LinuxShot

A ShareX-inspired screenshot and upload tool for Linux.

Capture a region, fullscreen, or window with a single keypress, auto-upload to ImgBB, and get a direct i.ibb.co link on your clipboard. Works on both Wayland and X11.

Features

Region, fullscreen, and active window capture (PrtSc / Ctrl+PrtSc / Alt+PrtSc)
Annotation editor after every capture: arrows, boxes, text, highlights, numbered steps, crop, and blur for redacting secrets before anything leaves your machine
Automatic secret detection: one click finds API keys, emails, tokens, and credentials in the capture via OCR and pixelates them all
Upload to ImgBB, Imgur, catbox.moe, 0x0.st, or any self-hosted service via a custom HTTP uploader
Delete links are kept in history, so an upload is never irreversible
Screen recording to MP4, webm, or GIF — Spectacle backend on KDE, wf-recorder on wlroots, ffmpeg on X11; one command toggles start/stop
OCR: capture a region, get its text on the clipboard (tesseract)
Color picker (desktop portal, hyprpicker fallback) and pin to screen for floating reference images
History with thumbnails, live preview pane, and per-entry actions
ShareX-style main window: action sidebar, searchable capture history with thumbnails, settings
Global keyboard shortcuts on KDE Plasma via KGlobalAccel
Desktop notifications on capture and upload
System tray icon with quick-capture context menu
Full CLI for scripting and compositor keybinds
Self-update: linuxshot update
Works on Arch/CachyOS, Debian/Ubuntu, Fedora, openSUSE, Void

Install

Quick Install (recommended)

git clone https://github.com/TaintedAngel/linuxshot.git
cd linuxshot
chmod +x setup.sh
./setup.sh

The setup script will:

Detect your distro and display server
Install all system dependencies automatically
Install LinuxShot via pip
Set up the desktop file for your app launcher

Manual Install

# Arch / CachyOS
sudo pacman -S python python-pip python-gobject python-pyside6 python-dbus \
    python-requests libnotify grim slurp wl-clipboard

# Debian / Ubuntu
sudo apt install python3 python3-pip python3-gi python3-pyside6 python3-dbus \
    python3-requests libnotify-bin grim slurp wl-clipboard

# Fedora
sudo dnf install python3 python3-pip python3-gobject python3-pyside6 python3-dbus \
    python3-requests libnotify grim slurp wl-clipboard

# Then install LinuxShot
pip install .

For X11 users

Replace the Wayland tools with X11 equivalents:

# Arch / CachyOS
sudo pacman -S maim xdotool xclip

# Debian / Ubuntu
sudo apt install maim xdotool xclip

# Fedora
sudo dnf install maim xdotool xclip

Usage

CLI Commands

linuxshot region          Capture a selected region
linuxshot fullscreen      Capture the entire screen
linuxshot window          Capture the active window
linuxshot edit <file>     Annotate an image in the editor
linuxshot record [mode]   Start/stop a screen recording (region|screen|window)
linuxshot ocr             Capture a region and copy its text
linuxshot pick-color      Pick a pixel color from the screen
linuxshot pin [file]      Pin an image to the screen, always on top
linuxshot upload <file>   Upload a file
linuxshot upload-last     Upload the most recent capture
linuxshot history         Show recent capture history
linuxshot config          View/edit configuration
linuxshot tray            Start the system tray icon
linuxshot gui             Open the main window
linuxshot setup           Register shortcuts, desktop file & autostart (KDE)
linuxshot update          Update to the latest version from GitHub
linuxshot check           Verify all dependencies

Running plain linuxshot starts the tray.

Annotation Editor

After each capture the editor opens (turn this off in Settings or with linuxshot config --set open_editor_after_capture false):

Arrow, line, box, ellipse, highlight, text, numbered steps, crop — plus blur (soft, cosmetic) and pixelate (coarse mosaic). Use pixelate for credentials and personal data: gaussian blur only smears information and blurred text has been reconstructed before, while the mosaic averages each block away for good.

Detect secrets does the redaction for you: it OCRs the capture and pixelates anything that looks like an API key, email address, token, password= pair, or IP address, as a single undoable step. Requires tesseract.

