On December 31, 2018, I wrote about taking screenshots on the Mac. Apple also offers the easy ability to do this on iPhone and iPad by pressing two buttons together on a given device.

Then, you can immediately act on a screenshot, like annotate or share, and you don’t even have to save it to your Photos library.

Physical Buttons

You might not realize the value of physical buttons on a mobile device until you think about their use for the universal screenshot function, which works systemwide, even when the device is locked.

Taking a screenshot is one of the best ways to capture evidence of a bug or other unexpected behavior. I recommend this tactic when you want my help troubleshooting an issue.

On an iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch with a Home button, you can take a screenshot by pressing the Home button together with the Top Button or Side Button—you might otherwise call this the power button.

On a device without a Home button (currently any that supports Face ID), press the Top or Side Button together with the Volume Up button.

Screenshot Thumbnail

When you capture a screenshot using iOS 12 and later, a thumbnail of the image appears in the bottom left corner of the screen. You can tap this image to act on the screenshot, such as annotating or sharing. iOS 13 adds a number of annotation improvements.

You can also delete the screenshot or, after acting on it, you can tap Done and either save or delete. If you don’t tap the thumbnail, the screenshot is automatically saved to your Photos library. iOS 13 also adds the ability to long press on the thumbnail to jump directly to the share sheet.

Screen Recording

Screen recording is useful for communicate about a visual process when a still image is ineffective. Unlike on the Mac, capturing a video of screen activity is a completely separate function.

To use Screen Recording, you must first add its button to Control Center via Settings > Control Center > Customize Controls. Then, reveal Control Center, activate Screen Recording, and you have three seconds before the recording session begins.

Tap the recording icon on the status bar or return to Control Center to stop recording. A notification then appears, indicating that your recording was saved to Photos. You can swipe down on the banner to view or delete the video.

Apple offers a fair and increasing amount of flexibility when it comes to annotating and acting on screenshots and recordings. I’m impressed at how much the iOS share sheet has improved in iOS 13. I encourage you to tap all over the place and explore what you can do with these various controls.