Rendering

render is the workhorse. There's a friendly alias for each common job, and the general render command underneath them all.

Your first render

urlbox screenshot https://urlbox.com --output hello.png

screenshot (alias: shot) is short for render --format png. The positional URL is all that's required; --output saves the result to disk. See Output & scripting for where files are allowed to land.

Want to see what would be sent without spending a credit?

urlbox screenshot https://urlbox.com --dry-run    # prints the validated payload, no API call
urlbox screenshot https://urlbox.com --curl       # prints an equivalent curl command

Choosing a format

urlbox screenshot https://stripe.com --output shot.png         # render --format png
urlbox pdf        https://stripe.com/pricing --output p.pdf    # render --format pdf --full-page
urlbox video      https://theverge.com --output clip.mp4       # render --format mp4
urlbox render     https://nike.com --format webp --width 1280 --output nike.webp

• pdf defaults to --full-page because a PDF usually means "the whole document". Pass --full-page=false for a viewport-sized slice.
• video renders MP4 and is typically slower than a screenshot, so consider async + webhook for production workflows.
• render takes any --format the API supports (png, jpeg, webp, pdf, mp4, …).

Urlbox uses a single /v1/screenshot endpoint for every format, so urlbox pdf --curl and urlbox video --curl will show /v1/screenshot in the URL. That's correct, not a bug; the output format is set in the request body.

Presets

Presets layer in sensible defaults so you don't have to remember a stack of flags:

urlbox render https://example.com --preset mobile    # mobile viewport
urlbox render https://example.com --preset desktop   # desktop viewport
urlbox render https://example.com --preset pdf-a4    # PDF + A4
urlbox render https://example.com --preset article   # block ads, retina, wait for requests

Anything you set with an explicit flag or --json overrides the preset.

Common flags

For any option that isn't a dedicated flag, including ones the dashboard just shipped, use --json passthrough.