How to Take Screenshots Without Pressing a Button on iPhone

Apr 7, 2022 - 14 Comments

How to Take Screenshots Without Pressing A Button on iPhone

Did you know that you can take screenshots on the iPhone without having to press any physical buttons on the device? If you’re one of those users who take screenshots on their iPhones regularly, you may find it useful to know there’s an alternative way to capture screenshots on the device. Whether you take screenshots of memes, conversations, or videos, or anything else, this trick may be useful to you.

By default, you can take screenshots on your iPhone by pressing the Power/Side button and the Volume Up button (or Home button on Touch ID models) simultaneously. You may be used to this, but this is certainly not the easiest method. Sometimes, you may accidentally lock the screen while trying to take a screenshot. But with iOS 14 and newer, Apple added a new feature called “Back Tap” which allows users to assign custom tasks that can be performed by tapping the back of your iPhone. This feature can be used to change the way you take screenshots on your iOS device.

How to Take Screenshots Without Pressing any Physical Buttons on iPhone

Setting up this feature on your iPhone is actually a lot easier than you may think. However, you’ll need an iPhone 8 or newer, and the iPhone must be running iOS 14 or later, to take advantage of Back Tap and this ability.

  1. Head over to “Settings” from the home screen of your iPhone or iPad.

    iOS settings icon
  2. In the settings menu, scroll down and tap on “Accessibility” to access accessibility features.

    How to Take Screenshots Without Pressing A Button on iPhone
  3. Next, tap on “Touch” which is the first option under the Physical and Motor category as you can see here.

    How to Take Screenshots Without Pressing A Button on iPhone
  4. Here, scroll down to the bottom and you’ll find the Back Tap feature which is disabled by default. Tap on it to continue.

    How to Take Screenshots Without Pressing A Button on iPhone
  5. Now, choose the “Double Tap” setting for Back Tap to assign a custom task.

    How to Take Screenshots Without Pressing A Button on iPhone
  6. In this menu, make sure you select “Screenshot” from the list of various actions that are shown here.

    How to Take Screenshots Without Pressing A Button on iPhone

That’s pretty much all you need to do, now you’re ready to snap screenshots with just a tap of the iPhone rather than pressing any physical hardware buttons.

From now on, when you simply double-tap on the back of your iPhone, a screenshot will be taken and saved to your device. All of this, without having to press a single button. This is a huge improvement considering you had to press two buttons together until now.

Of course, we were just focusing on screenshots in this article, but Back Tap can also be used to do things like accessing Siri, Spotlight, App Switcher, and more. If you use the built-in Shortcuts app to run various tasks on your iPhone, you can assign Back Tap functionality to any of your shortcuts too.

Back Tap is considered as one of the several Accessibility features that iOS has to offer. However, this doesn’t stop anyone from getting creative and using this feature to quickly perform a task that they use on a regular basis. If you own an iPad, you’re out of luck since this accessibility feature is not available with iPadOS 14. Perhaps Apple wanted to limit this feature to one-handed devices.

We hope you were able to learn the new easy way to take screenshots on your iOS device. What’s your take on the Back Tap feature? Have you assigned any custom tasks for triple-tapping on the back of your iPhone? Are you using this for screenshots? Do share your personal experiences and valuable opinions in the comments section down below.

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Posted by: Hamlin Rozario in iPhone, Tips & Tricks

14 Comments

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  1. JT says:

    I’fe found that ‘Hey Siri – take screenshot’ works nicely and should work with any case.

  2. Carl Yee says:

    So, where is the screenshot stored on the iPhone?

  3. Alan says:

    That’s the best tip I’ve seen in years – even works with the phone in a case. Why doesn’t Apple publicise things like that!?

  4. Telford Moore says:

    Off-topic, but I hope that no-one minds:
    My iPad (7th generation) (iPadOS15.4.1) my “reply” and “quote” buttons suddenly vanished from all my browsers except safari, tho it then lost them also. One possibility is that I had deleted past history, as I occasionally do – in the past, this has caused no repercussions.
    I eventually restored a “history” and the buttons returned to safari, then with more restoration of “history”, they returned to other browsers. Can anyone offer advice?

    • Paul says:

      What reply and quote buttons are you referring to? Where do they usually appear in the apps?

      For me, I have reply buttons in Mail app only, but not in Safari, Chrome, etc.

      You can put a screenshot of the problem on IMGUR and that may help to sort it out https://imgur.com/upload

  5. Ron says:

    Same here, Maddie, until I just updated phone to 15.4.1 then works great……..

  6. Rosemary says:

    I also have a protective case, which seems to be stopping this feature from working. Now – how do I turn it off again? It doesn’t un-tick with a simple click.

  7. Richard KAne says:

    I installed the double tap screen shot. Now where do i find the shot on my iPhone?

  8. Dave says:

    I am using Back Tap for Lock Screen and Speak Screen. I agree with Maddie that it is hit and miss. I did remove my protective case, but this didn’t make any difference. Lately, I discovered that if I hit the back edge of the iPhone with my index finger while holding it in that hand, it works much more consistently than when I tapped on different areas of the back of the iPhone.

    • Maddie says:

      Thanks, Dave!

      I tried your suggestion re using the same hand and it worked every single time. 😎 😊

  9. Mark says:

    Unreliable with a case. I removed from the case and restarted and it worked fine, but not with the case.

  10. Maddie says:

    Thanks for this. Unfortunately it seems (haha) “hit” or miss. Perhaps having a protective case on my iPhone is messing this up?

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