Modern Xiaomi and Redmi smartphones offer users a lot of options for working with visual content, but the standard feature of creating screenshots often seems too basic. When you need to capture only a specific piece of correspondence, a graphic in an application or a part of a web page, take a full picture of the entire display and then fram it in the gallery – an inefficient and long. Fortunately, the MIUI shell and the new HyperOS have a built-in powerful tool that allows you to highlight an arbitrary area of the screen immediately at the time of capture.
This feature saves you a lot of time by eliminating the need to run third-party editors or image cropping apps. You can instantly create a neat screenshot of the desired site, send it to the messenger or save it in the album. In this article, we will discuss in detail all ways to activate the area allocation mode, learn how to customize convenient gestures and consider the hidden capabilities of the screenshot clipboard.
It’s important to understand that settings may vary slightly depending on the version of the operating system installed on your device. However, the overall working principle remains the same for the entire range of the brand, from the budget Redmi Note to the flagship Xiaomi 14.
Standard method through the control panel
The most common and proven way to take a picture of a selected area is to use a standard combination of buttons followed by a mode selection, so when you simultaneously press the volume down and the power button, the system takes a picture of the entire screen, but does not save it at once, but displays a thumbnail in the upper right corner, and that's where the key to control lies.
While the thumbnail is hanging on the screen (usually around 5-7 seconds), it displays several action icons. You need to find an icon resembling scissors or a dotted box that is signed as "Domain" or "Fragment." Pressing this button puts the smartphone into editing mode, darkening the background and allowing you to highlight the desired rectangle with your finger.
⚠️ Note: If you don't have time to press the "Region" button before the thumbnail disappears, the screenshot will automatically be saved in full size, in which case you will have to open the image in the gallery and use the built-in editor for framing, which takes longer.
Once you've selected the area, the system will offer a few options: save the image, share it or copy it to the clipboard. This method is universal and works even in applications where there may be restrictions on other ways of capturing the screen, the main thing is to take your time and clearly hit the desired icon on the pop-up window.
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To increase the life of the screenshot thumbnail, go to the settings and increase the preview display timer if your version of MIUI allows you to do so.
Use of triple touch and gestures
For those who prefer one finger or don’t want to reach for the volume buttons every time, Xiaomi offers an alternative in the form of a “Triple Touch” gesture, which is often disabled by default, so you need to activate it in the settings menu so that it becomes available at any time you use the interface.
To enable this option, go to Settings, then select Additional Features and find Screenshots. Here you need to activate the "Three Fingers" or "Triple Touch" switch, depending on the translation of your system. Once enabled, simply swiping three fingers from top to bottom across the screen will initiate the process of creating a screenshot.
However, to make this gesture immediately open the area allocation mode rather than taking the full picture, additional setting is required. In the same Screenshots menu, find the option "Screenshot Mode" or "Gestural Action" and select the value "Select Area" instead of "Full Screen." Now each three-fingered swipe will immediately darken the background and prompt you to highlight the desired snippet.
- 📱 The gesture works in most applications, but can be blocked in banking programs for security reasons.
- ⚙️ Touch sensitivity can be adjusted in the menu of special features for people with motor impairments.
- 🔄 If the gesture doesn’t work, check if the “Guide” mode or wet hands that change the touch recognition algorithm is turned on.
Gestures are particularly useful on large screens, where it is physically difficult to reach buttons, and it also reduces the wear of mechanical keys, which prolongs the life of the device, and it is shown that after a few days of using triple-touching, this method becomes the main method for most users.
Setting up the Quick Access Panel
Another effective way to quickly take a screenshot of a part of the screen is to take the corresponding button into the notification curtain, which is ideal for situations where the volume buttons are busy (for example, in games or watching videos), and using gestures is inconvenient due to the position of the phone in the hands.
To add a button, lower the notification curtain down and click on the edit icon (usually a pencil or three dots in the corner). In the list of available widgets, find the Screenshot or Screenshot icon and drag it to the active zone. Now, with one swipe, you can call the capture menu.
