ShotX
Advanced Screenshot & Screen Capture Utility for Linux

ShotX

A free, open-source screenshot and screen capture tool for Linux — inspired by ShareX.

ShotX brings the power of ShareX to the Linux desktop: instant screen capture, region selection with auto-detect, annotation tools, screen recording, image editing, OCR, and upload to multiple destinations — all from a single hotkey press or system tray.

Status: Beta — Core features complete, actively maintained.

Features

📷 Screen Capture

• Fullscreen — capture entire screen or specific monitor
• Region — drag-select with auto-detect (windows + AT-SPI2 widgets)
• Annotation overlay — annotate directly during region capture
• Configurable delay — countdown timer before capture
• Cursor visibility — option to include/exclude cursor

✏️ Annotation Tools

Built into both the capture overlay and the standalone editor:

• Arrow, rectangle, ellipse, text, freehand draw
• Blur / pixelate, highlight, step numbers
• Eraser, undo/redo, color picker

🎥 Screen Recording

• Record any region as MP4 or GIF
• Audio capture (PulseAudio / PipeWire)
• Wayland (wf-recorder) and X11 (ffmpeg) backends

☁️ Upload Engine

• Built-in: Imgur, ImgBB, tmpfiles.org
• Cloud: Amazon S3 / S3-compatible (Backblaze, MinIO, etc.)
• Protocol: FTP, SFTP
• Custom: .sxcu format compatible with ShareX custom uploaders
• URL Shortener: Multiple providers, auto-shorten after upload

🎨 Image Editor

• QGraphicsView-based canvas with zoom, pan, keyboard shortcuts
• All annotation tools
• Crop & resize with interactive handles
• Effects: borders, shadows, watermarks
• Beautifier: rounded corners, gradient backgrounds, drop shadow
• Combiner: horizontal/vertical image stacking

🛠️ Productivity Tools

• OCR — extract text from any screen region (Tesseract)
• Color Picker — magnifier overlay to pick exact hex color
• Screen Ruler — measure pixel distances and boundaries
• QR Code — scan from screen/clipboard, generate from text
• Hash Checker — file integrity verification (MD5, SHA-1, SHA-256, SHA-512)
• Pin to Screen — pin a captured region as a floating always-on-top window
• Directory Indexer — generate styled HTML index of a directory tree

📜 History & Image History

• Thumbnail Grid — browse recent captures edge-to-edge in the Main Window
• Split-View History — spreadsheet viewer with live preview panel
• Search & Filtering — find captures by filename, extension, or URL
• Batch Operations — multi-select and delete files/records in bulk
• ShareX Formats — copy links as Markdown, HTML, or plain text codes

🖥️ Platform Support

• Wayland-first — xdg-desktop-portal D-Bus API for capture
• X11 fallback — XCB/Xlib capture backend
• Auto-detection of display server

System Dependencies

ShotX is a Python application, but some features require system packages:

Package	Required For	Install (Ubuntu/Debian)
tesseract-ocr	OCR text extraction	sudo apt install tesseract-ocr
libzbar0	QR code scanning	sudo apt install libzbar0
ffmpeg	Screen recording (X11)	sudo apt install ffmpeg
wf-recorder	Screen recording (Wayland)	sudo apt install wf-recorder
grim	Screenshot capture (Wayland, sway)	sudo apt install grim
slurp	Region selection (Wayland, sway)	sudo apt install slurp
xclip	Clipboard fallback	sudo apt install xclip

Note: On GNOME Wayland, capture uses the xdg-desktop-portal — no extra packages needed for basic screenshots.

Installation

One-liner (Recommended)

curl -sSL https://shotx.vedeshpadal.me/install.sh | sh

This installs all system dependencies, including OCR, QR scanning, and screen recording.

Native Packages (Ubuntu/Fedora)

Download the latest .deb, .rpm, or AppImage from the GitHub Releases page.

# Ubuntu / Debian
sudo dpkg -i shotx_*.deb

# Fedora / RHEL
sudo rpm -i shotx-*.rpm

# AppImage (any distro)
chmod +x ShotX-*.AppImage && ./ShotX-*.AppImage

The .deb and .rpm packages bundle a private Python runtime — no system Python or library conflicts.

