Snippy

Screenshot utility written with Quickshell

Video_2026-08-10_02-45-55.mov

Features

• Movable and resizable selection rectangle
• Select annotation on canvas (move annotation)
• Freehand drawing
• Eraser
• Rectangle (filled, outlined)
• Line
• Arrow
• Ellipse (filled, outlined)
• Marker
• Steps
• Blur
• Textarea with line breaks and modifiable
• Canvas Actions (undo, redo, clear all)

Note

Currently I don't have hardware to test whether multimonitor works. Feel free to open a pr

Installation

Nix

Try out without installing:

nix run github:Iamvismorf/Snippy

Note

As of 22.08.26 the Kirigami package in unstable nixpkgs has a regression where icons appear smaller than they should be. inputs.nixpkgs.follows is not recommended. If you want to use follows, override kirigami to version 6.26

{
  inputs.snippy.url = "github:Iamvismorf/Snippy";
  #...
}

The package is available as inputs.snippy.packages.<system>.default

Manual

todo

Dependencies

• Qt 6.10+
• Quickshell 0.3.0+
• Your compositor must support wlr-screencopy-unstable or both ext-image-copy-capture-v1 and ext-capture-source-v1
• KDE/kirigami

Usage

• Left click to select; left click again to deselect

1. Drag the toolbar. Will be reset to it's default position after the selection rectangle is transformed i.e. positon changed or resized
2. Selection rectangle size
3. Select an annotation. Can only select and move 1 annotation at a time. Available when there is at least 1 annotation on the canvas
4. Freehand drawing
5. Eraser. Available when there is at least 1 annotation on the canvas. Also see notes
6. Rectangle. Defaults to filled. Right click to change mode
   • filled
   • outlined
7. Line
8. Arrow
9. Ellipse. Defaults to filled. Right click to change mode
   • filled
   • outlined
10. Marker. Defaults to rectangle. Right click to change mode
    • rectangle
    • freehand draw
11. Numbering. Use the spinbox to control the next number
12. Blur
13. Text
    • on hovered: shows the textarea will be focused when left clicked
    • Enter: creates new line
    • Esc: unfocus the textarea
14. Palette
15. Reset the selected thickness to default if was modified
16. Modify the selected thickness
17. Undo(Ctrl+z). Available if current canvas step is not 0. See 20
18. Redo(Ctrl+y). Available if current canvas step is not the last. See 20
19. Clear the canvas. Available when there is at least 1 annotation on the canvas
20. The canvas history. Highlighted shows the current step
21. Copy to clipboard(Ctrl+c). Also see notes
22. Save to configured path(Ctrl+s)
23. Exit(Esc)

Configuration

Launch snippy for the first time and it will generate ~/.config/config.json and ~/Screenshots. Or create one manually. The defaults are:

{
    "general": {
        "fontFamily": "Atkinson Hyperlegible Next",
        "fontFamilyStyle": "SemiBold",
        "minSelectionRectangleHeight": 20,
        "minSelectionRectangleWidth": 20,
        "saveFolder": "Screenshots",
        "showToolTip": false
    },
    "theming": {
        "accent": "#ed5a70",
        "black": "#121a21",
        "gray": "#c0c2c4",
        "lightGray": "#d6d9db",
        "red": "#ed5a70",
        "white": "#eef2f6"
    },
    "toolbar": {
        "ellipse": {
            "defaultToFilled": true
        },
        "highlight": {
            "defaultToRectangle": true
        },
        "rectangle": {
            "defaultToFilled": true
        }
    }
}

Note

Don't forget to remove comments when copying the above defaults

Acknowledgements

• soramane special thanks to sora for showing how to do stuff
• KDE/spectacle ui and backend inspirations
• Quickshell
• Furkanzmc/QML-Coding-Guide

Todos

• Color picker
• Marker shapes
  • rectangle
  • freehand
• Resizing shapes (if i don't have skill issue (prayge))
• Snap for some shapes (line, arrow, drawing)

Notes

• Eraser tools can only erase a shape. Meaning you can't have "freehand" eraser like in popular paint software ¹

• For the "copy to clipboard" to work you need to have a persistent clipboard manager installed like cliphist, wl-clip-persist, stash, etc... (not guaranteed lol)

• Memory usage while the app is running

with 10 blurring rectangles and 12 freehand drawings

Footnotes

1. potentially skill issue from my side ↩