On most Android smartphones and tablets we need to press and hold the Power and Volume Down buttons in order to take a screenshot. If we do this on the Galaxy S21, Galaxy S21 Ultra, or Galaxy S21+ then it actually will not capture the image. Instead, we need to press these two buttons without holding them down.
I understand that Samsung may not want to confuse their users by changing the way they perform certain tasks. The company very well may have had a good reason to not take a screenshot on its smartphones the same way as most OEMs do things. It all may stem from that long-press button combination being used to force the Samsung Galaxy S21 to turn off.
Whatever the reason is, veteran Android users will need to adapt to Samsung’s way of handling it.
Today, I want to show you how to capture a screenshot on Samsung’s Galaxy S21 series. I’ll take things a step further and talk about where these images are saved to, how to create a scrolling screenshot (full page), how to edit them, and even how to use the company’s internal tag system.
How to Take a Samsung Galaxy S21 Screenshot?
- When ready, press the Power and Volume Down buttons at the same time
- And quickly let go of these two buttons immediately after you press them together
So you can see how similar this is to the gesture we do in order to force the smartphone to reboot. We’re still pressing the same two buttons here (the Power button and the Volume Down button) but there isn’t a need to hold them down for 7+ seconds when we want to take a screenshot.
Instead, we just need to press these two buttons and then immediately let them go.
Doing so should make the screen flash as an indicator that it worked properly. This is the Android OS taking a “freeze frame” so to speak of what is currently being displayed on your screen. It will take take this image and save it to your smartphone. Once done, you can view it in any photo gallery application or share it to a friend/family member.
The process doesn’t normally take more than a few seconds but I have seen that flash lag behind a bit if the OS itself is bogged down.
How to Capture a Scrolling Screenshot?
There are times when the screenshot you want to capture is actually more than what will fit on your screen. Take a long-written article as an example. The article itself may take up 2+ “screens” worth of display real estate and this used to require us to save multiple screenshots to capture it all.
Samsung makes this much easier with the Galaxy S21, S21+, and S21 Ultra thanks to the “Scrolling Screenshot” feature.
See, once you press the button combination to capture a screenshot on the Galaxy S21 you will then see some options appear at the bottom. 90% of the time I use this feature I instantly tap the “share” icon at the far right so that I can send it to someone. However, the first button (with the two down arrows) will let you capture multiple screenshots on that page.
It will even stitch them together for you to create one long image that you can scroll through.
How Can I Edit Galaxy S21 Screenshots?
There are other times when you may actually want to markup the image you just captured. Maybe you want to draw a circle around a portion of the screenshot. Maybe you want to draw arrows pointing to something in it. Whatever the reason, Samsung has your back here as well by simply tapping the second icon in the toolbar shown above.
This one looks like an overdrawn square with a pencil icon right next to it.
It’s here that we can crop the image we just saved, draw on it, and edit it in a number of other ways. This is a feature that I have come to really enjoy on Samsung smartphones because it saves me some time. Even if I don’t need to edit a screenshot I just took on the Galaxy S21, just having that share button appear at the bottom is very convenient.
Where are Galaxy S21 Screenshots Saved?
This is actually something that Samsung does the same as other OEMs in the Android industry. Still, not everyone knows where these files are stored so I’m here to help. If you’re using the built-in Gallery application then you can just open it up and find it right there at the top (since it shows the newest images first).
However, you may be using a 3rd-party file explorer application. You may also want to browse your older screenshots too.
If that’s the case, then simply look in the “Pictures” folder in the root directory of your internal storage. In there, you’ll find some other pictures that are saved here as well but instead, we want to look for the “Screenshots” folder that appears in here. This is the default save location Samsung uses for screenshots.
Experiencing difficulties with your Device, check out our “How To” page on how to resolve some of these issues.
My ultra 21 has stopped saving Screenshots when I say hey google take a screenshot it does no longer save them. How do I fix this?