Changing print screen shortcut for Spectacle

I’m trying to change the keyboard shortcut to take a screenshot of the current window from Meta+Printscreen to Alt+Printscreen but it won’t let me use that key combination. Strangely Shift+Printscreen works but not Alt. I’d prefer it to be Alt+Printscreen because of muscle memory after many years of using Windows. Can I change this in a config somewhere and if so where would I find it?

Hello @Kobrakai :wink:

Printscreen is the Sysrq Key (Magic SysRq key) of Linux and therefore not available by default in combination with ALT. You will have to disable this feature, so that this behavior works. (7897 – Unable create keyboard shortcut<alt> +Print</alt>)

Create a file in /etc/sysctl.d/ with the name disable-sysrq.conf and put this into it as root:

# Disables the magic SysRq key
kernel.sysrq = 0

After restarting this combination should available and not used by the kernel.

PS: In general it is a bad idea, but on normal usage you will not notice. If problems occur then the sysrq key just does not work…

More information: Linux Magic System Request Key Hacks — The Linux Kernel documentation

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Thanks that’s really helpful. I think after reading your post I’m going to leave it as it is though, I’ll just have to get used to it! :slightly_smiling_face:

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