Get screenshot on Windows with Python?

Question

I am creating a Beta Testers reporting module so they can send in thier comments on my software, but I would like to have the option to include a screenshot with the report. How do I take a screenshot of the screen with Python on Windows? I have found several examples on Linux, but haven't had much luck on Windows.

Answer 1

Another approach that is really fast is the MSS module. It is different from other solutions in the way that it uses only the ctypes standard module, so it does not require big dependencies. It is OS independant and its use is made easy:

from mss import mss  with mss() as sct:     sct.shot() 

And just find the screenshot.png file containing the screen shot of the first monitor. There are a lot of possibile customizations, you can play with ScreenShot objects and OpenCV/Numpy/PIL/etc..

Answer 2

Worth noting that ImageGrab only works on MSWindows.

For cross platform compatibility, a person may be best off with using the wxPython library. http://wiki.wxpython.org/WorkingWithImages#A_Flexible_Screen_Capture_App

import wx app = wx.App()  # Need to create an App instance before doing anything screen = wx.ScreenDC() size = screen.GetSize() bmp = wx.Bitmap(size[0], size[1]) mem = wx.MemoryDC(bmp) mem.Blit(0, 0, size[0], size[1], screen, 0, 0) del mem  # Release bitmap bmp.SaveFile('screenshot.png', wx.BITMAP_TYPE_PNG)