Before / after one click — the Stripe key, email, server address, and GitHub token are gone; ordinary text is untouched. Done applies your annotations, Skip keeps the capture untouched, Discard throws it away. Ctrl+Z undoes, Ctrl+scroll zooms. Existing images can be annotated any time via linuxshot edit or right-click → Edit in the history.

Main Window

linuxshot gui

Laid out like ShareX: capture and upload actions in a sidebar on the left, your capture history on the right. History entries have thumbnails, a filter box, and a right-click menu (open, copy image, copy URL, upload, delete). Settings live on their own page in the same window.

System Tray

linuxshot tray

Right-click the tray icon for quick actions: capture, upload, toggle auto-upload, open the screenshots folder. Left-click toggles the main window.

To auto-start the tray on login, run linuxshot setup (KDE) or add linuxshot tray to your compositor/DE autostart config.

Keyboard Shortcuts

KDE Plasma (automatic)

On KDE Plasma 6, LinuxShot can register global shortcuts automatically:

linuxshot setup

This registers PrtSc / Ctrl+PrtSc / Alt+PrtSc (replacing Spectacle), installs the desktop file, and sets up autostart. You can also change shortcuts on the Settings page of the main window.

Other desktop environments (manual)

Bind these commands to your preferred keys:

Hyprland (`~/.config/hypr/hyprland.conf`)

bind = , Print, exec, linuxshot region
bind = CTRL, Print, exec, linuxshot fullscreen
bind = ALT, Print, exec, linuxshot window

Sway (`~/.config/sway/config`)

bindsym Print exec linuxshot region
bindsym Ctrl+Print exec linuxshot fullscreen
bindsym Alt+Print exec linuxshot window

i3 (`~/.config/i3/config`)

bindsym Print exec --no-startup-id linuxshot region
bindsym Ctrl+Print exec --no-startup-id linuxshot fullscreen
bindsym Alt+Print exec --no-startup-id linuxshot window

GNOME

gsettings set org.gnome.settings-daemon.plugins.media-keys custom-keybindings "['/org/gnome/settings-daemon/plugins/media-keys/custom-keybindings/linuxshot-region/']"
gsettings set org.gnome.settings-daemon.plugins.media-keys.custom-keybinding:/org/gnome/settings-daemon/plugins/media-keys/custom-keybindings/linuxshot-region/ name 'LinuxShot Region'
gsettings set org.gnome.settings-daemon.plugins.media-keys.custom-keybinding:/org/gnome/settings-daemon/plugins/media-keys/custom-keybindings/linuxshot-region/ command 'linuxshot region'
gsettings set org.gnome.settings-daemon.plugins.media-keys.custom-keybinding:/org/gnome/settings-daemon/plugins/media-keys/custom-keybindings/linuxshot-region/ binding 'Print'

Configuration

Config is stored at ~/.config/linuxshot/config.json.

View all settings

linuxshot config

Common config tweaks

# Set your ImgBB API key (get one at https://api.imgbb.com/)
linuxshot config --set imgbb_api_key YOUR_API_KEY

# Enable auto-upload after every capture
linuxshot config --set auto_upload true

# Change image format to JPEG
linuxshot config --set image_format jpg

# Set a capture delay (seconds)
linuxshot config --set capture_delay 3

# Change screenshot save directory
linuxshot config --set screenshot_dir /path/to/screenshots

# Reset everything to defaults
linuxshot config --reset

Upload destinations

Pick a destination on the Settings page or with linuxshot config --set upload_service <name>:

Service	Needs	Delete link kept
`imgbb`	API key (api.imgbb.com)	yes
`imgur`	client ID (api.imgur.com/oauth2/addclient)	yes
`catbox`	nothing (userhash optional)	with userhash
`0x0`	nothing	yes (token)
`custom`	a JSON request spec	if mapped

A one-off upload can override the default: linuxshot upload -s imgur shot.png.

The custom uploader covers self-hosted services (Zipline, Chibisafe, ...). Describe the request in the custom_uploader config key:

{
  "request_url": "https://host/api/upload",
  "file_form_name": "file",
  "headers": {"Authorization": "..."},
  "response_type": "json",
  "url_key": "files.0.url",
  "delete_url_key": ""
}

For services that answer with a plain-text URL, use "response_type": "text".

