How to Take Screenshots on Facebook Stories

Facebook Stories allows the social media users to focus the attention of their friends and family on a special photo or a short video for 24 hours, the content is deleted after that period ends. The Facebook Stories can be explored in Messenger and the mobile version of Facebook on your smartphone.

If you are looking to make screenshot of an especially witty Facebook Stories your friend made; or you want to screenshot the photo of your girlfriend in another man’s arms that she posted so you can calmly discuss the event — you are likely to ask yourself if the person who posted the story will be notified of your screenshot.

facebook stories screenshots


There Are No Alarms or Notifications for Screenshots on Facebook

Facebook has been criticized many times for its privacy-related issues and you should know that taking a screenshot of someone’s Facebook Stories will not trigger any alarms or notify that person. Every time you or your friends and family members share a personal story on Facebook the content remains available for 24 hours only (in theory), but you can always save a screenshot for later viewing. Thus, making the 24 hour of content availability irrelevant in a sense. 

The lack of notification might be due to technical issues since Facebook will have to integrate some type of service to detect the screenshot action and that is likely to interfere with the policies for many smartphone manufacturers and OS developers like Apple and Google. However, Snapchat includes a feature where you are notified if someone made a screenshot of your post. There is no solid confirmation on why Facebook has not integrated some warning system when a person records another person’s Facebook Stories.


How to make a Facebook Stories screenshot on Android

Making a screenshot on Android is pretty easy. You can apply a long press on the power button for your device and Android will make a screenshot of whatever is on your screen. The screenshot will be saved to your photo gallery and a notification will appear in the top corner of your screen with options to share the image if you like. Alternatively, you can use what is called a screenshot widget (special app on a Sony-powered device) that lets you make a screenshot and crop it on the go. You open the Sony Screenshot Widget by going into the window view on your device and selecting the screenshot icon in the bottom left corner of the screen.

Also, you can use a screen recorder app from the Google Play store to capture images and videos shared on Facebook Stories. You might want to check out “Screen Recorder & Video Recorder - XRecorder”, it has pretty good reviews.


How to make a Facebook Stories screenshot on an iPhone

iPhones are great devices that come with many perks and a very stable OS. You can enable the built-in screen recording functionality through the Settings panel. Go to “Settings > Control Center > Customize Controls > Screen Recording”. To record the screen you are on, swipe up from the bottom of the screen to access the Control Center, tap the record button, three seconds later the device will begin recording and a small timer will appear in the top left corner of the device. To stop the recording, tap the red time indicator in the top left and hit “Stop”. The video of your screen will be accessible in the Camera Roll.

To take a screenshot on an iPhone you should hold the side button and the volume up button at the same time. Hold the buttons for a few seconds until you notice the screenshot notification on your screen. The notification can be found in the bottom left corner of the screen. A helpful page can be found here: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT200289.


The technical and privacy issues are likely to prevent Facebook from incorporating a screenshot detection system at all. A company that is focused on incentivizing people to share as much as possible might not be inclined to invest into privacy-protection features as much as you might like.