❤️ Big shout out to @jholveck and @halldorfannar for this huge release. It will pave a brighter future for the project. Warm thank you to both of you.
Python-MSS 10.2.0
This is version 10.2.0 of Python-MSS, the ultra-fast cross-platform multiple screenshots module.
Release date: 2026-04-23
This release lays the groundwork for upcoming improvements planned for MSS 11.0, while remaining fully backward-compatible. It also improves performance, reliability, and multithreaded behavior, and introduces several new features for working with multi-monitor systems.
If your code works with previous versions of MSS, it should continue to work unchanged in 10.2.0.
Highlights
New API
In 10.2, MSS introduces a new API. The new design lets the MSS project introduce more significant internal changes, without introducing compatibility problems.
Programs using the old API will continue to work in 10.2.0, and most of them will continue to work with 11.0 and beyond.
Previously, MSS would provide the user with an OS-specific MSS class. In the new API, the user always sees a single class: mss.MSS.
The existing mss.mss factory function will continue to work in 11.0, and will continue to work for as long as is reasonable. However, the mss.MSS constructor is preferred for new code.
The existing mss.{platform}.MSS types are deprecated in 10.2.0. (This means the mss.darwin.MSS, mss.linux.MSS, and mss.windows.MSS classes.) They will continue to work. In 11.0, MSS will remove these classes, but to help with backwards compatibility, they will become deprecated factory functions, returning an instance of mss.MSS. Users who use mss.{platform}.MSS as functions can continue to do so. Users who use these as type declarations may update their code to use mss.MSS in 10.2, and may be required to do so in 11.0.
Speaking of types, the MSSBase class is deprecated in 10.2.0. Most users won’t care about that, some type declarations may need to change to mss.MSS.
Where possible, deprecated functionality emits a DeprecationWarning. However, note that these are ignored by default, unless triggered by code in __main__. If you want to see these DeprecationWarning messages, you may run your program under python -Wd, or with the environment variable PYTHONWARNINGS=default (or error). See the Python documentation chapter “Warning Control” for more details.
Many of the API docs are removed, since this change removes much of the API surface. However, they are still in available for backwards-compatibility.
Again, existing working code will continue to work in 10.2 unchanged. However, we recommend that users change the code and type declarations to use mss.MSS.
Summary of deprecations:
mss.mss: Change tomss.MSS. Will continue to work in 11.0.mss.{platform}.MSS: Change tomss.MSS. Code will continue to work in 11.0. Types will need to be changed by 11.0.mss.base.MSSBase: (Only valid as a type) Change tomss.MSSby 11.0.
With this change, we are also documenting the MSS versioning policy. MSS has always used Semantic Versioning, but the new policy clearly spells out the details.
Demo Applications
The repository now includes several full demo programs under demos/ showing common screenshot-processing workflows built on MSS.
These examples are intended as learning resources and reference implementations. The demos include extensive comments explaining the pipeline architecture and performance considerations involved in real-world screenshot processing, as well as how to use MSS with several popular libraries.
Included demos:
Video Recorder
Records the screen to a video file using MSS frames.
TinyTV Streamer
Streams the screen as
