How Do I Take a Screenshot on My Phone?

Whether you want to capture a recipe or social media post, whatever is on your screen can be instantly and easily captured, with a few extra options

Edward C. Baig,

AARP

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Published January 27, 2026

a woman holding a smartphone with a camera icon on the screen

AARP (Getty Images)

AARP members and readers are invited to submit pressing technology questions they’d like me to tackle in my Tech Guru column, including issues around devices, security, social media and how all the puzzle pieces fit together.  This week, I’m answering a question about taking screenshots, a common practice that has undergone a few changes lately and has a few tricks you may not be aware of.

I periodically take screenshots on my iPhone but only recently discovered I had to tap a check mark to save those images, apparently a change and extra step from how I used to do it. What gives?

I’ve had this very discussion with colleagues at work who are also frustrated by this seemingly small, but for some annoying, change in the way screenshots are now handled on iPhone. No need to fret, though. There’s an easy fix I’ll get to below.

In the meantime, let me back up and explain why readers may want to capture screenshots on their phones in the first place, whether on iPhone or Android. Grabbing screenshots can be a fast and easy way to save a recipe to peek at while you’re cooking, a conversation you’re having with your bestie, baffling error notifications or perhaps an amusing or poignant social media post you come across.

I sometimes take screenshots of Instagram pics my kids post before the images disappear, instructions on how to fix or operate something, or, I admit it, to admire a Wordle puzzle I proudly solved in one or two tries, because it happens rarely.

Capture Android screenshots

Methods for capturing screenshots are generally straightforward but can vary a bit by device, especially on Android, since there isn’t the uniformity across models that there is on iPhone.

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Using the Samsung Galaxy as a proxy, press and hold the Power/Side and Volume Down buttons simultaneously, then release both buttons a moment later. A screen flash signals a successful capture.  

Other screenshot-capture tricks. You can try other methods. One lets you swipe the edge of your hand across the screen. You have to enable this gesture ahead of time. Tap Settings (the gear icon) | Advanced features | Motions and gestures | Palm swipe to capture. You can also ask the assistant on your phone that answers to your voice to take a screenshot. On a Galaxy, that means using Samsung’s own Bixby assistant (“Hi Bixby, take a screenshot”). Or Google Gemini, which across Android has been taking over for Google Assistant (“Hey Google, take a screenshot”).

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Within the settings on Galaxy, you have additional options for how to handle screenshots once you’ve captured them. Tap Settings | Advanced features | Screenshots and screen recordings. Take note of some of your choices here: You can pick a photo format (JPG or PNG) for the screen grabs, display a toolbar after capturing them, automatically delete screenshots once you’ve shared them, save them as original screenshots after editing them in the Galaxy app, or hide status and navigation bars.

You also get to choose where on your phone to save the screenshots you’ve captured and want to keep around.

Now, suppose you want to take a single-image screenshot of a webpage, or a shot that exceeds the length of what’s visible on your phone screen. After taking a standard screenshot, tap the Scroll capture icon, which resembles two arrows pointing down, and drag the handle on the preview image to grab more of the image than you can initially see.

Capture iPhone screenshots

To take a screenshot on iPhone models with Face ID, quickly press and release the Side and Volume Up buttons at the same time. Or, if you are using an older Touch ID model, press and release the Side/Top button (depending on your phone) and the Home button.

Now back to your question. Previously, when using either method above to take a screenshot, you would see a temporary thumbnail of the image you just captured in the bottom-left corner of the screen, and the screenshot would land in your camera roll. That had been second nature, and it sounds like that is what you want to revert to.

With Apple’s recent iOS 26 update for iPhone, that’s no longer the default. Instead, the phone serves up a full-screen preview of the image you’ve just captured with numerous options that will be helpful for some, overkill for others, as follows:

Crop the preview image by dragging its sides.
Mark it up by tapping the circled pin-tip icon at the top of the screen.
Share it by tapping the Share icon familiar to iPhone users.
Search by tapping the icon at the bottom right to search Google for similar images.
Ask ChatGPT to try to learn more about what’s in the image via artificial intelligence.

After doing any of the above, you can tap the check mark in the upper right to save the image to your Photos albums, Files or as a Quick Note, or tap the X to close the screen without saving the screenshot.

I mentioned there’s an easy fix to getting back to how screenshots were handled on iPhone, and here it is. Tap Settings | General | Screen Capture | Full-Screen Previews, then tap the switch so it goes from green to gray. You are back to the way it was.

I’ll quickly mention other screen-capture settings on iPhone. You can automatically do a visual lookup of objects and places that appear in screenshots.

As with the Galaxy, you can use your voice to grab a screenshot, this time using Apple’s own assistant, Siri (“Hey Siri, take a screenshot”).

iPhone users can also capture more of an image than appears after taking a screenshot. To do so, tap Full Page and drag your finger on the preview image to see more of that image.

Bonus tip: Take a CarPlay screenshot

If you use Apple’s CarPlay app to display directions in your vehicle or to play music or podcasts, you can grab a screenshot of what’s on the CarPlay display screen using your iPhone. Go to Settings | General | Screen Capture | CarPlay Screenshots. Then from your phone, use your regular method to capture a screenshot. If you’re at the wheel, have a passenger do it. The iPhone will grab screenshots of whatever is on both the phone screen at the time and on the CarPlay dash display.

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Edward C. Baig covers technology and other consumer topics. He previously worked for USA Today, BusinessWeek, U.S. News & World Report and Fortune, and is author of Macs for Dummies and coauthor of iPhone for Dummies and iPad for Dummies. Follow him on LinkedIn; Threads; and X, formerly known as Twitter.