How to take a screenshot on an iPad

Taking a screenshot on iPad has been a core feature since the first generation of Apple’s popular tablet, and for good reason.

Table of Contents

Whether you want to share a Twitter thread, save a receipt, or capture a moment of a video (for the memes), screenshots are an invaluable part of how we communicate today. Plus, it’s easy to do, and there’s more than one way to go about it.

Apple unveils a new iPad Air with M1 chip at 2022 event

If your iPad has a home button

For the majority of iPads, the most common method for taking a screenshot is to press the home button and the top button at the same time.

If done successfully, you’ll see a white flash over the entire screen, and your iPad will save your screenshot to the photo library. On iOS 11 or newer, you’ll also see a preview appear in the lower-left corner, allowing you to edit or delete the screenshot before saving it. Older devices still offer the ability to edit screenshots, but you’ll have to bring it up in Photos first.

If you’re having trouble, you may get better results if you press the home button slightly before the top button, then quickly release both.

If your iPad doesn’t have a home button

On iPads without home buttons, the process is similar. The only difference is that instead of the home button, you’ll press one of the volume buttons instead.

If you don’t want to bother with button combinations

If pressing multiple buttons at once seems a little awkward, simply use one of the handiest Accessibility features on any mobile Apple device: AssistiveTouch.

Open Settings, then navigate to General > Accessibility > Touch > AssistiveTouch, then tap the button at the top of the screen to turn it on. After doing so, you’ll see a small virtual button appear onscreen that persists across all open apps. You can also use Siri and say “turn on AssistiveTouch” to get the same result.

From here, you can take a screenshot using the default settings by tapping the button, then navigating to Device > More > Screenshot.

Or, to make things even easier, you can set up one of the Custom Actions (Single-Tap, Double-Tap, or Long Press) to take a screenshot by navigating to the respective menu from the AssistiveTouch settings page. In both cases, you’ll see the same flash of the screen as if you’d done it the old-fashioned way, and your fresh screenshot will be waiting for you in your photo library.