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 rather problematic 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?
Depending on the what sound set your distro uses, the screenshot noise may sound rather …creepy out of context.
As a 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 wasn’t on mute.
He did what designers do and began to take screenshots…
SNAP! SNAP! SNAP!
It may have sounded like the paparazzi had arrived.
That bug reporter, red faced, filed an issue, describing the screenshot sound as “absolutely inappropriate”, and warned that it might “lead to extremely embarrasing [sic] and potentially worse situations” for other Linux users.
He wasn’t the only one left quietly dying on the inside because of it, 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.”
Heck, I’ve been there; that ‘camera shutter’ noise had left me red face and clammy in a coffee shop a few times, often causing a collective neck-crane in my direction.
Is the sound really that bad? On Ubuntu it is. Press play below to hear it – it is distinctive:
This wasn’t GNOME’s bug, but they fixed it anyway
If you were sat in public, on your own, and that sound played, would regular folk think you were taking screenshots of Ubuntu features for your blog, or covert photos?
Thing is, GNOME wasn’t to blame for that sound effect.
Rather the paparazzi shutter is part of the FreeDesktop sound theme, which some – but not all – Linux distributions use, including Ubuntu and Fedora. Taking screenshots on Pop!_OS, however? You’d be chill.
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 taking snaps of Ubuntu 26.10.
I’ve embedded 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:
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.