How to Take a Screenshot on Any Device. We write a lot of stories here at PCMag meant to help you with your computers and smartphones. To do that, we have to show you what's on the screens of those devices—a lot. Capturing these images—interchangeably called screenshots, screen captures, or screen grabs—is just an everyday part of what we do. But taking screenshots isn't the norm for everyone. In fact, there may be some of you out there who aren't even aware you can do it. But it's easy. If you need to take a screenshot (or 1. Change Printers, Scanner, Bluetooth, Mouse, Touchpad, Typing, Autoplay and Connected Devices preferences via Devices Settings in Windows 10 Settings app. Try before you buy. Download our free Mac and Windows Screen Capture and ScreenShot recording software. Overview Features: Download: Shop What is it? SpotOnTheMouse is a mouse pointer and keyboard action visualization software. We run down everything you need to know about capturing screenshots, no matter the platform—Windows, mac. OS, Chrome. OS, i. OS, Android, and other mobile operating systems. Most of the tips require nothing more than the operating system itself—they've all got built- in methods of capturing a screen. However, there are a wealth of third- party software tools that will take your screen- grab game up a notch. We'll even show you some of the tools that make it simple to take an image within the Web browser, which is arguably the most used software on any PC anyway. Screenshots on Smartphones. You probably take a lot of pictures with your smartphone, but you can also take a picture of what's already on the screen. The tools to do so are built right in. Android. Google's smartphone operating system, Android, has built- in screenshot options if you have Android 4. Hold the power button and volume down for one or two seconds. The screen will flash white, and the image is saved to your photo gallery. The problem is, that doesn't always work. Since Google doesn't have strict control over Android like Apple does over i. OS, things can get weird. Try the Home and power buttons at the same time. If that doesn't work, you've got to go with an app. At least Android users have third- party apps as an option—i. OS users do not. Google Play has way too many screenshot apps to count; some free, some paid. The top- rated one, with over 3. Screenshot Easy (above) from Ice Cold Apps; it comes in a free and paid edition for $1. It uses the same basic triggers as Android itself, or customize it and take a screenshot just by (for example) shaking your phone. If you'd like to take screens on a PC of what transpires on your Android device, check out Apowersoft's Android Recorder. It lets you cast what happens on a phone or tablet wirelessly to Windows or mac. OS for easy capture of not only stills but also video. It requires Android 5. Android Wear. If you're into the Android- based wearables, good news: taking an image shot of the watch face is much easier than it used to be. But to do so, you don't use the watch itself—you use the app on your Android device. Open the Android Wear app, hit the ellipsis/overflow menu (the three dots), and choose . Touch to send. Screens are always named . Go to the exact screen you want to capture; if it's something animated or moving, you'll need to time this just right: Hold the Sleep/Wake button (on top or the right side of the device, depending on the model) then click the Home button. ![]() SpotOnTheMouse is a mouse pointer and keyboard action visualization software. How does it work? It makes mouse clicks visible (highlight). It improves the. Download the free trial version below to get started. Double-click the downloaded file to install the software. You'll hear a camera shutter (if your sound is on) and see a . It's that simple. You can try holding the buttons the other way around, but the devices with the Touch ID fingerprint scanner could mess things up, depending on what you want to capture—like your Lock Screen. If you prefer to take screens right on the PC, even of your smartphone, a great free option for i. OS is Lonely. Screen. Just share your i. OS screen on the PC via Air. Play and take all the PC- based screengrabs (or video grabs) you like. Another option with screen- capture tools built right in is Apowersoft's i. Phone/i. Pad Recorder. ![]() As long as the PC and i. Phone are on the same Wi- Fi network, they'll talk via Air. Play instantly (once you activate the connection in the Control Center). The software can record video, stills, and of course, the Air. Play option means you can play any media—songs, video, audiobooks, podcasts, etc.