When is no screenshot taken?

A screenshot is not taken every minute, and several ordinary situations produce none at all. This page is the whole list.

Outside a shift

Nothing is captured while you are clocked out. The desktop app records nothing at all then, images included.

On a break

The minute record is still sent while you are on a break, so the time is counted, but it carries no image.

While the screen is locked

A locked screen counts no seconds and sends no minute, so there is nothing for an image to hang on. That time is neither working nor idle; it is absent.

Between two intervals

The interval is a number of minutes your organization sets. The clock runs on your own tracked time rather than the clock on the wall, so two people who started at different times are never captured in the same second. Every minute in between is recorded without an image.

When the feature is off

Capture screenshots is an organization switch, and it can also be turned off for one person through their own tracking settings. With it off no image is taken and none is uploaded, so there is nothing to look at later.

When the system refuses

Screen capture needs a permission from the operating system: screen recording on macOS, a portal permission on a Wayland desktop. Without it the capture comes back empty and that minute goes without an image. A capture that comes back as a black frame counts as a failure too and is not sent.

The rest of the record is unaffected. Status, activity level and the application in front still go, so a missing image never means a missing minute.

One image, several displays

A record carries one image and the number of connected displays. Which displays end up inside that single image depends on the app: the Microsoft Store app on Windows and the Linux app put the whole desktop across every display into one frame, the Mac App Store app captures the display with the window you are working in, and the downloaded app for Windows and for macOS 12 and 13 captures the display the mouse pointer is on.

An image of three megabytes or more is not stored, so a very large capture also ends as a minute with no image.

What Worktivity collects lists everything a minute carries, the capture interval explains how often captures happen, and the macOS permission article covers the prompt on a Mac.