Website Screenshots
with cURL

One cURL command. That's all it takes. No browser, no dependencies, no code. Just pipe a URL in, get a screenshot out. Works on Linux, macOS, Windows (WSL), CI/CD pipelines, and Docker containers.

Basic Screenshot

Save a screenshot of any website to a file:

curl -o screenshot.webp "https://grabshot.dev/v1/screenshot?url=https://github.com&format=webp&apiKey=YOUR_API_KEY"

That's it. The -o flag saves the response body (the image) to a file. Replace YOUR_API_KEY with your free key from grabshot.dev.

All Options

# PNG format, custom viewport
curl -o screenshot.png "https://grabshot.dev/v1/screenshot?\
url=https://stripe.com&\
format=png&\
width=1920&\
height=1080&\
apiKey=YOUR_API_KEY"

# With device frame (MacBook mockup)
curl -o mockup.png "https://grabshot.dev/v1/screenshot?\
url=https://vercel.com&\
format=png&\
deviceFrame=macbook-air&\
apiKey=YOUR_API_KEY"

# Full page screenshot
curl -o full.webp "https://grabshot.dev/v1/screenshot?\
url=https://tailwindcss.com&\
format=webp&\
fullPage=true&\
apiKey=YOUR_API_KEY"

# AI cleanup (removes cookie banners, popups)
curl -o clean.webp "https://grabshot.dev/v1/screenshot?\
url=https://bbc.com&\
format=webp&\
aiCleanup=true&\
apiKey=YOUR_API_KEY"

# Mobile viewport
curl -o mobile.webp "https://grabshot.dev/v1/screenshot?\
url=https://github.com&\
format=webp&\
width=390&\
height=844&\
apiKey=YOUR_API_KEY"

Bash Script for Batch Screenshots

Screenshot multiple URLs at once:

#!/bin/bash
# batch-screenshots.sh

API_KEY="YOUR_API_KEY"
URLS=(
    "https://github.com"
    "https://stripe.com"
    "https://vercel.com"
    "https://linear.app"
    "https://notion.so"
)

mkdir -p screenshots

for url in "${URLS[@]}"; do
    # Extract domain name for filename
    filename=$(echo "$url" | sed 's|https\?://||;s|/.*||;s|\.|-|g')
    
    echo "Capturing $url..."
    curl -s -o "screenshots/${filename}.webp" \
        "https://grabshot.dev/v1/screenshot?url=${url}&format=webp&width=1440&apiKey=${API_KEY}"
    
    echo "  Saved screenshots/${filename}.webp"
    sleep 1  # Be nice to the API
done

echo "Done! $(ls screenshots/ | wc -l) screenshots saved."

CI/CD Integration

Take screenshots in GitHub Actions (visual regression, deploy previews):

# .github/workflows/screenshot.yml
name: Visual Snapshot
on:
  pull_request:
    types: [opened, synchronize]

jobs:
  screenshot:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - name: Capture preview screenshot
        run: |
          curl -s -o screenshot.png \
            "https://grabshot.dev/v1/screenshot?\
            url=${{ github.event.pull_request.head.ref }}.preview.example.com&\
            format=png&\
            width=1440&\
            apiKey=${{ secrets.GRABSHOT_API_KEY }}"
      
      - name: Upload artifact
        uses: actions/upload-artifact@v4
        with:
          name: screenshot
          path: screenshot.png

Scheduled Screenshots with Cron

Monitor a website visually by taking daily screenshots:

# Take a screenshot every day at 9am and save with date
# Add to crontab: crontab -e
0 9 * * * curl -s -o "/var/screenshots/mysite-$(date +\%Y-\%m-\%d).webp" \
  "https://grabshot.dev/v1/screenshot?url=https://mysite.com&format=webp&apiKey=YOUR_API_KEY"