# ScreenCloud is a screenshot tool whose output is a link you can paste > olav-st/screencloud is a GPL-2.0 C++ and Qt6 application for taking a screenshot and sharing it as a link, with a built-in editor and a plugin system for uploading to Dropbox, Imgur or your own FTP server. The repository is a straightforward CMake project with per operating system build guides in the wiki, and its own roadmap still lists translation support as unfinished work. **olav-st/screencloud** — Screenshot sharing application for Windows, Mac and Linux. - Repository: https://github.com/olav-st/screencloud - Website: http://screencloud.net - Stars: 645 · Forks: 112 - Language: C++ - License: GPL-2.0 - Published: 2026-10-21 · Updated: 2026-10-21 · Language: en - Canonical page: https://hysenlabs.com/projects/olav-st-screencloud ## The deliverable is a link, not a file The workflow is one sentence in the feature list: snap a photo, paste the link, done. That framing is what separates ScreenCloud from a screenshot utility that saves a PNG to a folder. The application takes the capture, offers an editor, hands the result to an upload target, and gives you a URL to paste into a chat window or a ticket. The README calls it an easy to use screenshot sharing tool that works on Windows, Mac and Linux, and the repository is described as the source code for the ScreenCloud client, with the project site at screencloud.net. The audience is therefore people who communicate visually all day and want the upload step to be part of the capture step, which is also why a built-in screenshot editor matters. Cropping or annotating before upload saves a second application and a second round trip. ## The upload target is a plugin, which is the interesting part The client does not hard code where a screenshot goes. The README says you can also upload to other services, including your own FTP server, Imgur, Dropbox and more through the use of plugins, and those plugins live in a separate repository, screencloud-plugins. That separation is the design decision worth noticing. A screenshot tool that ships with a fixed list of services needs a release every time a provider changes its authentication, while a plugin boundary lets the upload logic live outside the application. It also means the set of destinations you can actually use is the set of plugins that exist, not the set the README mentions, so a self hosted FTP server is a first class case here in a way it would not be in a closed implementation. The cost of the arrangement is one more moving part, since the client and the plugin have to agree on a contract that the README does not spell out. ## Qt6 and CMake, with a wiki page per operating system ScreenCloud uses the CMake build system, and the README's instruction is to start off by downloading the appropriate version for your OS from the CMake website or your distribution's repositories, then to choose the operating system you are compiling on from a list of three guides: ```text * [Compiling on Ubuntu](https://github.com/olav-st/screencloud/wiki/Compiling-on-Ubuntu) * [Compiling on Mac OS X](https://github.com/olav-st/screencloud/wiki/Compiling-on-Mac-OS-X) * [Compiling on Windows](https://github.com/olav-st/screencloud/wiki/Compiling-on-Windows) ``` The repository layout backs up the cross platform claim. There is a CMakeLists.txt at the root, a cmake directory for the build configuration, src/ for the application, res/ for resources, deploy/ for packaging, tools/ for helper scripts, a ScreenCloudHelper/ directory that is almost certainly the per platform helper the application needs to capture outside its own window, and a .devcontainer/ directory for a containerised development environment. The topic tags confirm the stack, with c-plus-plus, cmake, cross-platform, qt and qt6 named. The read is that this is a normal desktop application with a normal build system, and the per OS wiki pages are where the platform specific detail lives, because it does not fit in a README. ## A Snap package is how Linux users are served The README carries a Snapcraft badge for ScreenCloud, which points at a listing on snapcraft.io. That is the distribution story for Linux, and it is a different one from the Windows and macOS builds, which are handled by the build guides in the wiki. It is worth being precise about what this means for an evaluator, because the README does not describe installers for any platform, and the project site is the place where the packaged versions are presented. The macOS side has its own complication in the shape of the ScreenCloudHelper directory, since a screenshot application on macOS needs a helper with the right permissions and entitlements to do the capturing, and the presence of a dedicated helper project rather than a single binary is the usual sign of that arrangement. The repository does not document the helper's role, so anyone evaluating this on macOS has to read the wiki