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swappy(1) General Commands Manual swappy(1)

NAME

swappy - grab and edit on the fly snapshots of a Wayland compositor

SYNOPSIS

swappy [options...]

DESCRIPTION

swappy is a command-line utility to take and edit screenshots of Wayland desktops. Works great with grim, slurp and sway. But can easily work with other screen copy tools that can output a final image to stdout.

swappy will save the annotated images to the config save_dir, see below.

If absent, then if it will try to default to a Desktop folder following this pattern: $XDG_DESKTOP_DIR. If this variable is not set, it will revert to: $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/Desktop. If $XDG_CONFIG_HOME is not set, it will revert to: $HOME/Desktop.

OPTIONS

-h, --help

Show help message and quit.

-v, --version

Show version and quit.

-f, --file <file>

An image file to load for editing.

If set to -, read the file from standard input instead. This is grim friendly.

-o, --output-file <file>

Print the final surface to <file> when exiting the application.

If set to -, prints the final surface to stdout.

Note that the Save button will save the image to the config save_dir parameter, as described in the DESCRIPTION section.

CONFIG FILE

The config file is located at $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/swappy/config or at $HOME/.config/swappy/config. The file follows the GLib conf format.

	[Section]
	key=value

The following lines can be used as swappy's default:

	[Default]
	save_dir=$HOME/Desktop
	save_filename_format=swappy-%Y%m%d-%H%M%S.png
	show_panel=false
	line_size=5
	text_size=20
	text_font=sans-serif
	paint_mode=brush
	early_exit=false
	fill_shape=false
	auto_save=false
	custom_color=rgba(192,125,17,1)
	transparent=false
	transparency=50

  • save_dir is where swappshots will be saved, can contain env variables, when it does not exist, swappy attempts to create it first, but does not abort if directory creation fails
  • save_filename_format is the filename template, if it contains a date format, this will be parsed into a timestamp. Format is detailed in strftime(3). If this date format is missing, filename will have no timestamp
  • show_panel is used to toggle the paint panel on or off upon startup
  • line_size is the default line size (must be between 1 and 50)
  • text_size is the default text size (must be between 10 and 50)
  • text_font is the font used to render text, its format is pango friendly
  • paint_mode is the mode activated at application start (must be one of: brush|text|rectangle|ellipse|arrow|blur, matching is case-insensitive)
  • early_exit is used to make the application exit after saving the picture or copying it to the clipboard
  • fill_shape is used to toggle shape filling (for the rectangle and ellipsis tools) on or off upon startup
  • auto_save is used to toggle auto saving of final buffer to save_dir upon exit
  • custom_color is used to set a default value for the custom color. Accepted formats are: standard name (one of: https://github.com/rgb-x/system/blob/master/root/etc/X11/rgb.txt), #rgb, #rrggbb, #rrrgggbbb, #rrrrggggbbbb, rgb(r,b,g), rgba(r,g,b,a)
  • transparency is used to set transparency of everything that is drawn during startup
  • transparent is used to toggle transparency during startup

KEY BINDINGS

LAYOUT

•
Ctrl+b: Toggle Paint Panel

PAINT MODE

  • b: Switch to Brush
  • `e` `t`: Switch to Text (Editor)
  • `r` `s`: Switch to Rectangle (Square)
  • `c` `o`: Switch to Ellipse (Circle)
  • a: Switch to Arrow
  • d: Switch to Blur (d stands for droplet)

  • R: Use Red Color
  • G: Use Green Color
  • B: Use Blue Color
  • C: Use Custom Color
  • Minus: Reduce Stroke Size
  • Plus: Increase Stroke Size
  • Equal: Reset Stroke Size
  • f: Toggle Shape Filling
  • T: Toggle Transparency
  • `x` `k`: Clear Paints (cannot be undone)

MODIFIERS

•
Ctrl: Center Shape (Rectangle & Ellipse) based on draw start

HEADER BAR

  • Ctrl+z: Undo
  • Ctrl+Shift+z or Ctrl+y: Redo
  • Ctrl+s: Save to file (see man page)
  • Ctrl+c: Copy to clipboard
  • Escape or q or Ctrl+w: Quit swappy

AUTHORS

Written and maintained by jtheoof <contact@jtheoof.me>. See https://github.com/jtheoof/swappy.

2025-08-28