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Use the Windows.Graphics.Capture API. Check whether capture is supported, let the user choose a display or application window with GraphicsCapturePicker, create a Direct3D 11 frame pool, save the first frame, and dispose every frame you acquire. The picker is the consent step: a UWP app should not silently select another window.
Choose the right capture flow
Windows.Graphics.Capture is the documented API for acquiring frames from a display or application window and producing snapshots or streams. It works for a one-image screenshot as well as continuous capture.
| Requirement | Use |
|---|---|
| Capture an entire monitor | Let GraphicsCapturePicker return a display item. |
| Capture another application | Let the picker return that application window. |
| Capture your own page content only | Render the control or page to a bitmap instead; graphics capture is intended for a display or window. |
| Capture without user selection | Not the flow described here. The system picker supplies explicit user consent. |
When a capture is active, Windows draws a yellow border around the captured item. If several sessions are active, each captured item receives a border.
Prerequisites and manifest capability
- Build a UWP app that targets a Windows version supporting
Windows.Graphics.Capture. - Run on a supported Windows desktop device or Windows Mixed Reality immersive headset. Hardware and driver support can still make capture unavailable.
- Add the Graphics Capture capability to the package manifest. In the Visual Studio manifest designer, add the capability under the Capabilities tab. A typical manifest entry is:
<Capabilities>
<uap:Capability Name="graphicsCapture" />
</Capabilities>Keep the existing uap namespace declaration from the generated manifest. If your project uses a different manifest schema version, use the designer so Visual Studio writes the matching namespace and capability form.
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Implement a one-shot PNG capture
The following UWP C# example opens the system picker, captures one frame, and writes a PNG selected with FileSavePicker. It uses Win2D to turn the Direct3D surface into an image. Install the Microsoft.Graphics.Canvas (Win2D) package and add a button named CaptureButton to the page.
using Microsoft.Graphics.Canvas;
using System;
using System.Threading.Tasks;
using Windows.Graphics.Capture;
using Windows.Graphics.DirectX;
using Windows.Storage;
using Windows.Storage.Pickers;
using Windows.UI.Xaml;
using Windows.UI.Xaml.Controls;
public sealed partial class MainPage : Page
{
private GraphicsCaptureItem _item;
private Direct3D11CaptureFramePool _framePool;
private GraphicsCaptureSession _session;
private CanvasDevice _canvasDevice;
private bool _saving;
public MainPage()
{
InitializeComponent();
}
private async void CaptureButton_Click(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)
{
if (!GraphicsCaptureSession.IsSupported())
{
await new ContentDialog
{
Title = "Screen capture is unavailable",
Content = "This device or Windows configuration does not support Graphics Capture.",
CloseButtonText = "OK"
}.ShowAsync();
return;
}
var picker = new GraphicsCapturePicker();
_item = await picker.PickSingleItemAsync();
if (_item == null)
return; // The user cancelled the picker.
_canvasDevice = CanvasDevice.GetSharedDevice();
_framePool = Direct3D11CaptureFramePool.Create(
_canvasDevice,
DirectXPixelFormat.B8G8R8A8UIntNormalized,
2,
_item.Size);
_session = _framePool.CreateCaptureSession(_item);
_framePool.FrameArrived += FramePool_FrameArrived;
_session.StartCapture();
}
private async void FramePool_FrameArrived(
Direct3D11CaptureFramePool sender,
object args)
{
if (_saving)
return;
using (var frame = sender.TryGetNextFrame())
{
if (frame == null)
return;
_saving = true;
try
{
await SavePngAsync(frame);
}
finally
{
_saving = false;
_session?.Dispose();
_session = null;
_framePool?.Dispose();
_framePool = null;
}
}
}
private async Task SavePngAsync(Direct3D11CaptureFrame frame)
{
var picker = new FileSavePicker
{
SuggestedStartLocation = PickerLocationId.PicturesLibrary,
SuggestedFileName = "capture"
};
picker.FileTypeChoices.Add("PNG image", new[] { ".png" });
var file = await picker.PickSaveFileAsync();
if (file == null)
return;
using (var bitmap = CanvasBitmap.CreateFromDirect3D11Surface(
_canvasDevice, frame.Surface))
using (var stream = await file.OpenAsync(FileAccessMode.ReadWrite))
{
await bitmap.SaveAsync(stream, CanvasBitmapFileFormat.Png);
}
}
}The event handler checks out a frame with TryGetNextFrame() and puts it back in the pool when the using block disposes it. Do not retain the frame or its Direct3D surface after disposal. The sample stops after the first successfully received frame; for video, leave the session running and process each frame on a worker rather than doing expensive work on the UI thread.
Why the support check comes first
GraphicsCaptureSession.IsSupported() can be false because the device, Windows edition, graphics hardware, or driver does not provide the required capture path. Show an actionable message and leave the rest of the capture setup untouched when it returns false.
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Why the picker is mandatory in this sequence
GraphicsCapturePicker displays Windows system UI. The user selects a monitor or application window, and the resulting GraphicsCaptureItem identifies exactly what the app may capture. A cancelled picker returns no item; treat that as a normal cancellation, not an error.
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Save the correct pixels
Content size and undefined padding
A frame surface can be larger than the current visible content. When you copy only part of a frame, use frame.ContentSize for the source rectangle. Pixels outside that size are not guaranteed to contain meaningful data. If the content is larger than the destination, the copy is clipped.
The sample saves the complete surface for simplicity. To produce a tightly cropped bitmap, create a Win2D CanvasRenderTarget sized to ContentSize, draw the frame surface into it with a source rectangle from (0,0) to that size, and save the render target instead of the original surface.
