How to easily take a screenshot on LG smartphones

Picked up a new LG phone over the holidays but can't figure out how to take a screenshot with it? Don't worry, we've got you covered. No matter which LG phone you have, we'll let you know how you can capture anything on your screen. There's a couple ways to do it, too, so read on to find out which way is the best to take a screenshot on LG smartphones.

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Take a screenshot on LG smartphones

You might be wondering why you need to take a screenshot on your phone at all, and that's a good question. Screenshotting a picture, for example, doesn't make much sense; you can just save the picture directly, avoid quality loss, and skip some of these extra steps, right? And that's true, but sometimes the things you want to save aren't pictures.

You might want to record a specific conversation that you've had with someone, for instance, and snapping a couple screenshots makes that much easier than manually backing up specific SMS messages.

You might be beta testing an application, or even just trying to capture an error message on one of your regular apps. Having a screenshot could help the developer get some feedback to fix the problem, and it can make it easier to look up solutions for yourself in the meantime.

Button Combo

Snapping a screenshot on most Android phone works with a simple button combination, and taking a screenshot on LG phones is no exception. If you just need to take a quick screenshot, this is going to be your best option.

1. Go to the content or screen that you're trying to capture.
2. Press and hold Volume Down + Power for a few seconds, until you hear a camera sound.
3. Check your screenshot saved to your device's gallery.

Use an app

Your phone is similar to a computer. You can take a quick screenshot of whatever's on your screen, and that's fine, but sometimes you want a little more control. We're going to showcase Mozilla's new ScreenshotGo app, which allows for a quick screenshot shortcut as well as a shortcut in your notification shade. The app also allows for quick screenshot editing and category sorting, which is also pretty neat, but the basic functionality is what we're after.

1. Install ScreenshotGo from the Play Store and set it up. This will turn on a quick floating shortcut button.
2. Line up your content on your screen that you want to screenshot.
   1. Tap the floating screenshot button, or…
   2. Pull down your notification shade and tap the shortcut.
3. That'll snap your screen, and give you the option for some categorization and editing afterwards.

Where are my screenshots?

Okay, so you've snagged a couple screenshots of your home screen layout, a text message thread, a high score in a game, or whatever else you might be thinking of. Where are those screenshots saved at now?

Normally you'll be able to find screenshots right in your gallery. Many newer phones even have a separate folder for screenshots, which helps to keep them from cluttering up your regular photos. From here you can very easily select your screenshot, then share it via social media, send it as an attachment in a text message, email it to someone, upload it to reddit, or whatever else you needed the screenshot for originally.

Backing up screenshots

Just because it's a screenshot and not a picture taken with your regular camera doesn't mean it's any less valuable. You'll still want to back these photos up, whether that's to a physical device somewhere else like a microSD card or to an external USB drive, or on the cloud.

Using Google Photos is probably the easiest way to keep things backed up, since it handles all of the photos on your phone, anyway. After you create a screenshot folder fir the first time, Photos should actually ask you if you want to back up new photos that appear in that folder. This guarantees that every new screenshot you take will be safe and sound with the rest of your pictures on Google Photos.

This will work on just about any LG phone, whether that's a high-end LG G8 or a simpler LG K8. It should also work on many other Android phones, too, so if you're struggling to take a screenshot and you have something else, give these steps a try and see if they work.