Say goodbye to the public thinking you’re a creep next time you take a desktop screenshot on Ubuntu – 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 familiar camera shutter, like the one when you take a photo on a smartphone. Cute in the privacy of your own home, but less cute in a public setting like a café.
Why? Because it can sound rather creepy, as one bug report from 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 was up. He did what designers do and began to take screenshots.
SNAP! SNAP! SNAP! – punters must have thought paparazzi were in the building.
The bug reporter, left red faced, described the default sound effect as “absolutely inappropriate” when heard out of context, and warned that it could “lead to extremely embarrasing [sic] and potentially worse situations” for other Linux desktop users. He wasn’t the only one left quietly dying inside after a screen grab either. Others replies to the bug report included someone saying “+1 for ‘this default behaviour causes me embarrassment in public'”, and another user confessed: “Yup.
This has happened to me.” I’ve been there – that camera shutter has left me red face and clammy, hoping the room will forget what it thinks it just heard. After all, the sound alone – press play below to hear it – is distinctive. People wouldn’t know you were sat alone taking screenshots of misaligned pixels and not covert photos like an inept private detective (or worse): XDG camera-shutter sound effect many Linux desktops use Thing is, GNOME wasn’t to blame.
It doesn’t provide the sound effect in question. It comes from the FreeDesktop sound theme that many Linux desktops and distributions make use of, including Ubuntu and Fedora. Having a sound play as an audible indicator that a screenshot was taken is useful, but there’s no reason it has to sound like a camera shutter.
So I was pleased to hear a different effect when testing Ubuntu 26.10. I’ve embedded the new screen grab sound below. It’s short and fast, so you may need to replay it a few times.
To my ear, sounds a bit like the thwunk an old scanner resetting – certainly not like a camera: GNOME’s new screen-capture sound effect Ubuntu continues to include the Yaru sound theme, but that doesn’t include a camera sound. As with many Linux desktops, it pulls from the FreeDesktop sound theme for certain sounds, including screenshots. GNOME 51 now ignores that as it ships a small set of sound effects as part of the shell, so uses its own capture sound instead.
Other new sounds you may hear – Ubuntu could override them before the final release – include a new blip when changing volume, and new chimes when plugging in or unplugging devices. Yaru sounds remains for startup, bell and alert. This is a minor change, and a trivial one to do.
It should save the blushes of those who take their laptops to coffee shops, co-working hubs, lectures or other public spaces – even 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. GNOME 51 gnome shell screenshots Ubuntu 26.10