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

       o   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
       o   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
       o   show_panel is used to toggle the paint panel on or off upon startup
       o   line_size is the default line size (must be between 1 and 50)
       o   text_size is the default text size (must be between 10 and 50)
       o   text_font is the font used to render text, its format is pango
           friendly
       o   paint_mode is the mode activated at application start (must be one
           of: brush|text|rectangle|ellipse|arrow|blur, matching is case-
           insensitive)
       o   early_exit is used to make the application exit after saving the
           picture or copying it to the clipboard
       o   fill_shape is used to toggle shape filling (for the rectangle and
           ellipsis tools) on or off upon startup
       o   auto_save is used to toggle auto saving of final buffer to save_dir
           upon exit
       o   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)
       o   transparency is used to set transparency of everything that is
           drawn during startup
       o   transparent is used to toggle transparency during startup

KEY BINDINGS
   LAYOUT
       o   Ctrl+b: Toggle Paint Panel

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

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

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

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

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

                                  2025-08-27                         swappy(1)