Flameshot

Powerful yet simple to use screenshot software.

Preview

Index

• Features
• Usage
  • CLI configuration
• Keyboard Shortcuts
  • Local
  • Global
    • On KDE Plasma desktop
• Considerations
• Installation
• Compilation
  • Dependencies
    • Compile-time
    • Run-time
    • Optional
    • Debian
    • Fedora
    • Arch
  • Build
  • Install
• Packaging
• License
• Contribute
• Donations
• Acknowledgment

Features

• Customizable appearance.
• Easy to use.
• In-app screenshot edition.
• DBus interface.
• Upload to Imgur.

Usage

Example commands:

• Capture with GUI:

  flameshot gui

• Capture with GUI with custom save path:

  flameshot gui -p ~/myStuff/captures

• Capture with GUI after 2 seconds delay (can be useful to take screenshots of mouse hover tooltips, etc.):

  flameshot gui -d 2000

• Fullscreen capture with custom save path (no GUI) and delayed:

  flameshot full -p ~/myStuff/captures -d 5000

• Fullscreen capture with custom save path copying to clipboard:

  flameshot full -c -p ~/myStuff/captures

• Capture the screen containing the mouse and print the image (bytes) in PNG format:

  flameshot screen -r

• Capture the screen number 1 and copy it to the clipboard:

  flameshot screen -n 1 -c

In case of doubt choose the first or the second command as shortcut in your favorite desktop environment.

A systray icon will be in your system's panel while Flameshot is running. Do a right click on the tray icon and you'll see some menu items to open the configuration window and the information window. Check out the information window to see all the available shortcuts in the graphical capture mode.

CLI configuration

You can use the graphical menu to configure Flameshot, but alternatively you can use your terminal or scripts to do so.

• Open the configuration menu:

  flameshot config

• Show the initial help message in the capture mode:

  flameshot config --showhelp true

• For more information about the available options use the help flag:

  flameshot config -h

Keyboard shortcuts

Local

These shortcuts are available in GUI mode:

Keys	Description
←, ↓, ↑, →	Move selection 1px
Shift + ←, ↓, ↑, →	Resize selection 1px
Esc	Quit capture
Ctrl + C	Copy to clipboard
Ctrl + S	Save selection as a file
Ctrl + Z	Undo the last modification
Spacebar	Toggle visibility of sidebar with options of the selected tool, color picker for the drawing color and history menu
Right Click	Show the color wheel
Mouse Wheel	Change the tool's thickness

Shift + drag a handler of the selection area: mirror redimension in the opposite handler.

Global

If you want use Flameshot as a default screenshot utility, chances are you want to launch it using the Prt Sc key. Flameshot doesn't yet offer a fully-automated option to do so, but you can configure your system to do so.

On KDE Plasma desktop

To make configuration easier, there's a file in the repository that more or less automates this process. This file will assign the following keys to the following actions by default:

Keys	Description
Prt Sc	Start the Flameshot screenshot tool and take a screenshot
Ctrl + Prt Sc	Wait for 3 seconds, then start the Flameshot screenshot tool and take a screenshot
Shift + Prt Sc	Take a full-screen (all monitors) screenshot and save it
Ctrl + Shift + Prt Sc	Take a full-screen (all monitors) screenshot and copy it to the clipboard

If you don't like the defaults, you can change them manually later.

Steps for using the configuration:

1. The configuration file configures shortcuts so that Flameshot automatically saves (without opening the save dialog) screenshots to ~/Pictures/Screenshots folder. Make sure you have that folder by running the following command:

   mkdir -p ~/Pictures/Screenshots

   (If you don't like the default location, you can skip this step and configure your preferred directory later.)

2. Download the configuration file:

   cd ~/Desktop
   wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/lupoDharkael/flameshot/master/docs/shortcuts-config/flameshot-shortcuts-kde

3. Go to System Settings → Shortcuts → Custom Shortcuts.

4. If there's one, you'll need to disable an entry for Spectacle, the default KDE screenshot utility first because its shortcuts might collide with Flameshot's ones; so, just uncheck the Spectacle entry.

5. Click Edit → Import..., navigate to the Desktop folder (or wherever you saved the configuration file) and open the configuration file.

6. Now the Flameshot entry should appear in the list. Click Apply to apply the changes.

7. If you want to change the defaults, you can expand the entry, select the appropriate action and modify it as you wish; the process is pretty mush self-explanatory.

