screenshot only the active monitor on ubuntu/debian

Question

I would like to do screenshots of the active monitor (the one on which my mouse is) or screenshots of always the same monitor ; and not the two monitors at the same time.

Is there any command/option that would let me do this?

I'm not interested in cropping each of my screenshot, even with a script (since I'm using them in parallel and I do a lot of them), neither grabing a selected area, (since I need them to be taken from the same place, with the same size).

For now, I unplug my second monitor but this is very uncomfortable.

Solution

Well, I just found shutter, a nifty tool that can do this. You can install on Debian-based systems with

sudo apt-get install shutter 

Then, once you launch shutter, take your screenshot limiting it to the active monitor only:

I just checked and it works perfectly on my LMDE running Cinnamon, it correctly took screenshots of the monitor where my mouse was displayed.

Comments

[Admin]

I assume using the "select area to grab" is not an option either? How would you define "active monitor"? On extended desktop setups, there is no such thing.

[Admin]

Indeed, taking a specific area is not comfortable as well (since I need all my screen shot to be the same size and position).

[Admin]

Editing the question about "active monitor"

[Admin]

Mint ... but I think we shall find a solution via the command line so it doesn't matter.

[Admin]

Yes, what could matter is what desktop environment you're using. Gnome, cinnamon. xfce, kde, something else? I have removed the distro tags, please add the relevant DE tag.

[Admin]

@Braiam I did crosspost since the question could have more answers from the ubuntu stack-exchange (even if it the solution is not linked to ubutnu). I couldn't put only a link in the question body so I copy/pasted the question ... let me edit that to be clear to next readers

[Admin]

@Jav crossposting is actively discouraged. Please either delete one of the two, or edit to differentiate them. Make the Ask Ubuntu one clearly about unity or Ubuntu and this one into a more general *nix question.

[Admin]

done ... let's go back to the question then :)

[Balmipour]

Looks like the tool was discontinued and removed from Ubuntu18+ repos. It can still be installed (I use Ubuntu 20.x) using another PPA, see itsfoss.com/install-shutter-ubuntu Also, according to some comment posted 2 weeks ago, the development might have started again.

[labyrinth]

I needed this to work on the command line since I use the print screen key as a hotkey to take screenshots. Looks like the -a combined with -f does what I want. Here's my command for an example: shutter -a -f -o screenshot_%Y-%m-%d_%T.png