Code Examples

Take Screenshots with cURL

Ready-to-copy cURL code for capturing website screenshots, generating PDFs, and processing pages at scale. Uses cURL.

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PythonNode.jsTypeScriptGoPHPRubyJavaC#RustSwiftKotlincURLRElixir
Quick Start

Screenshot in cURL — minimal example

The simplest way to capture a screenshot. Just a URL and your API key.

cURLquickstart
curl "https://api.screenshotdev.com/v1/screenshot?url=https://example.com&access_key=YOUR_ACCESS_KEY" \
  --output screenshot.png
Full Example

Production-ready cURL script

Complete working script with options for viewport, format, full page capture, and error handling.

cURLfull example
#!/bin/bash
set -euo pipefail

API_KEY="YOUR_ACCESS_KEY"
BASE="https://api.screenshotdev.com/v1/screenshot"

take_screenshot() {
  local url="$1"
  local format="${2:-webp}"
  local width="${3:-1280}"
  local full_page="${4:-false}"
  local output="${5:-screenshot.$format}"

  local status
  status=$(curl -s -w "%{http_code}" -o "$output" \
    "$BASE" \
    -G \
    -d "url=$url" \
    -d "access_key=$API_KEY" \
    -d "format=$format" \
    -d "width=$width" \
    -d "full_page=$full_page")

  if [ "$status" != "200" ]; then
    echo "Screenshot failed (HTTP $status)" >&2
    cat "$output" >&2
    return 1
  fi
  echo "Saved $output ($(wc -c < "$output" | tr -d ' ') bytes)"
}

take_screenshot "https://example.com" "webp" 1440 true "screenshot.webp"
Advanced

More cURL examples

PDF generation, batch processing, webhooks, CSS/JS injection, and S3 upload.

PDF Generation

cURLpdf
curl "https://api.screenshotdev.com/v1/pdf" \
  -G \
  -d "url=https://example.com" \
  -d "access_key=YOUR_ACCESS_KEY" \
  -d "format=a4" \
  -d "landscape=false" \
  -d "margin=20px" \
  --output page.pdf

Batch Screenshots

cURLbatch
#!/bin/bash
API_KEY="YOUR_ACCESS_KEY"

urls=(
  "https://example.com"
  "https://github.com"
  "https://news.ycombinator.com"
)

for url in "${urls[@]}"; do
  host=$(echo "$url" | sed 's|https\?://||;s|/.*||')
  curl -s "https://api.screenshotdev.com/v1/screenshot" \
    -G \
    -d "url=$url" \
    -d "access_key=$API_KEY" \
    -d "format=webp" \
    --output "$host.webp" &
done
wait
echo "All screenshots saved"

Async with Webhooks

cURLwebhooks
curl -X POST "https://api.screenshotdev.com/v1/screenshot" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "url": "https://example.com",
    "access_key": "YOUR_ACCESS_KEY",
    "webhook_url": "https://your-app.com/api/webhooks/screenshot",
    "format": "webp",
    "full_page": true
  }'

Custom CSS/JS Injection

cURLinject
curl "https://api.screenshotdev.com/v1/screenshot" \
  -G \
  -d "url=https://example.com" \
  -d "access_key=YOUR_ACCESS_KEY" \
  --data-urlencode "inject_css=body { font-family: 'Inter', sans-serif; } .ad { display: none; }" \
  --data-urlencode "inject_js=document.querySelectorAll('[data-cookie-banner]').forEach(el => el.remove())" \
  -d "block_ads=true" \
  --output clean.webp

S3 Upload

cURLs3
# 1. Capture
curl -s "https://api.screenshotdev.com/v1/screenshot" \
  -G \
  -d "url=https://example.com" \
  -d "access_key=YOUR_ACCESS_KEY" \
  -d "format=webp" \
  --output /tmp/screenshot.webp

# 2. Upload to S3
aws s3 cp /tmp/screenshot.webp s3://my-screenshots/captures/example-com.webp \
  --content-type image/webp

Try it live

Test the API in the interactive playground — pre-filled with cURL snippets.

Open playground →
Setup

Installation

Install the HTTP library used in the examples above.

Terminalinstall
# cURL is pre-installed on macOS, Linux, and Windows 10+

Uses cURL. Any HTTP client that supports GET requests will work.

More Examples

Code examples in other languages

Python
requests
Node.js
fetch (built-in) or node-fetch
Go
net/http (stdlib)
PHP
cURL (built-in) or Guzzle

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Take Screenshots with cURL — ScreenshotDEV