Considerations

• Experimental Gnome Wayland and Plasma Wayland support.

• If you are using Gnome you need to install the Gnome Shell Extension Appindicator extension in order to see the systemtray icon.

• In order to speed up the first launch of Flameshot (DBus init of the app can be slow), consider starting the application automatically on boot.

• Press Enter or Ctrl + C when you are in a capture mode and you don't have an active selection and the whole desktop will be copied to your clipboard! Pressing Ctrl + S will save your capture in a file! Check the Shortcuts for more information.

• Execute the command flameshot without parameters to launch a running instance of the program without taking actions.

Installation

There are packages available for a few distros:

• Arch: pacman -S flameshot
  • Snapshot also available via AUR: flameshot-git.
• Debian 10+: apt install flameshot
  • Package for Debian 9 ("Stretch") also available via stretch-backports.
• Ubuntu 18.04+: apt install flameshot
• openSUSE
• Void Linux (xbps-install flameshot)
• Docker
• Fedora: dnf install flameshot
• Snap/Flatpak/AppImage
• Besides, generic packages available via opensuse software repository

Expand this section to see what distros are using an up to date version of flameshot

Compilation

To build the application in your system, you'll need to install the dependencies needed for it and Package names might be different for each distribution, see Dependencies below for more information.

Dependencies

Compile-time

• Qt >= 5.3
  • Development tools
• GCC >= 4.9.2

Run-time

• Qt
  • SVG

Optional

• Git
• OpenSSL
• CA Certificates

Debian

# Compile-time
apt install g++ build-essential qt5-default qt5-qmake qttools5-dev-tools

# Run-time
apt install libqt5dbus5 libqt5network5 libqt5core5a libqt5widgets5 libqt5gui5 libqt5svg5-dev

# Optional
apt install git openssl ca-certificates

Fedora

# Compile-time
dnf install gcc-c++ qt5-devel qt5-qtbase-devel qt5-linguist

# Run-time
dnf install qt5-qtbase qt5-qtsvg-devel

# Optional
dnf install git openssl ca-certificates

Arch

# Compile-time
pacman -S base-devel git qt5-base qt5-tools

# Run-time
pacman -S qt5-svg

# Optional
pacman -S openssl ca-certificates

Build

After installing all the dependencies, finally run the following commands in the sources root directory:

mkdir build
cd build
qmake ../
make

Install

Simply use make install with privileges.

Packaging

Having git installed is required if you're building Flameshot from a snapshot to have precise version information.

In order to generate the instructions in the Makefile to install the application in /usr instead of in /usr/local you can pass the packaging option to qmake (qmake CONFIG+=packaging).

If you want to install in a custom directory you can use the INSTALL_ROOT variable.

Example:

If you want to install Flameshot in ~/myBuilds/test, you can execute the following to do so:

qmake CONFIG+=packaging
make INSTALL_ROOT=~/myBuilds/test install

License

• The main code is licensed under GPLv3
• The logo of Flameshot is licensed under Free Art License v1.3
• The button icons are licensed under Apache License 2.0. See: https://github.com/google/material-design-icons
• The code at capture/capturewidget.cpp is based on https://github.com/ckaiser/Lightscreen/blob/master/dialogs/areadialog.cpp (GPLv2)
• The code at capture/capturewidget.h is based on https://github.com/ckaiser/Lightscreen/blob/master/dialogs/areadialog.h (GPLv2)
• I copied a few lines of code from KSnapshot regiongrabber.cpp revision 796531 (LGPL)
• Qt-Color-Widgets taken and modified from https://github.com/mbasaglia/Qt-Color-Widgets (see their license and exceptions in the project) (LGPL/GPL)

Info: If I take code from your project and that implies a relicense to GPLv3, you can reuse my changes with the original previous license of your project applied.

Contribute

If you want to contribute check the CONTRIBUTING.md

Donations

I improve Flameshot in my free time because I want to create something good for everyone to use. If you want you can donate some bucks with the following options:

• Paypal
• bitcoin:1K6oiUKWVjP3x9ZuW9C7NbDfcFkMx3G8ue

Acknowledgment

I really appreciate those who have shown interest in the early development process:

• Cosmo
• XerTheSquirrel
• The members of Sugus GNU/Linux
• ismatori