Applescript to take a screenshot with the application title in the filename.

take-screenshot.scpt

-- take-screenshot.scpt
-- Kamil Slowikowski
-- 2025-05-26

-- Get the title of the frontmost application window.
-- https://stackoverflow.com/questions/5292204
global frontApp, frontAppName, windowTitle
set windowTitle to ""
tell application "System Events"
    set frontApp to first application process whose frontmost is true
    set frontAppName to name of frontApp
    tell process frontAppName
        tell (1st window whose value of attribute "AXMain" is true)
            set windowTitle to value of attribute "AXTitle"
        end tell
    end tell
end tell

on sanitizeForFilename(inputString)
    -- Replace invalid characters with underscores or remove them
    set invalidCharacters to {"'", "'", "@", "%", "(", ")", "/", "\\", ":", "*", "?", "\"", "<", ">", "|"}
    set sanitized to inputString
    repeat with invalidChar in invalidCharacters
        set sanitized to my replaceText(invalidChar, "_", sanitized)
    end repeat
    -- Replace multiple underscores with a single underscore
    set sanitized to my replaceText("__", "_", sanitized)
    -- Remove leading and trailing underscores (optional)
    set sanitized to my trimText(sanitized, "_")
    return sanitized
end sanitizeForFilename

on replaceText(findText, replaceText, inputString)
    set AppleScript's text item delimiters to findText
    set textItems to every text item of inputString
    set AppleScript's text item delimiters to replaceText
    set modifiedString to textItems as string
    set AppleScript's text item delimiters to ""
    return modifiedString
end replaceText

on trimText(inputString)
    set trimmedString to inputString
    repeat until trimmedString does not start with " "
        set trimmedString to text 2 thru -1 of trimmedString
    end repeat
    repeat until trimmedString does not end with " "
        set trimmedString to text 1 thru -2 of trimmedString
    end repeat
    return trimmedString
end trimText

on FileExists(theFile) -- (String) as Boolean
    tell application "System Events"
        if exists file theFile then
            return true
        else
            return false
        end if
    end tell
end FileExists

-- sanitize the filename
set windowTitle to sanitizeForFilename(windowTitle)
-- display dialog "windowTitle: " & windowTitle

set windowTitle to do shell script "cut -c1-60 <<<" & quoted form of windowTitle


-- Set the path to the output file.
copy {do shell script "echo $HOME"} to {homeFolder}
copy {do shell script "date +%Y-%m-%d_%H-%M-%S"} to {dateNow}

-- basename of png file
set pngFile to windowTitle & " " & dateNow & ".png"

-- final output destination for optimized files
set outPath to homeFolder & "/Screenshots"

-- temporary destination before optimization
set rawPath to quoted form of ("/tmp/" & pngFile)
set optPath to quoted form of (outPath & "/" & pngFile)

-- display dialog rawPath

-- Capture the screenshot.
do shell script "screencapture -xi " & rawPath

if FileExists("/opt/homebrew/bin/pngquant") then
    -- Optimize the PNG file with pngquant: https://pngquant.org/
    do shell script "/opt/homebrew/bin/pngquant --output " & optPath & " " & rawPath
    -- Remove the unoptimized PNG file
    do shell script "rm -f " & rawPath
else
    do shell script "mv -f " & rawPath & " " & optPath
end if

-- Reveal the PNG file in Finder.
do shell script "open --reveal " & optPath

Hi,

I tried this. Everything works fine until the pngquant. I get no file or directory, but when I change the pngquant to go to the desktop instead, I get it's a directory. Could you please edit this so it is more generic, and saves to the computer? I am not a coder. I was just trying stuff, but it didn't work.

@beswooned I modified the script to check if pngquant is installed. Then, I tested that it works when pngquant is not installed.

You will need to have a folder "~/Screenshots" for the images to be saved into, so go ahead and make that folder if it does not already exist.