Wayland Guide

Having trouble taking screenshots or recording on Wayland (Linux)? Here are a bunch of different ways to do both of those things. Most problems arise when using a wlroots based compositor, it's easier when using GNOME or KDE with Flameshot.

You will need to install grim let apps like flameshot take screenshots.

If you are using Flameshot on GNOME, KDE or Sway, you can use the normal Flameshot generator to generate a script that will take a screenshot, upload it to a server, and copy the URL to your clipboard.

Using the generated script on the Account Settings page, will work for Gnome and KDE on Wayland. However, if you are using a different compositor, like Hyprland, or river, you will need add the XDG_CURRENT_DESKTOP=sway environment variable to the script.

Your milage may vary, since there are many different issues/workarounds for different compositors.

export XDG_CURRENT_DESKTOP=sway

flameshot gui # will most likely work now on wlroots based compositors and others if they implement the needed protocols

Heres a simple script that will take a screenshot, upload it to a server, and copy the URL to your clipboard.

#!/bin/bash
export XDG_CURRENT_DESKTOP=sway
TOKEN="token"
URL="https://example.com/api/upload"

flameshot gui -r > /tmp/screenshot.png

curl \
  -H "authorization: $TOKEN" $URL \
  -F file=@/tmp/screenshot.png \
  -H 'content-type: multipart/form-data' |
  jq -r .files[0].url |
  tr -d '\n' |
  wl-copy

Setting the XDG_CURRENT_DESKTOP variable to sway is a workaround to make Flameshot work on compositors other than GNOME, KDE and Sway.

This is a more stripped down way to take screenshots, but it should work on all wlroots compositors.

Here is a simple region capture script using grim, slurp, and wl-copy.

grim -g "$(slurp)" - | wl-copy

grim -g "$(slurp)" - | wl-copy

We can take this and extend it to upload the screenshot to a server and copy the URL to the clipboard.

#!/bin/bash
TOKEN="token"
URL="https://example.com/api/upload"

grim -g "$(slurp)" - > /tmp/screenshot.png

curl \
  -H "authorization: $TOKEN" $URL \
  -F file=@/tmp/screenshot.png \
  -H 'content-type: multipart/form-data' |
  jq -r .files[0].url |
  tr -d '\n' |
  wl-copy

Satty is a modern screenshot annotation tool, inspired by Flameshot and Swappy. You can try to use satty with grim and slurp to take screenshots if Flameshot doesn't work for you.

A simple script to take a screenshot with grim and slurp, then annotate it with satty which will then copy/save it to a file depending on the options you choose.

grim -g "$(slurp -c '#ff0000ff')" -t ppm - | satty --filename - --fullscreen --output-filename ~/Pictures/Screenshots/satty-$(date '+%Y%m%d-%H:%M:%S').png

grim -g "$(slurp)" -t ppm - | satty --filename - --fullscreen --output-filename ~/Pictures/Screenshots/satty-$(date '+%Y%m%d-%H:%M:%S').png

We can take this script now and extend it to upload the screenshot to a server and copy the URL to the clipboard.

#!/bin/bash

TOKEN="token"
URL="https://example.com/api/upload"

grim -g "$(slurp)" -t ppm - > /tmp/screenshot.png

satty --filename /tmp/screenshot.png --fullscreen --output-filename /tmp/screenshot-annotated.png

curl \
  -H "authorization: $TOKEN" $URL \
  -F file=@/tmp/screenshot-annotated.png \
  -H 'content-type: multipart/form-data' |
  jq -r .files[0].url |
  tr -d '\n' |
  wl-copy

hyprshot is a screenshot tool made specifically to work well in Hyprland

hyprshot -m region -r > /tmp/screenshot.png

hyprshot -m region -r > /tmp/screenshot.png

We can take this script now and extend it to upload the screenshot to a server and copy the URL to the clipboard.

#!/bin/bash

TOKEN="token"
URL="https://example.com/api/upload"

hyprshot -m region -r > /tmp/screenshot

curl \
  -H "authorization: $TOKEN" $URL \
  -F file=@/tmp/screenshot.png \
  -H 'content-type: multipart/form-data' |
  jq -r .files[0].url |
  tr -d '\n' |
  wl-copy

Spectacle is a screenshot/recording tool for KDE, it works on both Wayland and X11.

Take a screenshot of a region then save it to /tmp/screenshot.png:

spectacle -o /tmp/screenshot.png -ribn

spectacle -o /tmp/screenshot.png -ribn

Take a screenshot of a region then upload it to a server and copy the URL to the clipboard:

#!/bin/bash

TOKEN="token"
URL="https://example.com/api/upload"

spectacle -o /tmp/screenshot.png -ribn

curl \
  -H "authorization: $TOKEN" $URL \
  -F file=@/tmp/screenshot.png \
  -H 'content-type: multipart/form-data' |
  jq -r .files[0].url |
  tr -d '\n' |
  wl-copy

You will need to install wf-recorder to record your screen on Wayland (wlroots).

A simple script to record your entire screen using wf-recorder, which is saved to /tmp/recording.mp4.:

wf-recorder -f /tmp/recording.mp4

wf-recorder -f /tmp/recording.mp4

Record a region:

wf-recorder -g "$(slurp)" -f /tmp/recording.mp4

wf-recorder -g "$(slurp)" -f /tmp/recording.mp4

Record a region and upload it to a server:

#!/bin/bash

TOKEN="token"
URL="https://example.com/api/upload"

wf-recorder -g "$(slurp)" -f /tmp/recording.mp4 -y
# -y: Overwrite the file if it already exists

curl \
  -H "authorization: $TOKEN" $URL \
  -F file=@/tmp/recording.mp4 \
  -H 'content-type: multipart/form-data' |
  jq -r .files[0].url |
  tr -d '\n' |
  wl-copy

killall -s SIGINT wf-recorder

Spectacle is a screenshot/recording tool for KDE, it works on both Wayland and X11.

Record a region and save it to /tmp/recording.mp4:

spectacle -R region -ibn -o /tmp/recording.mp4

spectacle -R region -ibn -o /tmp/recording.mp4

Record a region and upload it to a server:

#!/bin/bash

TOKEN="token"
URL="https://example.com/api/upload"

spectacle -R region -ibn -o /tmp/recording.mp4

curl \
  -H "authorization: $TOKEN" $URL \
  -F file=@/tmp/recording.mp4 \
  -H 'content-type: multipart/form-data' |
  jq -r .files[0].url |
  tr -d '\n' |
  wl-copy