7

I'm looking for an application based on the Mac OS X that gives the ability to us for taking a screenshot from Mac screen by an interval. For example each 120 sec.

I searched the internet and find Timed Screenshot (http://www.monkeybreadsoftware.de/Freeware/TimedScreenshot.shtml ) but when I installed it, it seems very hard to use. All options should do from a setting file in the applications folder, the app does not load any GUI and even I do not know how I can stop the process of making screenshots.

I did not found any apps till now, hope somebody knows a better app here?

Also if there are not any free options for the interval screenshot it's ok for me to pay few bucks for this purpose.

2 Answers 2

4

You can do this with AppleScript and the built in screenshot command on Mac OS X.

Please refer to this link. If you want the screenshot to be taken every two minutes all you do is change delay (60 * 60) to delay (60 * 2)

I have extracted the script here:

set save_location to ¬
    (choose folder with prompt "Choose where to save screenshots")

repeat with shotcount from 1 to 100
    do shell script "screencapture " & ¬
        quoted form of POSIX path of save_location ¬
        & "screen" & (shotcount as string) & ".pdf"
    delay (60 * 60) -- delay one hour
end repeat
19

You could also run a command like this in Terminal:

while :; do 
    screencapture \
      ~/Desktop/$(date +%y%m%d%H%M%S).png;
    sleep 120
done
2
  • 2
    Great simple solution. Note: only worked for me after editing Security & Privacy preferences: under "Screen Recording" allow "Terminal"
    – watsonic
    Jun 6, 2020 at 23:39
  • 1
    Works amazing! Regarding watsonic's note, I got a popup to change that preference the first time I ran this. I tried changing the setting first, but it was less convenient and didn't even have Terminal as an option yet.
    – Noumenon
    Apr 28, 2021 at 4:39

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .