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While the Mac has the best screenshot tools of any Apple device, it’s not quite the same story on iPhone. Your iOS device is mostly restricted to built-in tools for taking screenshots and screen recordings, which makes it hard to bypass apps that block those features. Having said that, your iPhone’s screenshot tool is anything but basic, supporting editing, annotations, and even extracting text from images. If you want to take better screenshots on iOS, these 10 hacks can help.
Use AssistiveTouch to take screenshots without pressing any buttons
I’ve always found it unintuitive to take screenshots using hardware buttons on a device with a touchscreen. There are two easy ways to avoid pressing those buttons to take screenshots. The first one relies on a virtual Home button, which you can enable by going to Settings > Accessibility > Touch > AssistiveTouch. From here, enable AssistiveTouch to add a virtual Home button to your iPhone. Next, tap Customize Top Level Menu, then, if you’re only interested in using this option for screenshots, reduce the number of icons from six to one by tapping the minus button. From here, tap the remaining icon on this settings page. Go to Device > Screenshot, and tap the blue checkmark in the top-right corner. The next time you tap the virtual Home button, your iPhone will immediately take a screenshot.
The second method uses Back Tap, an iOS feature that triggers various actions when you physically tap the back of your iPhone. You can enable this by going to Settings > Accessibility > Touch > Back Tap. Select either Double Tap or Triple Tap, and go to Device > Screenshot. I recommend picking Triple Tap to avoid accidental screenshots. Once you enable this, tap the back of your phone thrice to take screenshots.
Use this gesture to add calendar events directly from a screenshot
Credit: Pranay Parab
When someone sends you a screenshot of a ticket, or if you’ve saved an image that mentions a date or time, you can add it to your calendar with a hidden iOS feature. Once you open the screenshot, tap the small Live Text button in the bottom-right corner. (Its icon has three horizontal lines surrounded by dotted borders.) This will reveal a date or time in the bottom-left corner of the screenshot. Tap that button, and you’ll see a new page where you can quickly add the event to your calendar. Sometimes, you may see a “More” button next to the identified date or time. This appears when there are multiple dates in a screenshot, and you can tap “More” to select the correct one for your calendar entry. Your iPhone can also identify flight numbers in screenshots and show you the current status of that flight.
Use ‘Copy and Delete’ to share screenshots without saving them to Photos
This is one of the best features for people who want to avoid piling up useless screenshots in their photo libraries. Once you capture a screenshot on your iPhone, tap the thumbnail to open the screenshot editor page, and tap the checkmark icon in the top-right corner. Here, you can select “Copy and Delete” to save the screenshot to your clipboard and delete it from your device. You can now paste it in other apps, such as Mail, Messages, or WhatsApp. Goodbye, clutter.
Use the Live Text tool to extract text from screenshots
Your iPhone comes with a powerful text extraction tool that lets you copy text from images. Just take a screenshot, tap the thumbnail in the bottom-left corner, and hit the Live Text button in the bottom-right corner. This tool instantly identifies all kinds of text in an image, and, from there, you can select and copy it easily.
Hold the screen to draw symmetrical shapes in annotations
When I’m annotating a screenshot, I’ll often draw a quick squiggle to highlight something to others who’ll view it. Since I’m no Picasso, my attempts at drawing a circle (or any other shape) over an element in the screenshot look hopelessly amateur. Fortunately, iOS has a feature that allows you to turn your squiggles into regular shapes. Try this: Draw your best estimation of a circle, rectangle, square, or another shape on a screenshot. Immediately after, hold the screen, and iOS will convert your drawing into a neat symmetrical shape.
Use opaque shapes to securely hide sensitive information in screenshots
Credit: Pranay Parab
I’ve seen way too many screenshots with poorly hidden bits of sensitive information. When people do this using an iPhone, they often use the pen tool or even the highlighter to hide email addresses, phone numbers, or names. It’s surprisingly easy to bypass these methods for those in the know, leaving your info vulnerable. If you’re trying to securely hide info in an image, use opaque shapes instead. It’s a built-in tool on your iPhone that hides information thoroughly, and is much faster than scribbling over text hundreds of times. When you take a screenshot, open the image via its thumbnail, and tap the pen icon up top. Hit the + button in the bottom-right corner, and tap Add Shape. Choose any shape you like, and tap the first circle in the popover menu to add any color. This will make it an opaque shape. Now, drag this shape over sensitive information and save the image.
Use this automation to delete unwanted screenshots
Deleting a bunch of screenshots by hand is a pain. However, you can use Apple’s Shortcuts app to create an automation to do the job for you. The basic logic behind this automation is to find all photos that are screenshots taken in a specific time period, and delete them in one shot. For most people, this will work as a periodic cleanup tool that deletes recently taken screenshots. As an example, you can use it to delete all screenshots taken in the past 30 days. I’ve created a sample shortcut for you to follow. You can modify it to suit your needs, but if you use it as is, it’ll find and delete all screenshots from the past month. It does ask for confirmation before deleting screenshots, and even after it’s done, you can still recover photos from the Recently Deleted folder.
Disable thumbnails to stop accidental screenshots
This might be how screenshots work on your iPhone: You take a screenshot, and the device shows a thumbnail in the bottom-left corner. This disappears in a few seconds, and saves the screenshot to your library. If you accidentally take a screenshot and don’t tap the thumbnail fast enough, you’ll have to manually delete the screenshot from your library. If this bothers you, then I recommend enabling full-screen screenshot previews. That way, the moment you take a screenshot (accidental or not), you’ll see a preview, and you can decide if you want to keep the image.
Apple has since changed this default, so there’s a chance your screenshots now open in full-screen already. However, if your iPhone is still running with the thumbnail method, you can set this up by going to Settings > General > Screen Capture and enabling Full-Screen Previews.
Enable microphone audio recording to create screencasts
Credit: Pranay Parab
In addition to screenshots, you can take screen recordings of your iPhone as well. There are many uses for this, but one of the best is to create a screencast. I use this often to help my parents solve tech problems. You can also add microphone audio to these screencasts to make them even more useful, and to avoid recording a voiceover separately. To do this, open Control Center by swiping down from the top-right corner of the screen. In case you don’t see the screen recording button here, you can add it by tapping the + button in the top-left corner, and selecting Add a Control > Screen Recording.
Hold the screen recording button until you see a pop-up menu. Tap the “Microphone Off” button, and it’ll change to Microphone On. Tap Start Recording, wait for three seconds, and the screen recording will begin. You can now start speaking, and your voice will be a part of your screen recording.
Use this shortcut to disable screen capture sounds and previews
If you want to take screenshots with maximum efficiency, try Screenshot, a screenshot shortcut I found on Reddit. This shortcut bypasses all screenshot previews and capture sounds, and instantly saves your screenshot to a library of your choice. Once you install this shortcut, review its steps, and select an album for your screenshot. (It drops your screenshots in the Recents album by default, which may not be ideal for everyone.) From here, open Control Center, tap the + button, select Add a Control > Shortcut. Now select the Screenshot shortcut, and you’re good to go. The next time you want to capture a screenshot as fast as possible, run this shortcut from the Control Center, and you’ll notice that it’s the least intrusive screenshot workflow. You could even link this shortcut to Back Tap gestures for even faster access.