Importantly, in some versions of MIUI, the button in the curtain immediately takes a full screenshot, so that it opens the area selection menu, you need to change the default action for all methods in the screenshots to "Select Area", then even a call through the curtain will immediately start the selection tool.
| Activation method | Speed. | Convenience | Risks. |
|---|---|---|---|
| Buttons (Loudness + Power) | Tall. | Average. | Wear of buttons |
| Three-finger gesture | Very high. | High. | Random positives |
| Notification curtain | Medium | High. | It requires two hands. |
| Voice command | Low. | Low. | We need the Internet. |
Combining these methods, you will always have a tool to quickly capture information. For example, in games it is better to use a curtain or voice to avoid interrupting the process with buttons, and in the browser gestures are most convenient.
☑️ Checking the screenshot settings
Working with screenshot sharing buffer
One of the most underrated features in Xiaomi's ecosystem is a floating screenshot clipboard. When you take a picture (full or part of a screen), its thumbnail stays hanging in the corner, and it's not just a decorative element. It's a full-fledged buffer that allows you to do several actions in a row without losing previous images.
You can take a screenshot of a part of the screen, and then immediately, without saving it, take a second screenshot of another part, and the miniatures will fold into a pile, and this allows you to quickly pick up multiple pieces from different applications or different parts of one long page, and then process them in batches.
Inside the editing menu that opens after the area is allocated, you can also use annotation tools, a marker, text and figures that allow you to immediately highlight the main thing in a screenshot before sending it to the interlocutor, which is especially useful for technical support or explaining complex moments.
⚠️ Warning: The screenshot clipboard is cleared when you reboot your device or clear RAM through your built-in optimizer. Don't rely on it as a long-term store of important data.
Using a buffer allows you to create collections for an ongoing task, for example, by collecting evidence of an error or generating a report, you can take 5-10 screenshots of different windows, and then sequentially send them to a chat or save them to a single folder without being distracted by the gallery.
The Secret of a Floating Window
Long screenshot vs. fragment
Users often confuse the screenshot function of a part of the screen (snippet) with the Long Screenshot (or Scrolling) function. These are two different tools, each solving its own problems. The fragment cuts a rectangle from the current static image, and the long screenshot stitches several screens together, scrolling down the page.
When you need to save a WhatsApp message or an entire article in your browser, you use scrolling mode. After you create a normal screenshot, click the down arrow button or select Scroll. The phone will take several pictures and combine them into one long picture. In the area highlighting mode, you are limited to the current visible screen.
But you can combine these functions. You take a long screenshot of a page, you save it, you open it in a gallery, and you cut the right part out of it through an editing tool, and although it's two steps instead of one, sometimes it's the only way to get quality from dynamically updated tape.
- 📏 A long screenshot may contain gluing artifacts if the page had animations.
- ✂️ The fragment always has clear boundaries and high quality of the original pixel.
- 📄 For documents, it is better to use a long screenshot, and for graphs and tables, the allocation of the area.
Understanding the difference between these modes helps you choose the best tool for a particular situation. If your goal is to show where the button is on the interface, use a snippet. If you want to show the entire path of navigation, choose a scroll.
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A long screenshot creates a single file from multiple screens, and the area feature cuts a piece only from the current static frame.
Elimination and features of work
Despite the system’s fine-tuning, users may encounter situations where screenshots of a part of the screen are not created or are not working correctly, most often due to application security restrictions. Banking programs, messengers with a “disappearing message” mode, or streaming services can block the creation of screenshots by giving a black screen instead of an image.
In such cases, the system will not allow you to allocate the area, as the content is protected at the DRM level or Android security policy. It is impossible to bypass this with standard Xiaomi tools without root rights, which is not recommended for the average user for security and stability of the bank.
There can also be problems with a lack of RAM, where if you have a dozen heavy games and apps open, the process of taking a screenshot can simply fly out or freeze, in which case it is worth closing the background processes before performing important screen capture actions.
If you notice that screenshots are saved with poor quality or compression artifacts, check the save format settings. In some firmware versions, you can choose to save in PNG (lossless) format instead of JPG, which is critical for screenshots with text or graphs.