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Handle resize and device changes
The selected window can resize while it is being captured. Recreate the frame pool with Direct3D11CaptureFramePool.Recreate() when the item size changes, the Direct3D device changes, or you change the pool’s buffer count or pixel format. Recreate discards frames already waiting in the pool, so finish or cancel pending processing before calling it.
SDR and HDR
The example uses DXGI_FORMAT_B8G8R8A8_UNORM, exposed in C# as DirectXPixelFormat.B8G8R8A8UIntNormalized, which is the normal SDR BGRA8 path. HDR displays may not produce correct pixels in that format; highlights can be clipped or colors can look washed out. For HDR capture, consider DXGI_FORMAT_R16G16B16A16_FLOAT through the capture pipeline, then either preserve an HDR output format or tone-map to SDR. Both choices require more processing and a file format that can represent the intended range.
Make continuous capture reliable
- Keep the
FrameArrivedhandler short. Move encoding, disk I/O, and image analysis off the UI thread or queue them to a bounded worker. - Always dispose each
Direct3D11CaptureFrame. Holding references starves the frame pool and eventually stops new frames from arriving. - Use a small, deliberate buffer count. More buffers can absorb brief processing delays but consume more graphics memory.
- Stop the session and dispose the frame pool when the page is unloaded, the user cancels capture, or the target closes.
- Subscribe to item size-change notifications in a continuous-capture implementation and recreate the pool before copying frames at the new size.
- Do not assume a frame is available for every event. Call
TryGetNextFrame(), check for null, and be prepared for coalesced events.
UWP versus WinUI 3 migration
The capture namespace remains Windows.Graphics.Capture in WinUI 3, but picker initialization differs. A WinUI 3 app must initialize GraphicsCapturePicker with its window handle before calling the picker. The same window-handle initialization applies to FileSavePicker. Composition-surface updates must be dispatched to the UI thread, using the Microsoft.UI composition, hosting, and dispatching namespaces. Those are WinUI 3 migration requirements, not extra steps for a classic UWP page.
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Troubleshooting
The picker does not open or the app reports unsupported capture
Call IsSupported() before creating the picker and session. Verify that the app is running on a supported desktop or Windows Mixed Reality device, that graphics drivers are current, and that the Graphics Capture capability is present in the packaged manifest.
The picker returns null
The user cancelled the system UI. Do not create a frame pool until you have a non-null GraphicsCaptureItem.
No frames arrive
Confirm that FrameArrived is subscribed before StartCapture(), that the session and frame pool are still alive, and that the handler is not retaining an earlier frame. A blocked UI thread or an exception in the handler can also prevent useful processing.
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The image has black, stale, or random edges
Copy only the rectangle described by ContentSize. The unused part of a larger surface can contain undefined data. Recreate the pool after a target resize.
Colors look wrong on an HDR monitor
Do not force HDR content through the SDR BGRA8 format. Use the floating-point HDR format where supported and decide explicitly whether your output should remain HDR or be tone-mapped to SDR.
The app becomes sluggish
Do not encode PNGs, write files, or run computer-vision work synchronously for every arrival on the UI thread. Limit queued work, dispose frames promptly, and capture one frame instead of running a continuous session when a still image is all you need.
A yellow border appears in the output
The border is Windows’ visible indication that the item is actively being captured. It is expected during an active session; stop and dispose the session when the screenshot is complete.
Or skip the browser setup
If your real requirement is a screenshot of a public website rather than pixels inside your UWP window, ScreenshotNeo provides a website screenshot API and MCP server. It is not a replacement for Windows.Graphics.Capture when you need the user’s desktop or another local application, but it avoids shipping browser automation in a service or backend.
One GET request returns PNG, JPEG, WebP, or PDF. The API accepts the URL and access key directly; see the ScreenshotNeo API documentation for the full option set.
Quick Recap
curl -G "https://api.screenshotneo.com/v1/shot" -d access_key=YOUR_API_KEY --data-urlencode url=https://stripe.com -o shot.webpEquivalent Python:
import requests
r = requests.get("https://api.screenshotneo.com/v1/shot", params={"access_key": "YOUR_API_KEY", "url": "https://stripe.com"}, timeout=90)
open("shot.webp", "wb").write(r.content)Equivalent Node.js:
const q = new URLSearchParams({ access_key: 'YOUR_API_KEY', url: 'https://stripe.com' });
const res = await fetch(`https://api.screenshotneo.com/v1/shot?${q}`);Before the capture, ScreenshotNeo accepts cookie or consent banners and removes more than 60 known consent platforms, newsletter popups, and chat widgets; each cleanup step can be turned off. Bot checks or CAPTCHAs, blank pages, timeouts, failed loads, and cache hits are not billed, and response headers report the page verdict and whether the request was billed. Its MCP server exposes take_screenshot, get_page_info, and capture_pdf to Claude, Cursor, and other MCP clients. The Free plan includes 1,000 screenshots per month with no card; paid plans start at $5 for 3,000 screenshots. Create a free ScreenshotNeo account to try it without a card.
Implementation checklist
- Declare the Graphics Capture capability.
- Check
GraphicsCaptureSession.IsSupported(). - Open
GraphicsCapturePickerand handle cancellation. - Create a Direct3D device and a
Direct3D11CaptureFramePoolwith a format and the selected item size. - Create the session, subscribe to
FrameArrived, and callStartCapture(). - Acquire, process, and dispose each frame; use
ContentSizewhen cropping. - Recreate the pool after size or device changes.
- Choose an HDR-capable format when capturing HDR content.
- Stop and dispose the session and pool as soon as the capture is finished.
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