Say goodbye to people thinking you’re a creep next time you take a desktop screenshot in a public space, as GNOME 51 has changed the sound effect that plays when you do.
For a while now, when you screen grab your desktop or an app window, the accompanying sound effect is a camera shutter, like the one you hear when you take a photo on a smartphone. Cute in the privacy of your own home, but less cute in a public setting like an office or café.
The sound is the issue: how are people to know you’re taking desktop screenshots, not convert photos?
Why? Because it can sound rather creepy.
As one bug report filed in 2024 laid bare: a UI/UX designer working in a public coffee shop, seated behind a table of women, didn’t realise his laptop’s volume wasn’t muted. He did what designers do and began to take screenshots.
SNAP! SNAP! SNAP!
The bug reporter, red faced, described the screenshot sound as “absolutely inappropriate” if heard out of context, and warned that it could “lead to extremely embarrasing [sic] and potentially worse situations” for other Linux desktop users.
And he isn’t the only who had been left quietly dying on the side follow an unexpectedly loud screenshot either.
Others replies to the bug included, “+1 for ‘this default behaviour causes me embarrassment in public'”, while another confessed: “Yup. This has happened to me.”
I’ve been there; that ‘camera shutter’ noise has left me red face and clammy, hoping the room will forget what it thinks it just heard, and not crane its collective neck to gawk and tut in my direction.
The sound – press play below to hear it – is distinctive. If you’re sat alone, how are people to know you’re taking screenshots rather than covert photos:
XDG camera-shutter sound effect many Linux desktops use
This wasn’t GNOME’s bug, but they fixed it anyway
Thing is, GNOME wasn’t to blame for this.
GNOME does not provide the sound effect in question. That comes from the FreeDesktop sound theme many Linux desktops and distributions, including Ubuntu and Fedora, ship with.
Having a sound play when taking a screenshot is useful as an audible indicator (accessibility), but there’s no reason it must sound like a literal camera.
So, I was pleased to hear a different noise play when testing Ubuntu 26.10.
I’ve embedded the the new ‘screen-capture’ sound below. It’s short and fast, so you may want to replay it a few times. To my ear, it sounds a bit like the thwunk an old scanner resetting – certainly nothing like a camera:
GNOME’s new screen-capture sound effect
Ubuntu users continues to include the Yaru sound theme which continues to link to sounds in the FreeDesktop sound set for certain effects, including screenshots.
But GNOME 51 now ignores that; it ships a small sound pack as part of GNOME Shell itself, including the new ‘screen-capture’ effect you can hear above.
Other new sounds – Ubuntu could override them before the final release – include a new blip noise when changing volume, and new chimes when plugging in or unplugging devices. Yaru sounds remains for startup, bell and alert.
While a minor change, it was also a trivial one to do. It should help save the blushes of those who take their laptops to coffee shops, co-working hubs, lectures offices, public spaces – heck, even when on the couch when your family are in the room.
After all, taking a screen grab to draw attention to something on screen shouldn’t have to mean drawing attention to yourself, especially when that sound has sly connotations.
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