How to Take Website Screenshots with Python

Published April 3, 2026 · 6 min read · URLSnap Team

Capturing website screenshots in Python is a common need — link previews, automated visual testing, archiving, monitoring dashboards. The traditional approach means installing Selenium or Playwright with a full browser runtime. This tutorial shows you a much simpler path using the URLSnap REST API.

You'll learn how to:

• Take a full-page screenshot from a URL in 5 lines of Python
• Capture multiple URLs in parallel with asyncio
• Integrate screenshots into Django, Flask, or FastAPI apps
• Handle errors and rate limits gracefully

Prerequisites

Just the requests library — which you probably already have:

pip install requests

No browsers, no WebDriver binaries, no system dependencies. The API handles the Chromium instance server-side.

Step 1: Get a Free API Key

import requests

resp = requests.post(
    'https://urlsnap.dev/api/register',
    json={'email': 'you@example.com'}
)
data = resp.json()
print(data['key'])  # us_abc123...
# Free tier: 20 screenshots/day

Step 2: Take Your First Screenshot

import requests

API_KEY = 'us_your_key_here'

def screenshot_url(url: str, output_path: str):
    response = requests.get(
        'https://urlsnap.dev/api/screenshot',
        params={'url': url, 'format': 'png', 'full_page': 'true'},
        headers={'x-api-key': API_KEY},
    )
    response.raise_for_status()
    with open(output_path, 'wb') as f:
        f.write(response.content)
    print(f'Saved screenshot to {output_path}')

screenshot_url('https://example.com', 'example.png')

All Screenshot Parameters

Parameter	Type	Default	Description
url	string	required	Target URL to screenshot
width	integer	1280	Viewport width in pixels
height	integer	800	Viewport height in pixels
format	string	png	png or jpeg
full_page	bool	false	Capture full scrollable page
delay	integer	0	Wait ms after load (max 5000)

Advanced: Custom Viewport and Format

import requests

API_KEY = 'us_your_key_here'

def screenshot_url(url: str, output_path: str, **kwargs):
    """
    Take a screenshot with optional parameters.
    
    Example kwargs: width=375, height=812, format='jpeg', full_page='true', delay=1000
    """
    params = {'url': url, **kwargs}
    resp = requests.get(
        'https://urlsnap.dev/api/screenshot',
        params=params,
        headers={'x-api-key': API_KEY},
        timeout=45,
    )
    resp.raise_for_status()
    with open(output_path, 'wb') as f:
        f.write(resp.content)

# Mobile viewport (iPhone 14 size)
screenshot_url(
    'https://example.com',
    'mobile.png',
    width=390,
    height=844,
)

# Full-page JPEG with delay for lazy-loaded images
screenshot_url(
    'https://example.com',
    'full.jpg',
    format='jpeg',
    full_page='true',
    delay=2000,
)

# Desktop 4K screenshot
screenshot_url(
    'https://example.com',
    'hd.png',
    width=2560,
    height=1440,
)

Batch Screenshots with asyncio

Need to screenshot many URLs quickly? Use httpx with asyncio to run them concurrently:

import asyncio
import httpx

API_KEY = 'us_your_key_here'

async def screenshot_async(client: httpx.AsyncClient, url: str) -> bytes:
    resp = await client.get(
        'https://urlsnap.dev/api/screenshot',
        params={'url': url, 'format': 'png', 'width': '1280'},
        headers={'x-api-key': API_KEY},
        timeout=45.0,
    )
    resp.raise_for_status()
    return resp.content

async def batch_screenshot(urls: list[str]) -> list[bytes]:
    async with httpx.AsyncClient() as client:
        tasks = [screenshot_async(client, url) for url in urls]
        return await asyncio.gather(*tasks)

# Screenshot 5 URLs concurrently
urls = [
    'https://example.com',
    'https://github.com',
    'https://news.ycombinator.com',
    'https://python.org',
    'https://pypi.org',
]

screenshots = asyncio.run(batch_screenshot(urls))
for i, img in enumerate(screenshots):
    with open(f'screenshot_{i}.png', 'wb') as f:
        f.write(img)
    print(f'screenshot_{i}.png — {len(img)//1024}KB')

Django Integration Example

import requests
from django.http import HttpResponse
from django.views import View

class LinkPreviewView(View):
    """Generate a live screenshot preview for any URL."""

    API_KEY = 'us_your_key_here'

    def get(self, request):
        url = request.GET.get('url')
        if not url:
            return HttpResponse('url parameter required', status=400)

        resp = requests.get(
            'https://urlsnap.dev/api/screenshot',
            params={'url': url, 'width': '1200', 'height': '630'},
            headers={'x-api-key': self.API_KEY},
            timeout=45,
        )

        if resp.status_code == 429:
            return HttpResponse('Daily limit reached', status=429)

        resp.raise_for_status()
        return HttpResponse(resp.content, content_type='image/png')

Error Handling and Retry Logic

import time
import requests

API_KEY = 'us_your_key_here'

def screenshot_with_retry(url: str, output_path: str, retries: int = 2) -> bool:
    for attempt in range(retries + 1):
        try:
            resp = requests.get(
                'https://urlsnap.dev/api/screenshot',
                params={'url': url, 'full_page': 'true'},
                headers={'x-api-key': API_KEY},
                timeout=45,
            )

            if resp.status_code == 429:
                print('Daily limit reached. Upgrade at urlsnap.dev/#pricing')
                return False

            if resp.status_code == 401:
                print('Invalid API key.')
                return False

            resp.raise_for_status()
            with open(output_path, 'wb') as f:
                f.write(resp.content)
            return True

        except requests.exceptions.Timeout:
            if attempt < retries:
                print(f'Timeout, retrying ({attempt + 1}/{retries})...')
                time.sleep(2)
            else:
                print(f'Failed after {retries} retries: timeout')
                return False

        except requests.exceptions.RequestException as e:
            print(f'Error: {e}')
            return False

    return False

success = screenshot_with_retry('https://example.com', 'out.png')
print('Done!' if success else 'Failed.')

Check Your Daily Quota

import requests

info = requests.get(
    'https://urlsnap.dev/api/me',
    headers={'x-api-key': 'us_your_key_here'}
).json()

print(f"Plan:        {info['plan']}")
print(f"Used today:  {info['requests_today']}/{info['daily_limit']}")
print(f"All-time:    {info['requests_total']}")

URLSnap vs Selenium vs Playwright

	URLSnap API	Selenium	Playwright
Setup time	~1 minute	~30 min	~15 min
Dependencies	requests only	ChromeDriver + browser	browser binaries
Works on serverless	✅	❌	❌ (usually)
Managed updates	✅	❌	❌
Best for	Fast integration, cloud apps	Browser automation & testing	E2E testing, local scripts