How to take a screenshot on a Xiaomi phone

MIUI has quickly become one of Android’s more popular skins, owing to its use on Xiaomi’s budget-friendly smartphones. It’s hardly unintuitive, but you might still have a few questions anyway.

Read more: These are the best Xiaomi phones you can buy

Let’s look at how to take a screenshot on Xiaomi phones and tablets. You’ve got plenty of ways to do this.

The old faithful solution

If you’ve been using an Android phone, you most likely know this way to take screenshots.

Related: How to take screenshots on Android

You need to briefly hold the power and volume buttons down to take a screenshot on Xiaomi phones, and you should see an animation quickly flash, signifying a successful screengrab. The screenshot icon will hang around in the top right corner for a few seconds (as seen above) if you want to access it immediately.

From the notification shade

Another oft-used screenshot method is to activate the notification shade (swipe down from the very top) and look for the screenshot option in the quick toggle menu (it should be directly below the mobile data toggle).

Tap it, and you should see the screenshot animation flash, followed by said screenshot hovering in the top-right corner for a few seconds.

It’s not the best option if you need to take screenshots during video game sessions — you first have to reveal the notification shade to activate it, and by that time, the moment might be gone. It’s still handy to know this option is available.

A three-finger swipe (and more)

Xiaomi devices have another handy way to take screenshots, and it’s certainly more intuitive than Samsung’s palm swipe gesture. It’s also more reliable than HUAWEI’s double-knuckle tap to take screengrabs, at least in my book.

You can swipe three fingers downwards from any screen to take a screenshot. The phone’s display should flash to indicate a successful gesture. As with the first method, your screenshot will hang around in the top right corner for several seconds for quick access.

Don’t care for the three-finger gesture? You can assign the screenshot function to other shortcuts, such as long-pressing the home button or hitting the power and home button. Remember, you lose any functions previously associated with that shortcut (so no more Google Assistant shortcut if you assign screenshots to a long-press of the home key).

The quick-ball method

Xiaomi was one of the first brands to launch the quick-ball navigation option, an alternative to the standard capacitive keys at the bottom. The quick-ball is a free-floating dock with several commonly used actions (home, recent menu, and more), and fortunately, a screenshot shortcut is available via this menu.

To enable the quick-ball dock, visit Settings > Additional Settings > Quick ball. Tap the Turn on Quick ball toggle to enable the menu. You should now see a curved line on the right edge of your screen — tap it to access the Quick ball menu. From here, tap the scissors icon to capture the screen.

How to take a long screenshot

Now that you know the various ways to take a screenshot on Xiaomi devices, the scrolling or long screenshot function is another handy feature. This is great if you need to send a screengrab of an article to someone or capture a message thread.

Navigate to the desired screen, then try one of the four screenshot methods above. Tap the screenshot that appears in the top-right corner, then tap the scroll option (it’s the first option at the bottom). The phone will then scroll and capture until you either hit the done button or it reaches the bottom of the page or menu.

Aim to capture a little more than you need. The scrolling speed makes it difficult to hit the done button exactly where you want the screen capture to end, and you can always crop the unwanted bits out of the screenshot.

Where to find screenshots?

Once you’ve taken your screenshots, you might wonder where they’re on your phone. All you need to do is visit the gallery app, tap the albums option at the top, and you’ll see your screenshots folder.

Also read: Xiaomi buyer’s guide: Everything you need to know