A beta release in the Canary channel of Windows Insider means you won’t have to remember to save notes. Also, Snipping tool updates make screen recording easier.

In a Windows Insider blog post, Microsoft announced the launch of an update to the Canary channel (where the most bleeding-edge betas appear) and the Dev channel (the next-stablest channel) that will spare you the need to manually save your work. Autosave has long been a hallmark of Microsoft’s synced note-taking app, OneNote, though Word and other software still requires you to save. The update also includes a more accessible interface for recording screen activity with the Snipping Tool.

(Credit: Microsoft)

The venerable text editor has already received some new love in Windows 11, with tabs coming in a previous update. Now you’ll be able to say buh-bye to those annoying message boxes asking you whether you want to save your open document. When you reopen Notepad, everything will be as you last left it—in all your tabs. You’ll still have to name and save a file explicitly when you close a tab. The new feature is optional, so it can be turned off if you prefer the non-autosave way of working.

Easier Snipping Tool Movies

The included Snipping Tool screenshot utility in Windows recently got the ability to record video of action on the screen as well as to take still images, frozen in time. Currently, there’s no option for screen recording in the toolbar that pops up when you type Windows Key–Ctrl-S, just still-screenshot options. With this update, you’ll get both options in that toolbar. The update also lets you decide whether you want to record voiceover audio with your PC’s microphone while recording.

Here’s the existing Snipping Tool on-screen toolbar:

(Credit: Microsoft)

And here’s the updated one:

(Credit: Microsoft)

The recording toolbar will get microphone and computer-speaker icons for sound recording; the existing tool has only Start, Stop, Pause, and Delete buttons.

Here’s the old screen recording toolbar:

(Credit: Microsoft)

And here’s the updated one:

(Credit: Microsoft)

The updates do slightly clutter the compact toolbars, but some users will appreciate the new convenience.

For more on Microsoft’s latest desktop operating system’s new features, check out our Windows 11 coverage page, and read our in-depth review of Windows 11.