Screenshots have become an important part of everyone’s day-to-day life. We take screenshots to either save something we have seen online or maybe to save the settings of a particular app or program. Screenshots are also taken so that you can share what you have seen online with your friends. Now, when it comes to Amazon FireStick, the process of capturing screenshots is a bit complex. And so here is a guide on how to take a screenshot on Firestick.
If you are wondering, why would anyone want or care to take screenshots on Amazon FireStick? Well, there are many reasons why anyone would want to take a screenshot on an Amazon FireStick. One would be when someone wants to help another person out with some issue on the FireStick. The other reason could be to simply compare and see what’s being displayed on the home screen of the FireStick. Now whatever the reason may be, we are here to show you how you can capture screenshots on Amazon FireStick.
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How to Screenshot on Fire TV Stick
Now, capturing screenshots on Amazon FireStick can be a bit complicated, especially for those who aren’t into tech whatsoever. But, just because something is complicated, it doesn’t mean that you won’t be able to get things done. Before you get started, there are a few things you will need in order to take screenshots on the Amazon FireStick.
What You’ll Need
- Amazon FireStick
- Wifi Network
- Apps2 Fire App (Method 1)
- PC and ADB (Method 2)
Enable Developer Options on Firestick
Since FireStick doesn’t have any built-in option to take screenshots, you will be making use of the Apps2Fire app to take screenshots. Here are the steps to enable Developer Options
- From your FireStick’s home screen, select the Settings icon.
- Now under Settings select My Fire TV.
- Select About and then navigate to the name of your Amazon FireStick (eg Fire TV Stick 4K).
- Make sure to press or select the name of your Amazon FireStick 7 times.
- Once that has been completed, go back one step to the previous menu and you should now see the Developer Options menu show up.
- Under the Developer Options, select ADB Debugging and make sure to enable it. Also enable Apps from Unknown Sources.
- Now that you have enabled ADB Debugging on your Amazon FireStick, you can proceed to the next step.
Method 1: Taking FireStick Screenshots via Android Device
The good part about taking screenshots of your Amazon FireStick is that you can easily do it with the help of an app called Apps2Fire. The app can be downloaded for free from the Google Play Store. Click this link to download the Apps2Fire app on your Android device. Once you have the app downloaded to your Android device, follow these steps.
- Connect your Android device and your Amazon FireStick to the same wifi network.
- Make sure to note down the IP Address of your FireStick. You need to launch Settings > My FireTV > About > Network.
- Under Network, you should see the IP Address of your FireStick. Note this IP Address down somewhere.
- Now, install and launch the Apps2Fire app on your Android device and tap on the three dots followed by SETUP. Or go to the Setup tab available at the very end.
- Here you will see a text field. You need to enter the IP Address that you noted down earlier.
- Now tap on the Save button. The app will begin to search for FireStick on the network. Alternatively, tapping on the Search FireTV button should also help you to search for the Fire TV Stick right away.
- Once you see your FireStick device, tap on it to get connected. Or if it gives an error, that means you have to Allow USB Debugging on your Fire TV (you will get the prompt on your TV).
- Once the connection is successful, tap on the Camera icon at the top of the app.
- This will take a screenshot of the current screen of your Amazon FireStick and will be saved to the internal Firestick’s storage.
- On the Apps2Fire app, Switch to the Fire TV SD Card tab. You can now scroll down and see the screenshot that you captured.
- Tap on the screenshot and then the Download option. The screenshot will download to your Android device.
Note: The IP address for Fire TV Stick keeps changing on every restart, so make sure to enter the correct IP Address.
How to Access the Screenshot from Fire Stick
Once you have captured a screenshot and downloaded it to your Android phone, you need to access it. The screenshots are saved in the app data folder. Since Google has put restrictions on accessing the data folder, it’s not easy to see screenshots you have downloaded. But there are always some ways.
All you need to download a File explorer that can access the Data folder. You can use Cx File Explorer or X-plore. Well, you can also find more third-party apps on the play store. Once you have installed the app, open it and navigate to Storage/Android/Data. You will be able to select ‘Use this folder‘ option, and once you do that you can see all folders and files in Data. In data look for mobi.koni.appstofiretv folder where you can find your screenshots.
Method 2: Take a Screenshot on Firestick using a PC
In case you have a PC, you can use this method as well. For this method, you will need to download the Android SDK folder on your PC or install adb drivers on your PC. Android SDK is available for Windows, Mac, and Linux as well. Here’s what you need to do.
- Download and Extract the platform tools on your PC.
- Go to the extracted folder and run CMD from this location (type cmd in the file address and press enter or you can use the cd command with location to platform tools). Basically in CMD, you must be in the same location as the platform tools.
- Now look for the IP Address of your Fire TV Stick by going to Settings > My Fire TV > About > Network > IP Address. See the image in Method 1 for reference.
- On your PC, enter the below command in the CMD and press enter. Make sure your PC and Fire TV Stick are connected to the same WiFi. Change ipaddressofyourfirestick to the actual ip address (e.g. 192.168.1.1:5555).
adb connect ipaddressofyourfirestick:5555
- Entering the above command will trigger a prompt on your TV. Make sure to allow debugging and run the same command. This time it will show already connected.
- Once connected, go to the screen on your Fire TV that you want to capture and then enter the below command in CMD to capture the screen. Replace anyname with the file name of your choice.
adb shell screencap -p /sdcard/anyname.png
- The screenshot will now be saved on your Firestick storage. You can copy it to other devices using various methods or you can just pull it to your PC using the below command.
adb pull /sdcard/screenshotname.png Location
- Make sure to change ‘Location’ with the actual location of the folder where you want to save the screenshot, e.g. C:\Users\username\Pictures.
- Now you can go to the location and you will find the screenshot you have captured on firestick.
Conclusion
This concludes the guide on how to take screenshots on Amazon FireStick using an Android device or PC. You can make use of your Windows/Mac/Linux system to take screenshots via ADB as mentioned in Method 2. If you have questions or queries, feel free to leave them in the comments section below.
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