Screenshots And Screencasts - Official Ubuntu Documentation

• Partners
• Support
• Community
• Ubuntu.com

Ubuntu Documentation

• Official Documentation
• Community Help Wiki
• Contribute

Ubuntu 25.10 » Ubuntu Desktop Guide » Tips & tricks » Screenshots and screencasts

• Capture all or part of your screen as an image

• Send it as a file or paste it from the clipboard

• Save a video of your screen activity

You can take a picture of your screen (a screenshot) or record a video of what is happening on the screen (a screencast). This is useful if you want to show someone how to do something on the computer, for example. Screenshots and screencasts are just normal picture and video files, so you can email them and share them on the web.

Take a screenshot

1. Press the Print key or press the screenshot button in the system menu.

2. The screenshot overlay presents you with handles to select the area to capture, and indicates screenshot (still image) mode.

   Click the pointer button to include the pointer in the screenshot.

3. Click and drag the area you want for the screenshot using the handles or the crosshair pointer.

4. To capture the selected area, click the big round button.

5. To capture the entire screen, click Screen and then click the big round button.

6. To capture a window, click Window. An overview of all the open windows is displayed with the active window checked. Click to choose a window and then click the big round button.

Where do they go?

• A screenshot image is automatically saved in the Pictures/Screenshots folder in your home folder with a file name that begins with Screenshot and includes the date and time it was taken.

• The image is also saved in the clipboard, so you can immediately paste it into an image-editing application or share it on social media.

• A screencast video is automatically saved in your Videos/Screencasts folder in your home folder, with a file name that starts with Screencast and includes the date and time it was taken.

Make a screencast

You can make a video recording of what is happening on your screen:

1. Press the Print key or press the screenshot button in the system menu.

2. Click to switch to screencast mode.

   Click the pointer button to include the pointer in the screencast.

3. Choose Selection or Screen. For Selection, click and drag the area you want for the screencast using the handles or the crosshair pointer.

4. Click the big round red button to start recording what is on your screen.

   A red indicator is displayed in the top right corner of the screen when the recording is in progress, showing the elapsed seconds.

5. Once you have finished, click the red indicator in the top bar.

Keyboard shortcuts

Within the screenshot feature, you can use these keyboard shortcuts:

S	Select area
C	Capture screen
W	Capture window
P	Toggle between show and hide pointer
V	Toggle between screenshot and screencast
Enter	Capture, also activated by Space or Ctrl+C

These shortcuts can be used to bypass the screenshot feature:

Alt+Print	Capture the window that currently has focus
Shift+Print	Capture the entire screen
Shift+Ctrl+Alt+R	Start recording a screencast

More Information

• Tips & tricks — Get the most out of GNOME with these handy tips.

You can choose the displayed language by adding a language suffix to the web address so it ends with e.g. .html.en or .html.de. If the web address has no language suffix, the preferred language specified in your web browser's settings is used. For your convenience: [ Change to English Language | Change to Browser's Preferred Language ]

The material in this document is available under a free license, see Legal for details. For information on contributing see the Ubuntu Documentation Team wiki page. To report errors in this documentation, file a bug.