How to take a screenshot and screen record on the Samsung Galaxy S22 series

The Galaxy S22 series is finally here, with three different models to choose from: the smallest Galaxy S22, the larger Galaxy S22 Plus, and finally the Galaxy S22 Ultra. All three phones are packed to the brim with features, including everything you normally get with Android 12 and Samsung’s One UI 4 layer on top. If you’ve never used an Android phone before, or if you just need a refresher, we’re going to explain how to take a Galaxy S22 screenshot or screen recording.

There’s nothing too surprising here if you’ve used a Samsung-made phone or tablet recently, as the general options and steps are the same as other One UI devices. However, the Galaxy S22 series has a few additional ways to take a screenshot or screen recording compared to some other Android phones. There are also a few helpful options in the system settings for changing how screenshots and recordings are created and saved.

How to take a screenshot on the Galaxy S22 series

The easiest way to take a screenshot is to press the volume down and power buttons at the same time. This will instantly capture an image of your entire screen. However, there are a few more ways to take a screenshot.

The other main convenient method is a touch gesture, which should be enabled unless you turned it off at some point — you can check by opening the Settings app and searching for ‘Palm swipe’. This feature allows you to swipe the edge of your hand across the screen (either left to right, or right to left) to capture a screenshot. It takes about the same amount of time as pressing the two buttons together.

If you have Google Assistant set up, you can say “Ok Google, take a screenshot.” The same also works for Samsung’s own Bixby voice assistant: just say “Hey Bixby, take a screenshot.” However, both of these methods take longer than the button combination or motion gesture.

When you capture a screenshot through most of these methods, a toolbar appears at the bottom of the screen with a few additional options. The button with the bottom-facing arrows allows you to scroll to capture a taller screenshot, the share button gives you one-tap sharing to any app that can import images, and the hashtag button allows you to add tags for organization. There’s also a crop button, so if you need to cut some part of the screenshot off, you don’t have to go find your photo app and open the image from there.

The Galaxy S22 Ultra has an S Pen, which means there’s another method of taking screenshots. When you take the S Pen out of the phone, tap on ‘Smart select’ in the menu that pops up. Then you can draw an outline around the area you want to capture, which is saved as a screenshot. Handy.

The Galaxy S22 series also has a mode called Samsung DeX, which allows you to use your phone’s apps in a multi-window mode (resembling a normal desktop computer) on another display. Most of the above-mentioned methods don’t work for taking a screenshot of your DeX desktop, but there’s a dedicated screenshot button on the right side of the taskbar just for that. Pressing that button will instantly capture a screenshot of your DeX desktop, or you can hold down (or right-click) the button to see the option to capture a partial screenshot.

Screenshot menu on Samsung DeX

How to screenrecord on the Galaxy S22 series

There are fewer ways to start a new screen recording, compared to simple screenshots. Your first option is to tap the ‘Screen recorder’ tile in the quick settings menu, in the same area your Wi-Fi and Bluetooth toggles are located. It might be hidden by default on your device — if so, press the three-dot icon at the top-right of the settings panel, tap ‘Edit buttons,’ and drag the ‘Screen recorder’ into the available buttons. The other method is with the Bixby voice assistant, if you have that enabled — just say “Hey Bixby, start a screen recording.”

No matter which way you start the process, the Galaxy S22 will ask if you want to record with no sound, media sounds (e.g. the audio coming from apps and games), or your microphone and media sounds. Then you just tap ‘Start recording’.

Change screenshot/screenrecord settings on the Galaxy S22 series

There are a handful of settings for screenshots and screen recordings, located under ‘Screenshots and screen recorder’ in the Advanced features section of the Settings application. Here you can turn the popup toolbar on or off, automatically delete shared screenshots, and change which format screenshots are saved (PNG or JPG). There’s also an option to hide the status and navigation bars in your screenshots, which is handy if you want a clean-looking image without clearing all your notifications.

For screen recordings, you can change the default preference for sound input, the quality setting for the video file, and the size of your selfie camera when that feature is enabled. Most of the important options are in the initial popup when you start a screen recording, so there’s not much left to mess within the system settings.