SnapPea

A screenshot and screen recording tool for the COSMIC desktop environment with annotation capabilities.

demo.mp4

Disclaimer: This project is based on xdg-desktop-portal-cosmic with added features. It implements the same screenshot portal interface. When set up correctly, dbus messages sent by cosmic-screenshot will be handled by SnapPea instead of xdg-desktop-portal-cosmic (only Screenshot Portal messages).

Features

• Interactive screenshot selection
• Screen recording with hardware acceleration (no audio yet)
  • Multiple container formats (MP4, WebM, MKV)
  • Configurable framerate (24/30/60 fps)
  • Hardware encoder selection
  • Cursor visibility toggle
  • Live annotations while recording
• Video editor
  • Trim recorded video
  • Save as gif
  • Save as WebM
• Annotation tools: arrows, circles, squares, freehand drawing
• Text recognition (OCR)
• QR code detection
• Redaction and pixelation
• Multi-window and multi-output support
• Keyboard shortcuts
• Configurable settings

Installation

From the Cloudsmith Debian Repository (recommended)

SnapPea repository hosting is graciously provided by Cloudsmith.

For Ubuntu/Pop!_OS 24.04 (Noble):

# Add the Cloudsmith repository
curl -1sLf 'https://dl.cloudsmith.io/public/cosmetics/snappea/setup.deb.sh' | sudo -E bash

# Install SnapPea
sudo apt install snappea

Packages are built automatically on every release and include the binary and desktop entry.

From Fedora COPR

COPR packages are maintained by @lorduskordus.

Traditional Fedora:

sudo dnf copr enable kordus/cosmic-apps
sudo dnf install snappea

Fedora Atomic:

sudo wget \
    https://copr.fedorainfracloud.org/coprs/kordus/cosmic-apps/repo/fedora/kordus-cosmic-apps.repo \
    -O /etc/yum.repos.d/_copr:copr.fedorainfracloud.org:kordus:cosmic-apps.repo
rpm-ostree install snappea

From Source

Build and install with just:

just && sudo just install

This installs the binary to /usr/bin/snappea and adds a desktop entry to your application menu.

Setting up a keyboard shortcut:

1. Open Settings > Keyboard > Keyboard Shortcuts > Custom Shortcuts
2. Add a new shortcut:
   • Name: SnapPea (or Screenshot)
   • Command: snappea
   • Shortcut: Print (or your preferred key)

Note

Running snappea multiple times communicates with the existing instance. If you're recording and press the shortcut again, it will stop the recording.

Optional: Set as Default Screenshot Tool

To use SnapPea as the default screenshot portal (replacing the COSMIC screenshot tool when Print Screen is pressed):

1. Open SnapPea
2. Click the Settings gear icon
3. Under the General tab, enable Set as Default

This automatically registers SnapPea as the preferred screenshot portal for your user account and restarts xdg-desktop-portal to apply the change immediately. No root access or manual config editing required.

Important

SnapPea used to install its config to ~/.config/xdg-desktop-portal/portals.conf. This breaks theming in Flatpaks. If you had an older version of SnapPea, make sure portals.conf is deleted.

Optional: Better gif quality

To get better gif quality install gifski.

Optional: OCR Support

To enable text recognition (OCR), install tesseract-ocr:

# Debian/Ubuntu
sudo apt install tesseract-ocr

# Fedora
sudo dnf install tesseract

# Arch
sudo pacman -S tesseract

Uninstalling

sudo just uninstall

The uninstall command will warn you if ~/.config/xdg-desktop-portal/cosmic-portals.conf still contains SnapPea configuration.

Why SnapPea?

It Snaps Pics and it's snappy!