Xiaomi, Redmi and POCO smartphone owners often face the challenge of quickly saving the contents of the screen, whether it’s a crucial dialogue, payment confirmation or a funny meme, taking snapshots of the interface is a basic skill. However, the standard button combination doesn’t always work, and sometimes you need to take a long screenshot or remove the shutter sound.
Modern MIUI and HyperOS shells offer many hidden features for working with the screen. You can use gestures, voice commands or even draw on the screen to activate image creation. Understanding all the nuances will allow you to save time and make the process as convenient as possible.
In this article, we will discuss all available methods, from classic to advanced. We will also discuss how to edit the received files and where to look for ready-made images.
Classical method: button combination
The most common way most Android users know is to press physical buttons simultaneously, a combination that has been standard on Xiaomi smartphones for many years, and you need to press the on and off buttons at the same time.
It's important to press them simultaneously, not sequentially. If you press the volume button a little earlier or later, the system can perceive this as a command to change the volume or call the switch menu. Mechanical response of the buttons helps to understand that the command is accepted.
⚠️ Note: If you press the buttons too long (more than that) 2-3 You can force the phone to restart.
Once you've done the action successfully, you'll hear a characteristic shutter click, and a thumbnail will appear at the top of the screen, at which point the system has already saved the image to internal memory, and the file automatically enters the gallery, where it can be edited or sent immediately.
☑️ Checking the success of the photo
Use of control and gesture menu
It's not always convenient to reach for the side buttons, especially if you're holding your phone with one hand or wearing gloves. There's a software method in the system for this, and it's accessible through the control center, which is called by swipe down from the top right corner of the screen.
In the menu that opens, look for the scissors icon, and that's the screenshot button, and clicking on it instantly captures the current contents of the display, and if the icon isn't on the first screen, try swiping left or tapping three dots to edit the tiles.
And then there's a gesture control technique that's particularly useful on big screens, which is to swipe three fingers down from top to bottom across the screen, and this action activates the image creation, and it has to be pre-enabled in the settings.
- 🖐️ Open Settings and go to the Additional section.
- 🖐️ Find buttons and gestures or screenshots.
- 🖐️ Activate the switch with three fingers.
The use of gestures requires a certain skill. The movement should be smooth but fast. If the system does not respond, check if the one-handed mode is activated, which can block multi-touch gestures.
Voice control and Google Assistant
Modern smartphones understand voice commands very well, and that's ideal when your hands are busy or your phone is on the table, and you just have to say a trigger phrase if you have a voice assistant set up to activate it.
Google Assistant users can just say, "Ok Google, take a screenshot." It will instantly execute a command, and the built-in Xiao AI assistant (which may be called otherwise in global versions) works just as well, if it's activated and trained to understand your language.
Voice control is especially useful for people with disabilities or in situations where physical interaction with the screen is difficult, but it requires a stable Internet connection to work, since the processing of the request often takes place on servers.
Why isn't the voice working?
How to take a long screenshot on Xiaomi
Often, a single screen is not enough to capture all the correspondence in the messenger or a long article in the browser. In such cases, you need a scrolling function. After you create a normal screenshot (in any of the ways described above), a floating window with a thumbnail will appear in the corner.
Under the thumbnail, you'll see some icons. Find an icon that looks like a down arrow or two down arrows. Pressing this button will trigger a long screenshot mode. The screen will automatically scroll down, capturing new content.
The process will continue until you stop it manually or until the content you are scrolling is over. Once the desired area is captured, click on the stop button (usually a square or cross).
| Parameter | Description | Limitation |
|---|---|---|
| Max. Length. | Depends on the permit. | Usually up to 100 MP |
| Format | JPG / PNG | Automatically. |
| Stopping. | Manual or car | End of page |
It’s worth noting that in some applications, such as secure banking clients or incognito browser mode, long screenshots can be blocked by security, in which case you’ll see a black screen instead of content.
Customizing sounds and turning off clicks
The sound of a camera shutter when you take a screenshot can be inappropriate in quiet places like a cinema, library, or meeting. Fortunately, in the shell of MIUI and HyperOS, this setting can be easily controlled.
There are several ways to make a picture silent, and the easiest way is to put the phone in silent mode or do not disturb mode, but it will also turn off other notification sounds, which is not always convenient.
A more flexible option is to turn off only the camera sound and screenshots, leaving the remaining notifications active.
- Go to Settings. → Sound and vibration.
- Find the Additional Sound Settings section.
- Turn off the camera sound (in some versions it is called "Scream Sound").
If standard methods do not remove the sound, you can use third-party applications from the Google Play store, which have their own screen capture mechanisms and ignore the system settings of the sound.
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Use Do Not Disturb mode with exception settings to hide the sound of the screenshot, but continue to receive calls from selected contacts.
Where to look and how to edit pictures
Once an image is created, it is instantly saved to the gallery. The standard Gallery app on Xiaomi has a powerful editor built in, so you just click on the thumbnail immediately after you create it, or find the file in the Screenshots album.
The editor allows you to do basic things like framing, rotating, overlaying, and drawing, and filters and effects are available to improve the readability of text in an image, which is especially useful if you need to highlight important information before sending it.
⚠️ Note: When sending screenshots via messengers (WhatsApp, Telegram), the image quality may be reduced due to compression. Use Document or cloud storage to transmit in original quality.
The Android file system stores this data in the /Pictures/Screenshots folder. If you connect your phone to your computer, you can find it that way, which is useful for mass processing or backup.
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Automatic Text Recognition (OCR) in the Xiaomi Gallery allows you to copy text directly from a screenshot, which speeds up the work with documents.