How to take a screenshot on Xiaomi Redmi 5: the complete guide

Modern smartphones like the Xiaomi Redmi 5 have evolved into powerful multimedia centers where storing information from the display has become a daily necessity. Users often face the need to capture correspondence in the messenger, save a ticket to a concert or detect a funny moment in the game. On devices with a MIUI shell, this process is implemented as conveniently as possible, offering many ways to accomplish the task.

Owners of budget models may worry that their gadget does not have any flagship features, but this is not the case. Android system in conjunction with the firmware from Xiaomi provides a full arsenal of tools for working with the image of the screen. In this article, we will discuss in detail all available methods, from classic buttons to advanced menu functions.

The variety of approaches allows you to choose the most comfortable option for any life situation, whether it is the need to take a picture with one hand or set up automatic screenshots on a schedule, Redmi 5 will cope with this without installing third-party software. Let's look at the basic methods that work consistently and time-tested.

Classical method: button combination

The fastest and most reliable way that any Android smartphone owner knows is to press physical keys simultaneously. On the Redmi 5, as on most of the devices in the line, you need to press the volume button and the power button, and it is important to press them almost simultaneously, with a difference of no more than half a second.

If you did everything right, the device will give a characteristic snap of the camera shutter, and the screen will blink for a split second. At the top of the display, a successful creation notification will appear, which allows you to quickly move to edit or share a file. This method works even in cases where the touch screen is temporarily locked or does not respond to touch.

Some users have difficulty syncing their presses, especially on large screens. In this case, try pressing the volume button lightly first and then instantly pressing the on button. The button mechanics on Redmi 5 are tight enough to require clear and confident finger movement.

It is worth noting that when using this method, the screenshot is saved in standard PNG format, which ensures high quality images without losing detail, which is critical if you plan to zoom in or cut out small pieces of text in the future.

Use of notification curtain

For those who prefer to minimize physical interactions with the body, the MIUI developers have implemented a convenient button in the control panel. To use this method, just swipe from top to bottom to open the notification curtain, and there you will find an icon, often signed as "Screenshot" or with a scissor icon.

This is especially true when the phone is lying on a table or holding in one hand, and it is physically inconvenient to reach the side buttons. Pressing a virtual button in the quick access panel instantly creates a copy of the current image. The system automatically sends a notification about the readiness of the file.

⚠️ Note: If you didn’t find the screenshot button in the top row of icons, try swiping the notification bar to the left or tapping the edit pencil to add this shortcut to the active ones.

The convenience of the method is visual simplicity: you see what is entering the frame, even before you click, which eliminates the situation when you accidentally clip an important part of the interface or capture extra elements.

In addition, using a software button allows you to take screenshots even in those rare cases when hardware buttons are blocked by system restrictions or third-party applications, which makes the method a universal backup option.

Menu "More" and additional functions

MIUI is famous for its functionality, and screenshots are no exception. In some versions of the firmware or when using certain launchers, in the multitasking menu or in the extended curtain, there may be an additional button, which is often hidden under the "More" item or in the second row of control widgets.

Using this tool, you can not just save the image, but you can also go straight to processing it, and you can click on it and you can have a built-in editor where you can overlay text, highlight areas with a marker, or crop the image, which saves time, because you don't need to open a separate gallery.

The menu features are constantly updated, and new Xiaomi-based Android versions are getting new features, such as the ability to take long screenshots or automatic text recognition (OCR) right from the preview menu.

For users who often work with documents or correspondence, having quick access to these features through menus is a huge advantage, making the smartphone a full-fledged working tool for collecting and processing information.

Customization of gestures and additional buttons

Redmi 5 owners can set up a triple tapping or three-finger swipe setting to activate this feature, and the path is usually: Settings → Additional Features → Screenshots. You can activate the options you want.

The use of three-finger gestures is one of the most elegant solutions, and if you swipe three fingers down the screen, you get a snapshot instantly, and it looks spectacular and it's done very quickly, which is especially appreciated by active social media users.

However, be careful: accidentally touching three fingers can lead to the inadvertent creation of many screenshots that clog your memory, so it is recommended to enable this feature only if you are used to gesture control and control your movements.

Alternatively, you can assign a screenshot to a long-pressed home button (if you use software navigation) or another convenient key in the special features menu. The flexibility of the MIUI setting allows you to adapt the phone to left-handed or motorized people.

Working with long screenshots

One of the most useful features in Xiaomi's arsenal is the ability to create extended screenshots, which is indispensable when you need to save long WhatsApp correspondence, a browser article or a contact list. The standard screen does not contain all the information, but the scroll function solves this problem.

To take this picture, first create a normal image in any of the ways described above. Immediately after that, a thumbnail with several control buttons will appear in the corner. Click on the icon indicating the scrolling (usually two down arrows or the scroll icon).

The device will automatically start scrolling down, stitching the frames into one long image, so you can stop the process at any time by touching the screen, or wait for the end of the page, and the result is a single file containing the entire chain of events.

It's important to understand that creating long screenshots requires more CPU and RAM resources. On the Redmi 5, which is a budget device, there can be small delays when creating very long panoramas. This is normal and does not indicate a malfunction.

💡

Long screenshots are automatically compressed by the system algorithms so that the file does not take up too much space, but the quality of the text is practically not affected.

Where to look and how to edit pictures

Once created successfully, the image is automatically saved to a standard gallery, and the path to the file is usually: Gallery → Albums → Screenshots. It stores the entire history of your saves, sorted by date and time of creation.

The built-in MIUI editor allows you to do basic manipulations right after you've created them, so you can cut the edges, draw an arrow, point to an important item, or smear sensitive data with a marker, and these tools are always on hand and don't require an Internet connection.

For more advanced processing, files can be transferred to a computer or opened in third-party applications like Photoshop Express or Snapseed. However, for most household tasks, the built-in capabilities of Redmi 5 are quite enough.

If you take screenshots often, it is recommended to periodically clean this folder, as high-resolution images can quickly fill the internal memory of the device.

Solution and troubleshooting

Sometimes users are faced with a situation where the screenshot is not created, most often due to security restrictions on some applications, such as banking clients or incognito modes in the browser, in which case the system blocks the creation of copies of the screen to protect your data.

If the buttons don't respond, check to see if Do Not Disturb mode or special profiles are on, which limit functionality, and make sure that the device has enough free memory, as there is no place to save the new file when the storage is crowded.

⚠️ Note: Some secure apps (banks, streaming services) will instead see a black screen.This is the normal behavior of the Android security system, not a phone error.

In rare cases, it may be necessary to restart the device to reset temporary interface errors. If persists are a problem, check for system updates in the Settings menu → About Phone → System Update, as newer firmware versions often contain bug fixes.

💡

If screenshots stopped being created after installing a new app, try removing it or checking its permissions in the security settings.

Storage optimization and formatting

Each screenshot on Redmi 5 is saved by default in PNG, a lossless format that ensures perfect text and graphics clarity, but the size of such files can be significant, especially for high-resolution screenshots.

If you plan to send screenshots through file-size-limited messengers or upload them to sites with limits, it makes sense to pre-compress them. You can use built-in features when sending (choosing File or Photo quality) or third-party converters to do this.

For ordinary users, the difference between PNG and JPG on a smartphone screen may not be noticeable, but for archiving thousands of screenshots, the JPEG format will save gigabytes of space.

Check your screenshot folder regularly and remove duplicates. In the digital garbage era, file storage discipline helps keep Xiaomi Redmi 5 running at a high level and avoid memory problems.