Instant screenshots on KDE Plasma

Summary

On KDE Plasma, Snim takes screenshots straight from KWin, Plasma's compositor. Press the hotkey and the area selector is there at once, with no permission dialog in the way, every single time.

What you can do

• Capture an area, the active window or the whole desktop without a confirmation dialog.
• Capture all your monitors in one shot.
• Get it out of the box with the .deb, the .rpm or the install script.
• With the portable tarball, let Snim set it up in one click the first time it is needed, or any time from Set up desktop integration in the tray menu.

How it works

• KWin only hands screenshots to apps it trusts, and it recognizes them by their menu entry. The packages and the install script ship an entry KWin accepts.
• If KWin refuses, Snim explains why and offers to write that entry into your local applications folder, then retries the capture right away. If you decline, captures go through KDE's own picker instead.
• If an older Snim left a menu entry behind that would get in the way, Snim offers to remove it.

Platforms

• Windows: Screenshots there never needed a permission dialog.
• macOS: macOS asks once for Screen Recording permission; after that, captures are instant.
• Linux: Instant on KDE Plasma with the packages, the install script, or the tarball once Snim has set up its menu entry. In the Flatpak, KDE screenshots go through the desktop's screenshot portal instead. Elsewhere Snim picks the quickest route the desktop offers: on GNOME you choose your screens once and later screenshots do not ask again, and Sway, Hyprland and other wlroots desktops capture directly with no dialog.

Not in this version

• Not available in the Flatpak, since KWin cannot trust a sandboxed app this way.
• Screen recording on Wayland still shows the screen sharing picker for each recording.

Status

• Shipped in 1.0.0-rc.1