Screenshots can be useful for a variety of reasons. For example, you can send copies of error messages to support services, show a friend what your game screen looks like, or save a tweet that you suspect is going to be deleted in a few minutes. Today’s laptops all include ways to take screenshots, and that includes Chromebooks.
Chromebooks can be a little confusing for someone coming from another platform, especially because their keyboards are somewhat different than those of Macs or Windows PCs. Some keys present on other laptops are missing while new ones have been added. Luckily, there are two ways to take screenshots on Chromebooks: either by using key combinations or by using the Quick Settings pop-up.
Screenshots via Quick Settings
- Click on the clock in the lower-right corner of your screen. This will bring up your Quick Settings menu.
- Click on the Screen Capture icon. (It looks like a circle in a square.)
You’ll get a small menu at the bottom of the screen with several icons. From left to right, they’ll include:
- Screenshot (for still captures)
- Screen record (for video captures)
- Take full-screen screenshot
- Take partial screenshot (a crosshair icon will appear; click and drag it until the part of the screen you want to copy is highlighted and then let go).
- Take windows screenshot (for a single window)
- Settings
The Screen Capture menu gives you several options.
Image: Google
If you click on the Settings icon, you can adjust your audio input, decide whether your mic should be live, and select the folder that you want to save your screenshots or recordings to.
Using the keyboard
A faster way to take a screenshot is by using key combinations.
To take a screenshot of the entire screen, use the Ctrl + Show windows key combination. The Show windows key, which looks like a rectangle with two lines on the right side, is on the top row of the keyboard. (It’s the equivalent of the F5 key on a PC keyboard.)
The “Show windows” key is in the middle of the top row.- Press the Shift + Ctrl + Show windows keys to get the same menu that you’d get by going into the Quick Settings menu.
Save and edit your screenshot
After you’ve taken the screenshot, a copy of the screenshot will appear in a pop-out window just above the Quick Settings menu. Click on it to show it in the folder. Any screenshot you take will automatically end up in the Downloads folder — but you can change which folder you want to save it to via the Settings button in the Screen Capture menu.
After the screenshot pops up, you can save it, edit it, or delete it.You can also click on the Edit or Delete buttons. The Edit button will take you to a fairly useful app that lets you perform such basic tasks as cropping and rotating, rescaling, annotating, or tweaking the lighting.
You get a number of options to edit the screenshot, including rescaling.Update June 3rd, 2022, 9:30AM ET: This article was originally published on January 14th, 2020, and has been updated to account for changes in the OS.
Screenshots—or captures of whatever is showing on your screen—let you easily save or share information. And on a Chromebook, grabbing them is pretty straightforward, so long as you know the right keyboard shortcuts.
Knowing the correct keystrokes may be the most difficult part for people used to MacOS or even Windows, as ChromeOS doesn’t try to mimic those operating systems for an easier transition. Instead, you’ll need to learn this fresh set of keyboard commands.
How to screenshot your whole screen
The exact positions of these keys on your Chromebook may be different.
To capture everything you see on your screen, press Ctrl + the Show Windows key on a Chromebook with a keyboard. The latter key looks like three rectangles layered in a staggered formation.
For tablets, press the Power + Volume Down buttons.
How to screenshot part of your screen
The exact positions of these keys on your Chromebook may be different.
In order to grab only part of your screen (like when you only want a single window to show or keep sensitive information from being captured), press Shift + Ctrl + the Show Windows key. (That last key looks like three rectangles stacked offset.) Then click on the screen with your mouse at the edge of the area you want to capture and drag it until the box contains everything you want to capture.
How to access advanced screenshot features
Too hard to remember all the different keyboard shortcuts? Memorize this lone set of keystrokes then: Shift + Ctrl + Show Windows. It’s the same combo as for a partial screenshot, but in the latest versions of ChromeOS, you can either click on the screen to begin taking a partial screenshot, or click on the icons in the menu bar that appears. Those buttons let you choose between full-screen, partial-screen, and window-specific screenshots. You can also begin a screen recording, which will take video of your screen instead of a still image.
On tablets, press and hold the power button, then choose Screen Capture.
How to find the location of your saved screenshots
Screenshots are saved in the Downloads folder. You can access it through the Files app, then clicking in the left-hand menu on Downloads.
ChromeOS saves all screenshots to the Downloads folder. You can navigate there by clicking on the Launcher icon (a gray circle usually found in the bottom left corner of the screen), then clicking on the Up arrow on the partial menu that appears. Open Files, then choose Downloads on the left-hand side of the screen.
How to upload your screenshots to Google Drive
To copy files from your Downloads folder to your Google Drive, simply highlight them in Downloads, then drag them to the Google Drive link in the left-hand menu.
By default, your Chromebook saves screenshots to its Downloads folder—which is not automatically backed up to your Google account. You must manually upload them to access the files on other devices.
To upload to Google Drive, open the Files app, then the Downloads folder. Select the files you want to back up, then drag them to your Google Drive folder in the left-hand navigation bar. They will automatically copy over. Alternatively, you can highlight the files, tap Ctrl + C on your keyboard to copy the files, then choose your Google Drive folder and paste them into that location.