shortest way to turn it into a file.
An image from a web page
"Copy image" gives you the picture but no file. Useful when the page blocks "Save image as", or when the image is a background rather than a picture.
A picture inside a document
An image pasted into a Word file, a slide or a PDF viewer. Copy it there, paste it here, and it becomes a file you can put in a folder.
A frame from a design tool
Figma, Canva and the rest copy a selection to the clipboard as an image. This saves it without exporting the whole board.
Why a copied picture is not a file
Copy a picture and it goes to the clipboard. Copy a file and what goes to the clipboard is a reference to something already on your disk. They feel like the same action and they are not, which is the whole reason this page exists.
A copied picture is pixel data held in memory. It has no name, no folder and no format on disk — so there is nothing for your file manager to paste. That is why pressing Ctrl+V inside a folder does nothing after a screenshot, and why so many people end up sending the image to themselves in a chat app just to download it back out again.
When your computer can already do this
Worth knowing before you use any tool, because sometimes you do not need one.
| If you press | You get |
|---|---|
| Win + Print Screen | A file. The whole screen, saved straight into Pictures › Screenshots |
| Win + Shift + S | The clipboard only. Click the notification that appears and the Snipping Tool opens, where Ctrl+S saves it |
| Cmd + Shift + 4 (Mac) | A file on the Desktop |
| Ctrl + Cmd + Shift + 4 (Mac) | The clipboard only — adding Control is what redirects it there |
Recent versions of the Snipping Tool also have an Automatically save screenshots setting, which writes every snip to a folder as well as to the clipboard. If screenshots are the only reason you are here, turning that on solves it permanently.
What it cannot do
Here is the gap. Windows has no way to save an arbitrary copied image as a file. There is no "paste into file" in the right-click menu — the entry some articles describe belongs to a separate program people install, not to Windows. The built-in shortcuts above only help with screenshots you took yourself.
So for everything else — an image copied off a web page, a picture lifted out of a document, a selection copied from a design tool — the picture really is stuck on the clipboard until something accepts a paste and writes it out. That is the job here.
PNG, JPG or WebP
Browsers put images on the clipboard as PNG, always. PNG is lossless, which is right for screenshots: text and interface edges stay crisp, and nothing is thrown away. It is also why a screenshot of a photograph can be surprisingly large.
| Format | Choose it when |
|---|---|
| PNG | Screenshots, text, interfaces, anything with transparency. The default, and the only one that saves the clipboard's own bytes untouched |
| JPG | Photographs, or when the file has to be small. There is no transparency, so anything see-through is filled with white |
| WebP | Smaller than both and it keeps transparency. A few older programs still refuse to open it |
Picking PNG here does not re-encode anything: the file that reaches your downloads folder is the clipboard's own data. Choosing JPG or WebP redraws the picture once and encodes it, which is a single lossy step rather than a repeated one.
A pasted picture has no name
Every clipboard image arrives called image.png. One of those is fine; the fourth one is image (3).png and you have no idea which is which.
So the name box is filled in with the date and time the picture was pasted, and you can replace it with something you will recognise. If you are collecting pictures for one job, paste them all in, name each one, and take the lot as a single ZIP.
Why none of this is uploaded
A clipboard is a strange thing to hand to a server. People copy whatever is on screen — a bank balance, a private message, an unreleased design, a medical result — and a tool that uploads the paste puts all of it on somebody else's disk.
Nothing here is sent anywhere. The paste is read by the page, the picture is drawn by your own browser and the file is written by your own browser's download. There is no upload, no account and no size limit, because there is no server on the other end to have any of those.
Common questions
How do I save an image that is on my clipboard?
Copy the picture, open this page and press Ctrl+V — Cmd+V on a Mac. The image appears, you give it a name, and the button saves it to your downloads folder as a real file. It works with screenshots, with images copied from a web page, and with pictures copied out of a document.
Why can I not just paste a picture into a folder?
Because a copied picture and a copied file are different things. A copied file is a reference to something already on your disk, so your file manager can paste it. A copied picture is only pixel data in memory — it has no name, no folder and no format on disk, so there is nothing for the folder to paste. Windows has no built-in way to write it out, which is the gap this page fills.
Where do Win+Shift+S screenshots get saved?
Nowhere, by default — they go to the clipboard only. Clicking the notification that appears opens the Snipping Tool, where Ctrl+S saves the snip. If the notification has gone, pasting it here is quicker. Recent versions of the Snipping Tool also have an Automatically save screenshots setting that writes every snip to a folder as well. Win+Print Screen always saves a file, into Pictures › Screenshots.
Can I save it as a JPG instead of a PNG?
Yes. Choose JPG before you press the save button. The clipboard always holds a PNG, so a JPG is much smaller for photographs — but it has no transparency, and anything see-through is filled with white. WebP is smaller still and does keep transparency.
Does it work on a phone?
Partly. Phones have no Ctrl+V, so tap the box and pick the picture from your photos instead. Some mobile browsers do offer a paste option when you long-press, but it is inconsistent — and on a phone a screenshot is already saved as a file, so there is usually nothing to rescue.
Is the picture uploaded anywhere?
No. The paste is read by the page, the picture is drawn by your own browser, and the download is written by your own browser. There is no server involved, which is why there is no account, no queue and no size limit — and why it is safe to use on whatever happened to be on your screen.
Why is my pasted screenshot such a large file?
Because the clipboard hands over a PNG, and PNG is lossless — it throws nothing away. That is exactly what you want for text and interfaces, and it is wasteful for a photograph. If the size matters, save it as JPG or WebP here, or run it through the image compressor.
Can I paste several pictures at once?
Paste them one after another — each one is added to the page rather than replacing the last. Once there are two or more, a button appears that puts all of them into a single ZIP file, which is easier than saving them one at a time.
More image tools
Every one of them runs on your device. No uploads, no accounts.