All projects
Project notes

Lahza: Native Linux Screenshot and Screen Recording Studio

A native Linux desktop app built with Rust and GPUI for screenshots, screen recordings, and motion. Capture screens, windows, or areas, annotate and style them, edit recordings on a multitrack timeline, animate still images, and export up to 4K at 60 fps as MP4, WebM, or GIF.

RustGPUILinuxDesktopVideoScreen RecordingOpen Source
View source

TL;DR

Lahza is Urdu for “a brief moment”. It is a native Linux studio for capturing a moment on screen and turning it into something worth sharing. Screenshot annotation, native screen recording, timeline editing, and animated presentations live in one desktop application built with Rust and GPUI, the GPU-accelerated UI framework from the Zed editor.

It ships as a .deb for Ubuntu and as a Snap.

Why I built it

Linux has plenty of screenshot tools and a few recorders, but nothing that covers the whole path from capture to a polished, shareable asset the way CleanShot or Screen Studio do on macOS. I wanted that workflow natively on Linux, fast, and without Electron.

Features

  • Capture and record. Screens, windows, or areas. Record with system and microphone audio, pause and resume, and save editable projects with autosave.
  • Design the scene. Backgrounds, rounded corners, shadows, window frames, watermarks, and 3D perspective, with reusable presets.
  • Annotate. Arrows, shapes, text, numbered steps, and highlights. Blur sensitive details, crop, and give annotations custom timing on video.
  • Edit recordings. Trim, split, and change clip speed. Add zooms, pans, 3D motion, and camera overlays. Cursor effects and click-based auto-zooms use input metadata when it is available.
  • Animate still images. Turn a screenshot into an animated scene with zoom, pan, and 3D presets, timed captions, and cursor walkthroughs.
  • Templates. Ready-made layouts for product launches, tutorials, social posts, and changelogs.
  • Export. PNG for stills. MP4, WebM, or GIF for video and animation, up to 4K at 30 or 60 fps with size estimates and progress tracking.

Technical notes

The entire application, including the rendering pipeline, timeline, and export, is written in Rust. GPUI gives it a retained-mode, GPU-rendered interface that stays responsive while scrubbing 4K footage, and keeps the binary small compared with a web-based shell.