Samsung's One UI 8.5 could borrow a screen recording feature from OnePlus, and I love it

Samsung’s rollout of One UI 8 is catching up in pace. While it is much more timely compared to its laggard One UI 7 rollout, it feels like a mere version upgrade with few changes. However, to ensure we have no complaints, it is also working on a significant update with One UI 8.5, which is expected to arrive with the Galaxy S26 series in the coming months. We’ve already spotted nearly a dozen new features in One UI 8.5 and are learning about a quite useful addition.

With One UI 8.5, Samsung could introduce partial screen recording, which would allow only a selected portion of the display to be captured and displayed in the video. The feature was spotted in a leaked One UI 8.5 test build and reported by leaker Ice Universe on Weibo.

In their post, the leaker shared screenshots of the firmware version, confirming that it is indeed from One UI 8.5, as well as what the feature entails. The overlay provides the option to select either the entire screen or a cropped section. The latter, as you would expect, can be used to record a specific feature within the UI or a particular app, saving you the time you would otherwise spend on cropping and editing the clip later.

Last year, Google introduced the option to capture content from only a particular app while recording the screen with Android 15. While doing so, the screen turns black when you switch to other apps. However, it does not allow the option to record a part of the screen. Meanwhile, OxygenOS 15 does allow partial screen recording on OnePlus devices.

Samsung doesn’t let you record apps selectively, but currently offers a less functional version that allows you to record a selected portion of the screen, but the file is saved as a GIF instead of a video. That means you get a pixelated recording without sound.

As mentioned above, this feature was spotted on a leaked One UI 8.5 build, and it may not necessarily make it to the final release — although we truly hope it does. In addition to the supercharged video recording tool, Samsung is experimenting with a few Apple-inspired upgrades, such as notifications summaries and a massive revamp for the quick settings panel. Samsung is reportedly also testing support for editing and color correction tools for RAW video, allowing LUTs to be applied within the Gallery app.