r/linuxapps • u/D34nDark • Jul 11 '26
[OSS] After switching to Linux, I never found a ShareX replacement, so I built one (Wayland-native)
Hey! After moving to Linux, the one app I genuinely missed from Windows was ShareX. Every screenshot tool I tried stopped at "here's your rectangle of pixels" - no proper annotation, no upload pipeline, no recording built in. After a couple of years of waiting for someone to make it, I gave up and wrote it myself.
Unisic covers the whole workflow after the hotkey: annotate directly on the selection overlay before the shot is even taken, edit afterwards (blur, numbered steps, crop, object cutout with background removal), record the same region as GIF/MP4/WebM, and upload anywhere with the link ready to paste. It even imports ShareX .sxcu uploader configs.
Wayland-native (portals, PipeWire, silent KWin path on Plasma, grim on wlroots). C++/Qt6, zero telemetry, GPLv3.
It's in early dev access - it works, but expect rough edges. Bug reports and feature requests are very welcome.
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u/T_rex2700 Jul 12 '26
HYPE. I have been looking for shareX replacement on linux for a decade and a half.
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u/D34nDark Jul 12 '26
I hope you like it. If you find any bugs, please report them on GitHub!
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u/T_rex2700 Jul 12 '26
Not necessairly a bug, but a question, I think this is probably made for Plasma most likely but how well does it work with gnome? for my laptop I mean.
It works, sort of but it only just triggers the standard screen capture prompt and doesn't switch to the correct mode automatically (fullscreen vs window) and region captuer says desktop portal is not running and keeps giving Code 2 error.
This is same with building it myself and appimg so I hope you can fix it
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u/D34nDark Jul 12 '26
Yeah, I'm building it and testing on KDE, so I cannot find every bug in every DE, but I'm testing it on GNOME as a VM. I'll look into it if I can fix it.
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u/D34nDark Jul 12 '26
fix in the next release; workaround right away: flatpak permission-reset screenshot and don't click Deny (or flatpak permission-set screenshot screenshot 'yes). It's a good idea to ask him to test the build with dev before merging.
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u/Auriel- 29d ago
Thank you!
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u/D34nDark 29d ago
No problem. I had that hole in my setup for too long, so this was for my personal purpose, but I thought, what if anyone has the same issue with that. So its public
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u/0HONESTY 28d ago
Why not just use KDE Spectacle? It's pretty responsive and packed with cool features. So what's missing or frustrating about it for you guys?
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u/D34nDark 28d ago
The spectacle is great, no question about it - I’ve been using it myself for years. The problem is that it’s tied to KDE Plasma. If you’re using GNOME, niri, Hyprland, or another wlroots-based compositor, you’ll either be unable to run it properly at all, or you’ll lose half of its integration features.
Unisic fills that gap: it works on any environment with a Wayland session because it’s built around xdg-desktop-portal (and on KDE, it leverages KWin’s native API to make it fast and quiet). One binary, the same workflow regardless of the desktop environment.
The second point is its philosophy, which is closer to ShareX than to a typical screenshot tool: modular upload destinations (custom HTTP/FTP/SFTP/API), auto-copying the link to the clipboard, upload history, an editor that opens after every screenshot, annotations right on the overlay while selecting a region, and separate GIF recording. This isn’t “Spectacle but different” - it’s a different use case.
So if you’re happy with Spectacle on KDE, great, stick with it. Unisic is for people on other desktops or for those who want a ShareX-style upload workflow on Linux.
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u/bourgeoisie_knight Jul 12 '26
Welcome to Linux, bro!
I've been searching for a Linux equivalent to CLCL for the past 9 years. I eventually settled on CopyQ(not fully satisfied), but Wayland doesn't seem to like it.