Key config options

upload_service - destination: imgbb, imgur, catbox, 0x0, custom (default: imgbb)
imgbb_api_key - your ImgBB API key (get one at https://api.imgbb.com/)
auto_upload - upload after every capture (default: false)
open_editor_after_capture - annotate before the after-capture steps run (default: true)
ocr_language - tesseract language for linuxshot ocr (default: tesseract's own)
recording_format - mp4, webm, or gif (default: mp4; converted with ffmpeg on stop)
gif_fps - frame rate for GIF conversion (default: 12)
screenshot_dir - save location (default: ~/Pictures/LinuxShot)
image_format - png, jpg, or webp (default: png)
copy_image_to_clipboard - copy image to clipboard (default: true)
copy_url_to_clipboard - copy URL after upload (default: true)
show_notification - desktop notifications (default: true)
shortcut_region / shortcut_fullscreen / shortcut_window - key bindings
override_spectacle - replace Spectacle's PrtSc on KDE (default: true)

Dependencies

Wayland

spectacle (KDE), gnome-screenshot (GNOME), or grim + slurp (wlroots)
Any other compositor: capture falls back to xdg-desktop-portal automatically
wl-clipboard - clipboard (wl-copy / wl-paste)

X11

maim - screenshot capture
xdotool - active window detection
xclip - clipboard

Common

Python 3.10+
PySide6 (Qt6 GUI and tray)
PyGObject + dbus-python (KDE global shortcut listener)
requests
libnotify (notify-send)

Run linuxshot check to verify everything is installed.

Uninstall

./uninstall.sh

Or manually:

pip uninstall linuxshot
rm ~/.local/share/applications/linuxshot.desktop

Updating

linuxshot update

Or manually:

pip install --upgrade git+https://github.com/TaintedAngel/linuxshot.git

Development

pip install -e .[dev]
pytest          # run the test suite
ruff check .    # lint

The test suite covers the core modules (config, history, upload, capture backend selection, CLI) and runs without a display or the Qt/DBus stack, so it works in CI. GUI changes should be checked by hand with linuxshot gui and linuxshot tray.

License

GPL-3.0, same as ShareX.

Contributing

Pull requests welcome! One boundary: publishing LinuxShot to app stores (Flathub, AUR, etc.) is handled by the maintainer — the bundled Flatpak manifest is for local builds only. Please don't submit this app anywhere on the project's behalf.

Ideas:

Image annotation overlay
OCR via Tesseract
Screen recording via wf-recorder/ffmpeg
More upload destinations

Name		Name	Last commit message	Last commit date
.github/workflows		.github/workflows
aur		aur
docs/images		docs/images
flatpak		flatpak
linuxshot		linuxshot
resources		resources
tests		tests
.gitignore		.gitignore
LICENSE		LICENSE
Makefile		Makefile
README.md		README.md
pyproject.toml		pyproject.toml
setup.sh		setup.sh
uninstall.sh		uninstall.sh

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LinuxShot

Features

Install

Quick Install (recommended)

Manual Install

For X11 users

Usage

CLI Commands

Annotation Editor

Main Window

System Tray

Keyboard Shortcuts

KDE Plasma (automatic)

Other desktop environments (manual)

Hyprland (`~/.config/hypr/hyprland.conf`)

Sway (`~/.config/sway/config`)

i3 (`~/.config/i3/config`)

GNOME

Configuration

View all settings

Common config tweaks

Upload destinations

Key config options

Dependencies

Wayland

X11

Common

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LinuxShot

Features

Install

Quick Install (recommended)

Manual Install

For X11 users

Usage

CLI Commands

Annotation Editor

Main Window

System Tray

Keyboard Shortcuts

KDE Plasma (automatic)

Other desktop environments (manual)

Hyprland (~/.config/hypr/hyprland.conf)

Sway (~/.config/sway/config)

i3 (~/.config/i3/config)

GNOME

Configuration

View all settings

Common config tweaks

Upload destinations

Key config options

Dependencies

Wayland

X11

Common

Uninstall

Updating

Development

License

Contributing

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Hyprland (`~/.config/hypr/hyprland.conf`)

Sway (`~/.config/sway/config`)

i3 (`~/.config/i3/config`)