—right through the PC. It works with Windows and mac. OS computers. The weird thing with the program is it requires you to go to the Apowersoft. ![]() PC. watch. OSWhat about watch. OS on the Apple Watch? ![]() It's just as simple, but first you must enable the option—screenshots are turned off by default in watch. OS 3. On your i. Phone or i. Pad, launch the Watch app, go into Settings and turn . Pull up the screen you want to capture. Hold the Side Button and click the Digital Crown (or try to click them simultaneously; it takes some timing to get it right). Like on i. Phone, the screen will . So, whenever you work out, you may be taking a couple of extra screenshots (or more) if enabled. Windows Phone 8 and Windows 1. Mobile. Windows Phone makes it a simple process like the rest: press and hold the power and volume Up buttons (if you hold volume down, the phone will reboot). Screenshots go right into the Photo Hub: look for Pictures, then an album marked Screenshots, stored as PNG files. You can't take a screenshot with Windows Phone 7 without unlocking it. If you're using Windows 1. Continuum, doing this keystroke still only takes a shot of your mobile screen, not any external display; for that, you still use the Windows desktop key- commands (see below). Black. Berry. With Black. Berry devices, press the volume up and volume down keys simultaneously. The camera noise should click and the image will be in your Camera folder (not on the SD card). Open the File Manager to find them. If that doesn't work, download Capture. IT OTA by visiting the link. It'll spell out how to change some permissions, but after you should be set. How to Take a Screenshot on PCs. The taking of screenshots on big monitors is now a decades- old proposition, and still a little complicated if you don't know what you're doing. Windows. The absolute simplest way to take a screenshot in Windows is to use the Prt. Scn (Print. Screen) button. You'll find it on the upper right side of most keyboards. Click it once and.. But Windows just copied an image of your entire screen to the clipboard. You can then hit Ctrl- V to paste it into a program, be it a Word document or an image- editing program. The problem with Prt. Scn is, it's not discerning—it gets everything visible on your monitor or monitors (if you've got a multi- monitor setup, it'll grab all the displays as if they're one big screen). To narrow things down, open a window, make it the focus of attention, and then tap Alt- Prt. Scn. That also appears to do nothing, but it's in fact taking a screen grab of just that window and copied it to the clipboard. One more built- in helper is the Snipping Tool. It's been around since the days of Windows Vista, so you may have to search to find it (a breeze to do in Windows 1. Once launched, it provides a tiny window with menus that make it easy to capture multiple types of screenshots. Grab just the area you want (in a rectangle or draw free- form; the latter is shown above), a select window, or the whole screen. Snipping Tool shows you the captured image instantly so you can choose what to do with it: save it, copy it, email it, annotate it, or highlight sections of it. It's an old workhorse program, though, and not up- to- date enough to offer sharing via social networks. Windows has a spectacular array of great screen- capture utilities available. Top of the line is Snagit—it costs a whopping $5. Of course, it'll do it everything you can imagine, even take video of what's happening on your screen (that's called a . Jing, by the makers of Snagit, also does screencast videos and makes sharing what you capture easy. Light. Shot is a nifty and small utility that takes over the Prt. Scrn key and makes it easy to capture and share. Both are also available for Mac. How to Take a Screenshot on a Mac. Like with i. OS, Apple has a tight grip on its desktop/laptop operating system. With a mac. OS- based PC, however, you get a few more screenshot options than you get with Windows (since Mac keyboards lack a Prt. Scn key). Here are the easy steps: To capture the entire screen, tap Command+Shift+3 (all three keys at once). A PNG image file of the screen will appear on your desktop. If you only want part of the screen, tap Command+Shift+4; it turns the cursor into a crosshair. Select the section of the screen you want to capture. Or, press the space bar, and the cursor turns to a camera—click on any open window to highlight it. Click again and just the window itself is captured. If you like the Windows method—where what you capture is saved to the clipboard instantly—just try Command+Control+Shift+3 for the whole screen or Command+Control+Shift+4 for a section. Adding the Control key to the keystroke ensures the image isn't saved to your desktop, then use Control+V to paste it into any app. If you've got a Mac with Retina display, a screenshot of the entire screen can be huge in PNG format, as big as 7. MB. If you'd rather the Mac save in JPG or some other format, change the settings. You need to open a terminal window on the Mac in question and type: defaults write com. If you're asked for your password, enter it. Restart your system and future screenshots should be in JPG format. Change it back by typing the same, but replace ? Apple still includes Grab in its Applications > Utilities folders (search with Spotlight to find it quickly). Grab's effectiveness is limited in that it only captures images in TIFF format, but it can take a shot of the whole screen, a window, or a selected section, and it has a timer so you can capture items like drop- down menus. The shortcuts to do so are the same as you'd use for the OS itself, so really, don't bother with Grab unless you only work with a mouse. Remember, Macs can also take advantage of free, third- party utilities for screenshots, including Snappy (which can sync screenshots with the Snappy. App for i. OS), Jing, Snagit, Skitch, Light. Shot, and others. If you feel it's better to pay, the venerable, award- winning Snapz. Pro. X is an option that costs a jaw- dropping $6.
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