2 Ways to Take a Screenshot on iPhone or iPad

Why would you take a screenshot on an iPhone or iPad? For a journalist, the answer is obvious: they use screenshots to illustrate iOS apps and games so you can see what they look like, to show off features in iOS itself, and to illustrate individual steps in tech tutorials.

But screenshots can be also useful for all iPhone and iPad owners. You might use screenshots to show off to your friends: "Take a look at this incredible moment I engineered in the game XCOM," for instance. More practically, you might use a screenshot to show a tech-savvier friend a weird error message that was coming up, or a strange behavior your iPhone was exhibiting, so they can offer advice. The below are 2 ways to help you take screenshot on iPhone or iPad.

How to take a screenshot on an iPad or iPhone via buttuns

To create a screenshot of whatever's on your iPhone or iPad display, press the sleep/wake/power button (at the top-right of the device) and the Home button (below the screen) at the same time. It can be a bit fiddly doing this while doing something cool and screenshot-worthy in a game, as all iOS games reviewers discover.

The screen will flash once, to show it's captured an image (you'll also hear the camera's shutter sound effect), and the screenshot will be saved to your Photos app - the collection that used to be known as your Camera Roll.

To see the screenshot, go back to the Home page and tap the Photos icon, and you'll see the screenshot at the bottom of the Photos tab (the leftmost option along the bottom of the screen). If you want to send this to someone straight away you can tap Share (at the top-right of the screen), tap the screenshot to select it, and then tap the sharing icon (the arrow pointing vertically up from a square) at the top left. Select Message, Mail, Twitter or however you want to send the image. Alternatively, you can simply tap the image itself to blow it up to full screen, check it's what you wanted, and then tap the sharing icon from there. It'll be at the bottom-left.

How to take a screenshot on an iPhone or iPad if the buttons don't work

If the sleep button or Home button on your iPhone or iPad doesn't work properly (and this has historically been a common complaint among iPhone users in particular - although the situation seems to be improving), it's still possible to take screenshots.

A simple tip from MacWorld explains how to create a "software button" on your iPhone or iPad screen that you can use if the hardware buttons have malfunctioned. Sure enough, this software button can be used to take screenshots too.

Tap the little circle (which is activated via the Settings apps - go to Settings, General, Accessibility and scroll down to AssistiveTouch and turn it on) to bring up the palette of options, then tap Device, then More, and you'll see a Screenshot option. Tap it and iOS will grab a screenshot.

After minimizing itself and becoming temporarily invisible - indeed, this widget appears to be un-screenshottable. We usually take a photo of the device's screen with another camera, as we've done below, but if anyone has worked out a clever way around this, do let us know.