Anything you didn’t know you can do with an iPhone screenshot

We all take screenshots on our iPhones. Maybe you want to share an Instagram post outside of the app; You may want to keep receipts in the dispute you are having; Maybe you accidentally took a screenshot for the millionth time. Whatever the reason, screenshots come naturally to most iPhone users. But there’s more to screenshots than you think. Let’s take a look at how screenshots work on your iPhone – including some hidden tips and tricks that I find particularly useful.

How to take a screenshot on iPhone

You probably know how to take a screenshot on your iPhone, but just in case, let’s start with the basics: all you have to do to take a screenshot is press the volume up and side buttons together. (If your iPhone still has a home button, press the power button and home button together and release to take a screenshot.)

You can also configure your device to take a screenshot in various ways using the options in the Accessibility menu; go to for example Settings > Accessibility > Touch > Back tap and you can enable taking screenshots via Quickly tap the back of your phone two or three times in a row. (Warning: This will likely increase your rate of accidental screenshots exponentially until you get used to it.)

All the things you can do with screenshot thumbnails

In the past, when you took a screenshot on iOS, all you saw was a flash (and, if your sound was on, heard the iconic camera shutter). If you want to see your screenshot, you need to dive into the Photos app. Since iOS 11, but a screenshot preview is shown in the lower left corner of the display for each captured image. Far from simply looking at what you’ve grabbed, this popup adds a ton of functionality to the screenshot process.

The thumbnails persist for about five seconds before automatically disappearing. If you can’t wait that long, you can wipe them away immediately. However, if you tap on the preview, it will expand into the screenshot editor (more on that later).

That’s the basics about thumbnail previews, but there’s more to it here. If you take another screenshot while the thumbnail is still there, the new screenshot will be stacked on top of the previous one. You can repeat this as many times as you like; The previews will stack until you stop taking screenshots for that five-second interval (or you swipe them away).

Whether you have 1 or 20 screenshots in the batch, here’s another tip: if you press and hold the thumbnails, you can move them around your screen. You can put them anywhere you can usually add an image, e.g. B. in a text field, in a note or in an image uploader. If you need to open another app, just hold one finger (thumb works great) on the thumbnail and use a second finger to swipe, scroll, and tap to find the program you want. (I often do this to drag them into iMessage conversations.) Note that using Preview this way won’t save the screenshot to your Photos app, which can help you keep the size of your photo library under control.

But wait, there’s more: if you long-press and then release the thumbnail, you’ll skip the editor screen and go straight to the share sheet, which you can use to send the screenshot anywhere. However, if you’ve never used the share function for a screenshot, you might not know this: Here you can rename the screenshot to whatever you want, instead of grappling with the long, boring default name that Apple always assigns. Tap Rename, enter any name, then click Submit.

The screenshot editor is actually good

So you’ve tapped the screenshot preview and you’re now in the editor. Here you can convert the screenshot as you like. Crop it by dragging any of the corners or sides of the screenshot; If you regret a crop, you can either drag the corners in the opposite direction to restore the image, or use the undo button at the top of the screen to fix the problem. If you long-press the undo button, you can undo all the changes you’ve made so far.

Don’t forget: you can zoom in on the screenshot by pinching two fingers together, just like you would zoom in on a photo.

At the bottom of the screen you will see various tools that you can use to mark up the screenshot. From left to right you have the pen, highlighter, marker, eraser (to erase your markings), lasso (to tear and freely move markings), ruler (which acts as a digital ruler), and a Color choice (with virtually every color option in the visible light spectrum).

But we’re not done yet. Tap the (+) on the right side of these tools to view straight more Tools including “Description” which allows you to edit the image description; “Text”, which adds a text box to the screenshot; “Signature”, which allows you to add your signature to the screenshot; “Opacity”, which allows you to overlay a white filter over the image; and Magnifier, which adds a magnifying circle to part of the image. At the bottom of this sub-menu are four different shapes to add to the screenshot, including a square, a circle, a dialog box, and an arrow.

Markup is on by default when you open the screenshot editor, but you can turn it off by tapping the markup icon at the top of the screen. When you do this, you’ll see the Live Text button in the lower-right corner that lets you Copy text from screenshot, translate text or do instant conversions. To the right of the markup icon is a trash can, which allows you to delete the screenshot currently displayed on the screen, and the share icon, which brings up the same share sheet we discussed earlier.

When you tap Done in the top left, you’ll see five options (iOS 16 or later): Save to Photos, Save to Files, Save to Quick Note, Copy and Delete, and Screenshot Clear”. This penultimate option is a game changer as you can copy the screenshot to use elsewhere without saving it to your photo library. If you don’t want to drag and drop the screenshot, this is the right option for you.

Tapping Done isn’t the only way to exit the editor. If you swipe up from the bottom of the screen (or press the home button), the screenshot or screenshots will return to their thumbnail previews.

You can take full-page screenshots

When you take a screenshot of a website in Safari, you can actually save the entire page as a screenshot. When you enter Notepad after taking a Safari screenshotYou will notice a New “Whole Page tab. Tap on it and you will see the full screenshot on the right side of the screen with a preview window showing the highlighted part. You can crop the page with Crop icon at the top of the display, but the entire webpage is already selected by default. Tap Done to save, then select “Save PDF to Files.” If you tap Save to Photos, you’ll only save the default screenshot. Thanks to madwriter in the comments for pointing out this tip!

This article was updated Friday November 4th to add madwriter’s tip on full-page screenshots.