tldr: Use Pillow

The pyscreenshot module is obsolete in most cases. It was created because PIL ImageGrab module worked on Windows only, but now Linux and macOS are also supported by Pillow. There are some features in pyscreenshot which can be useful in special cases: flexible backends, Wayland support, sometimes better performance, optional subprocessing.

The module can be used to copy the contents of the screen to a Pillow image memory using various back-ends. Replacement for the ImageGrab Module.

For handling image memory (e.g. saving to file, converting,..) please read Pillow documentation.

Links:

• home: https://github.com/ponty/pyscreenshot
• PYPI: https://pypi.python.org/pypi/pyscreenshot

Goal: Pyscreenshot tries to allow to take screenshots without installing 3rd party libraries. It is cross-platform. It is only a pure Python wrapper, a thin layer over existing back-ends. Its strategy should work on most Linux distributions: a lot of back-ends are wrapped, if at least one exists then it works, if not then one back-end should be installed.

Features:

• Cross-platform wrapper
• Capturing the whole desktop or an area
• saving to Pillow image memory
• some back-ends are based on this discussion: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/69645/take-a-screenshot-via-a-python-script-linux
• pure Python library
• supported Python versions: 3.6, 3.7, 3.8, 3.9
• It has wrappers for various back-ends:
  • scrot
  • maim
  • ImageMagick
  • Pillow
  • PyQt4
  • PyQt5
  • PySide
  • PySide2
  • wxPython
  • Quartz (Mac)
  • screencapture (Mac)
  • gnome-screenshot
  • Python MSS
  • Grim
  • Old removed backends: QtPy, PyGTK
• Performance is not the main target for this library, but you can benchmark the possible settings and choose the fastest one.
• Interactivity is not supported.
• Mouse pointer is not visible.

Known problems:

• KDE Wayland has on screen notification
• gnome-screenshot has Flash effect (https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=672759)

Installation:

$ python3 -m pip install Pillow pyscreenshot

Examples

# pyscreenshot/examples/grabfullscreen.py

"Grab the whole screen"
import pyscreenshot as ImageGrab

# grab fullscreen
im = ImageGrab.grab()

# save image file
im.save("fullscreen.png")

# pyscreenshot/examples/grabbox.py

"Grab the part of the screen"
import pyscreenshot as ImageGrab

# part of the screen
im = ImageGrab.grab(bbox=(10, 10, 510, 510))  # X1,Y1,X2,Y2

# save image file
im.save("box.png")

# pyscreenshot/examples/virtdisp.py

"Create screenshot of xmessage with Xvfb"
from time import sleep

from easyprocess import EasyProcess
from pyvirtualdisplay import Display

import pyscreenshot as ImageGrab

with Display(size=(100, 60)) as disp:  # start Xvfb display
    # display is available
    with EasyProcess(["xmessage", "hello"]):  # start xmessage
        sleep(1)  # wait for diplaying window
        img = ImageGrab.grab()
img.save("xmessage.png")

Image:

Performance

The performance can be checked with pyscreenshot.check.speedtest module. Backends are started in a subprocess with default (safest) settings which is necessary to isolate them from the main process and from each other. Disabling this option makes performance much better, but it may cause problems in some cases.

Test on Ubuntu 20.04 X11

Versions:

$ python3 -m pyscreenshot.check.versions
python               3.8.5
pyscreenshot         2.3
pil                  8.0.1
mss                  6.1.0
scrot                1.2
grim                 ?.?
maim                 5.5.3
imagemagick          6.9.10
pyqt5                5.14.1
pyqt                 
pyside2              5.14.0
pyside               
wx                   4.0.7
pygdk3               3.36.0
mac_screencapture    
mac_quartz           
gnome_dbus           ?.?
gnome-screenshot     3.36.0
kwin_dbus            ?.?

$ python3 -m pyscreenshot.check.speedtest

n=10
------------------------------------------------------
default             	1    sec	(  101 ms per call)
pil                 	1.7  sec	(  166 ms per call)
mss                 	1.9  sec	(  191 ms per call)
scrot               	0.97 sec	(   97 ms per call)
grim                	
maim                	1.4  sec	(  144 ms per call)
imagemagick         	2.4  sec	(  235 ms per call)
pyqt5               	4.3  sec	(  429 ms per call)
pyqt                	
pyside2             	4.2  sec	(  423 ms per call)
pyside              	
wx                  	4.1  sec	(  412 ms per call)
pygdk3              	2    sec	(  204 ms per call)
mac_screencapture   	
mac_quartz          	
gnome_dbus          	1.4  sec	(  144 ms per call)
gnome-screenshot    	3.8  sec	(  381 ms per call)
kwin_dbus           	

$ python3 -m pyscreenshot.check.speedtest --childprocess 0

n=10
------------------------------------------------------
default             	0.11 sec	(   10 ms per call)
pil                 	0.09 sec	(    8 ms per call)
mss                 	0.15 sec	(   15 ms per call)
scrot               	0.95 sec	(   95 ms per call)
grim                	
maim                	1.5  sec	(  145 ms per call)
imagemagick         	2.4  sec	(  235 ms per call)
pyqt5               	1.1  sec	(  114 ms per call)
pyqt                	
pyside2             	1.2  sec	(  118 ms per call)
pyside              	
wx                  	0.43 sec	(   43 ms per call)
pygdk3              	0.16 sec	(   15 ms per call)
mac_screencapture   	
mac_quartz          	
gnome_dbus          	1.5  sec	(  147 ms per call)
gnome-screenshot    	3.8  sec	(  383 ms per call)
kwin_dbus           	

You can force a backend:

import pyscreenshot as ImageGrab
im = ImageGrab.grab(backend="scrot")

You can force if subprocess is applied, setting it to False together with mss gives the best performance in most cases:

# best performance
import pyscreenshot as ImageGrab
im = ImageGrab.grab(backend="mss", childprocess=False)

Wayland

Wayland is supported with two setups:

1. using D-Bus on GNOME or KDE. Python 3 only.
2. using Grim on any Wayland compositor with wlr-screencopy-unstable-v1 support. (GNOME:no, KDE:no, Sway:yes)

If both Wayland and X are available then Wayland is preferred because Xwayland can not be used for screenshot.
Rules for decision:

1. use X if DISPLAY variable exists and XDG_SESSION_TYPE variable != "wayland"
2. use Wayland if 1. is not successful

Dependencies

Only pure python modules are used:

1. EasyProcess for calling programs
2. entrypoint2 for generating command line interface
3. MSS backend is added because it is very fast and pure and multiplatform
4. jeepney for D-Bus calls

Hierarchy