Homebrew (Linux)

brew tap vedesh-padal/tap
brew install shotx

PyPI

pip install shotx
# or with uv:
uv tool install shotx

From Source

git clone https://github.com/vedesh-padal/ShotX.git
cd ShotX
uv sync
uv run shotx

Usage

# Launch as system tray app (default)
shotx
shotx --tray

# Screen capture
shotx --capture-fullscreen
shotx --capture-region
shotx --capture-window

# Productivity tools
shotx --ocr                       # OCR: select region → text to clipboard
shotx --color-picker              # Pick color → hex to clipboard
shotx --ruler                     # Measure pixel distances
shotx --qr-scan                   # Scan QR from screen region
shotx --qr-generate               # Generate QR from clipboard text
shotx --qr-scan-clipboard         # Scan QR from clipboard image
shotx --pin-region                # Pin region as floating window

# Standalone tools
shotx --hash                      # Open hash checker
shotx --index-dir [PATH]          # Open directory indexer
shotx --edit [IMAGE]              # Open image editor
shotx --history                   # Open capture history viewer

# URL tools
shotx --shorten-url [URL]         # Shorten URL (reads clipboard if no URL)

# Options
shotx --config-dir PATH           # Override config directory
shotx --verbose                   # Enable colored debug logging

Configuration

Settings are stored in ~/.config/shotx/settings.yaml. Configuration is managed via the Settings dialog in the Main Window, or edited directly.

Key configuration areas:

• Capture — output directory, filename pattern, image format, delay, cursor
• Upload — default uploader, API keys, S3/FTP credentials
• Hotkeys — global keyboard shortcuts
• Workflow — after-capture actions (save, clipboard, upload, open editor)
• Notifications — enable/disable desktop notifications

Architecture

ShotX uses an event-driven architecture with domain-specific controllers:

main.py (CLI)
  └── app.py (orchestrator)
        ├── CaptureController  — capture workflows
        ├── UploadController   — upload + URL shortener
        ├── ToolController     — editor, hash, indexer
        ├── EventBus           — inter-component signals
        └── TaskManager        — background thread management

Roadmap

• Phase 1-3 — Core capture, region selection, annotations
• Phase 4 — Screen recording (MP4/GIF)
• Phase 5 — Upload engine (6 backends + custom + URL shortener)
• Phase 6 — Productivity tools (OCR, color picker, ruler, QR, etc.)
• Phase 7 — Image editor (effects, beautifier, combiner)
• Phase 8 — Main Window, history, settings, architecture refactoring
• Phase 9 — Documentation site, PyPI packaging, testing, auto-start
• Phase 10 — Image History grid & enhanced History viewer
• Phase 11 — Automated release pipeline (CI/CD)
• Phase 12 — Native packaging (.deb, .rpm, AppImage, Homebrew)
• Future — Wayland global hotkeys, active window capture on Wayland, watch folders

Tech Stack

Component	Technology
Language	Python 3.10+
GUI Framework	Qt6 / PySide6
Config	YAML (PyYAML)
Screen Capture	xdg-desktop-portal (Wayland), XCB/Xlib (X11)
Recording	FFmpeg (X11), wf-recorder (Wayland)
Upload	httpx, boto3 (S3), paramiko (SFTP)
OCR	Tesseract (pytesseract)
QR Code	pyzbar, qrcode
Image Processing	Pillow, QPainter
D-Bus	dbus-next

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! This project follows clean engineering practices:

• Each commit does one thing
• Clear commit messages following conventional commits
• Feature branches merged via --no-ff

# Run tests
uv run pytest

# Lint
uv run ruff check src/

# Type check
uv run mypy src/

Tip

You can also use the inclusive Justfile or Makefile in the root for automated setup and development tasks.

License

GPL-3.0 — see LICENSE for details. Same license as ShareX.

Acknowledgments

• ShareX — the original inspiration
• Flameshot — a great Linux screenshot tool that paved the way