Examples

Real-world sss invocations: region capture, window picker, OCR copy, scripted clipboard.

Pick a region and save to dated file

sss --area --output ~/Pictures/Screenshots/sss-$(date +%F_%H-%M-%S).png

Window picker into clipboard, no toolbar

sss --window --no-toolbar

Whole current monitor, with cursor, copied

sss --screen --current --show-cursor

Force the Wayland backend (skip portal)

sss --area --capture-backend wayland

Useful when running under wlroots compositors (sway, river, hyprland) where the Wayland backend is more reliable than the portal one.

OCR copy: capture, extract text

sss --area --ocr

After selecting the region, the OCR pass highlights detected text. Click any line to copy just that text to the clipboard.

Disable OCR globally

# ~/.config/sss/config.toml
[ocr]
enabled = false

Or per-call:

sss --area --ocr=false

Bind it to a global hotkey

Sway (~/.config/sway/config)

bindsym Print              exec sss --area
bindsym Shift+Print        exec sss --window
bindsym Ctrl+Print         exec sss --screen --current

Hyprland (~/.config/hypr/hyprland.conf)

bind = , Print,       exec, sss --area
bind = SHIFT, Print,  exec, sss --window
bind = CTRL, Print,   exec, sss --screen --current

GNOME / KDE

Use the system shortcuts UI; point them at sss --area (etc.) directly.

Pipe into ImageMagick

sss writes PNG to stdout if --output - is set. Pair with magick for post-processing:

sss --area --output - | magick - -quality 85 ~/Pictures/sss.jpg