screenshot-desktop

Capture a screenshot of your local machine

• Multi/Cross Platform
  • Linux: required ImageMagick apt-get install imagemagick
  • OSX: No dependencies required!
  • Windows: No dependencies required!
• Promise based API
• JPG output (by default)

Install

$ npm install --save screenshot-desktop

Usage

import screenshot from 'screenshot-desktop'

const img = await screenshot()
// img: Buffer containing a JPG screenshot
// ...

const img = await screenshot({ format: 'png' })
// img: Buffer containing a PNG screenshot

const displays = await screenshot.listDisplays()
// displays: [{ id, name }, { id, name }]
const lastDisplay = displays[displays.length - 1]
const img = await screenshot(lastDisplay ? { screen: lastDisplay.id } : {})
// img: Buffer of the last display, or the default display if none are detected

const imgs = await screenshot.all()
// imgs: an array of Buffers, one for each screen

const imgPath = await screenshot({ filename: 'shot.jpg' })
// imgPath: absolute path to shot.jpg, saved in the working directory

// Absolute paths work too; set format to request PNG output.
await screenshot({ filename: '/Users/brian/Desktop/demo.png', format: 'png' })

screenshot() options

• filename Optional. Absolute or relative path to save output.
• format Optional. See supported image formats below. Values are case-insensitive.
• linuxLibrary Optional. Linux only. Valid values scrot|imagemagick. Which library to use. Note that scrot does not support screen selection.

On macOS VMs, display discovery can return an empty list even when screen capture works. Omit screen to capture the default display in this case; screenshot.all() returns that capture as a one-element array. Explicit display selection still requires detected displays.

Supported image formats

Support depends on the platform and, on Linux, the selected capture tool. This matrix applies to both Buffer output and files saved with filename.

format	Windows	macOS	Linux: ImageMagick (default)	Linux: scrot
jpg, jpeg	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
png	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
bmp	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
tiff	No	Yes	Yes	Yes
gif	No	Yes	Yes	Depends (see below)
pdf	No	Yes	No	No

“Yes” formats were verified with native capture tools in Windows, macOS and Linux VMs, checking the actual encoding of both returned Buffers and saved files. “No” means the library rejects that format. Other values, including webp, emf, exif and wmf, are rejected on all platforms.

Linux output also depends on the encoders available in the installed capture tool. The library accepts gif with scrot, but GIF saving failed in the tested Ubuntu 24.04 installation. Use linuxLibrary: 'imagemagick' for GIF output.

The default output is JPEG. Set format explicitly for consistent behavior across platforms: Windows and macOS do not infer the encoding from filename. Linux infers PNG from a .png filename and otherwise defaults to JPEG; other formats still need an explicit format.

await screenshot({ filename: 'shot.bmp', format: 'bmp' })

TypeScript

The package includes TypeScript 5+ declarations for the existing JavaScript API. Node.js types must be available in your TypeScript project (npm install --save-dev @types/node).

import screenshot = require('screenshot-desktop')

const image: Promise<Buffer> = screenshot({ format: 'png' })
const filename: Promise<string> = screenshot({ filename: 'shot.png' })
const options: screenshot.Options = { screen: 0 }

Display IDs and metadata vary by platform. The root API exposes shared fields and optional platform-specific fields; existing platform imports such as screenshot-desktop/lib/win32 expose the corresponding display type.

Windows bundles and Electron

The Windows helper and manifest are embedded in the built JavaScript and extracted into a real temporary directory before capture. Node-targeted CommonJS bundles (such as esbuild output) and Electron ASAR packages carry these assets automatically; no asarUnpack or extraResources configuration is needed for them.

The original helper files remain in the npm package for existing integrations. Call the library from Electron's main process, where Node.js APIs are available.

Development

Run npm ci and npm run build before loading the package from a checkout. npm test builds automatically, and npm pack builds JavaScript and declarations before packaging. Generated files are ignored by Git. Run npm run format to format TypeScript with Prettier and JavaScript with Standard; npm run lint checks formatting and types. Function documentation uses JSDoc comments alongside TypeScript signatures, so it is also available in editors and the published declarations. Native capture tests need a desktop session and the platform's screenshot tools/permissions.

Licence

MIT © Ben Evans