guide rather than the README. ## The roadmap names what the project has not finished The most useful paragraph in the README is the roadmap, because it is candid. It is a quick list of features the author has wanted to implement but has not gotten around to yet, and it invites contributions to that list. Two items are on it: translation support and updating the wiki. Both matter for a cross platform application with a build guide split across three wiki pages, and neither is done. The translation gap in particular means the application is effectively English only, and the wiki gap means the build instructions for three operating systems live in pages that the author is explicitly asking for help with. For a small application, that is a reasonable position, and for a team planning to depend on it, it is the sort of thing to weigh, because a tool that only offers its documentation in one language and asks for help maintaining it has a bus factor problem that its licence and its code cannot solve. ## The alternative is a screenshot script plus a target you already have The alternative to an application like this is the small script, a keyboard shortcut that calls a capture utility and pipes the result to an upload command, which for many Linux setups is a shell function and a curl call to a file host you already pay for. The difference in approach is where the editing and the target selection live. The script has no editor, so any crop, annotation or redaction has to happen in another tool, and no plugin chain, so each destination is a separate line of shell that you maintain yourself. ScreenCloud puts the capture, the editor and the destination in one workflow, and moves the destination work into plugins. The trade is the same one you make with any desktop application: a script is headless, scriptable and trivial to put on a timer, while the application gives you a window, a system tray presence and a consistent experience across three operating systems. If you only ever upload to one place and never edit, the script wins on simplicity. If you take screenshots all day and want the result pasted immediately, the application wins. ## Conclusion Adopt ScreenCloud if you share screenshots often enough that the capture, edit and upload steps have become a habit, and if you want the upload target to be a plugin rather than a hard coded service, since the plugin repository covers Dropbox, Imgur and FTP servers. Do not adopt it if you need a headless capture, a scriptable interface or an application interface, because the README documents a desktop application with a graphical workflow and says nothing about a command line mode or an API. Before you build on it, read the build guide for your operating system in the wiki, check that the plugin you need exists, and note that the project has not shipped a release since 2026-05-31. ## FAQ ### What is ScreenCloud and which platforms does it run on? It is a screenshot sharing tool written in C++ with Qt6, described as open source and cross-platform for Windows, Mac and Linux. The workflow is to snap a screenshot, edit it with the built-in editor, upload it and paste the resulting link. ### How do I upload a ScreenCloud screenshot to Dropbox or Imgur? Through the plugin system. The README says you can upload to other services, including your own FTP server, Imgur, Dropbox and more through the use of plugins, and those plugins are maintained in the separate screencloud-plugins repository. ### How do I build ScreenCloud from source? ScreenCloud uses the CMake build system, so you install CMake from the CMake website or your distribution's repositories, then follow the build guide for your operating system in the wiki, with separate pages for Ubuntu, Mac OS X and Windows. The repository carries a CMakeLists.txt, a cmake directory, src, res, deploy, tools, a ScreenCloudHelper directory and a .devcontainer directory. ### Is ScreenCloud translated into other languages? Not yet. The README's roadmap lists translation support as a feature the author has wanted to implement but has not gotten around to, and invites contributions to the list, so the application is effectively English only at present. ### What licence is ScreenCloud released under? GPL-2.0, with the LICENSE file at the repository root. The project site is screencloud.net, and Linux users are pointed at the Snapcraft listing through the badge in the README. ## Sources - [License: GPL-2.0](https://github.com/olav-st/screencloud/blob/master/LICENSE) - [olav-st/screencloud on GitHub](https://github.com/olav-st/screencloud) - [Project website](http://screencloud.net) - [README](https://github.com/olav-st/screencloud/blob/master/README.md) - [Releases](https://github.com/olav-st/screencloud/releases) --- Hysen Labs editorial analysis, written from the project's own repository and release notes. Cite the canonical page: https://hysenlabs.com/projects/olav-st-screencloud