If it has a screen, you may want to take a screenshot at some point. It is possible on mobile phones , on the PC , on smart watches with Wear OS and also on TV. Today we tell you how you can take a screenshot on Android TV .
Android TV is the version of Android optimized for televisions, TV Boxes and similar devices. Not all Android TV devices are the same, so the way you take screenshots may vary. To ensure success, we tell you three ways to take screenshots on Android TV.
The easy option: with the remote
Before installing applications, activating development modes and USB debugging, it is worth testing if the universal mode of capturing screens in Android also works on your device with Android TV: press two keys at the same time.
To do this, press the power button and the volume down button on the remote control at the same time, and wait to see if the animation and the sound that indicates that a screenshot has been taken is displayed. Sometimes these buttons are quite far apart, so the position is not very ergonomic.
If this method works, congratulations, you do not need to install anything or do any incidents to take screenshots, although you will still need an application to be able to send the captures to another device such as a PC or mobile .
The captures you make with this method are saved in the Pictures / Screenshots folder and you can recover them with any application to send files from TV.
The reliable option: with Button Mapper
Button Mapper is an application for Android TV with which you can assign actions to the buttons on the remote control . Its customization potential is enormous, although the most important thing is that one of those actions can be precisely to take a screenshot.
You can download it directly from Google Play on TV and, the first time you open it, you must activate it as an accessibility service . To do this, you need to go to the Android settings, in the accessibility section and activate the box with the name of the application.
Then it's time to remap the buttons. The application allows you to change the actions of the start button and the volume button for free, being able to configure a different action by double or long-pressing . This way, you can keep the volume button working as usual for volume, but take screenshots with a long press.
After choosing the button you want to customize - you can also configure others, in Add Buttons -, you must choose what type of button you want to configure and, finally, the action. This is where you should choose Screenshot , so that this button can take screenshots.
From there, every time you press the button you have remapped, the screenshot will be taken and it will be saved internally.
The universal but complicated option: by ADB
If none of this has worked for you, you can always try taking a screenshot the old-fashioned way, connecting to the TV using ADB . The process, as far as possible, is not very different from connecting to your mobile using ADB .
You will need to activate the developer options on TV , just like on mobile: enter the settings, go to Information and press several times on Build number until a message indicates that they have been activated. Take advantage of the fact that you are on the information screen to enter the Status section and write down the IP address of the TV.
Go back and you will see that now you have a new section with the options for developers. Here you will need to enable USB debugging or, if you have the option, network debugging or wireless debugging.
At this point, you already have the TV ready, but you lack the other part: on a PC. You will need to install ADB and connect to the TV using the IP address you wrote down before. This is the command you should use, changing la_ipfor the IP address.
adb connect la_ip:5555
If everything has gone well, you will be able to take screenshots at your leisure from the other device, without having to make complicated button presses. To do this, you must use the following command , indicating each time a different name for the file, or else it will be overwritten (we have called it capture.png , but it can be any name).
adb shell screencap -p /sdcard/captura.png
The advantage of using ADB is that you can complete the entire process with commands, without having to send yourself or access the captures with other applications. In this way, you can use ADB pullto send the capture you just made to the PC , with the following command:
adb pull /sdcard/captura.png /captura.png
It is not the most convenient way to take screenshots, but connecting to the device via ADB allows you to do everything remotely, without touching the remote control, which has its advantages. In addition, when connecting to the Android TV device through ADB, you have the advantage of being able to do other tasks, such as installing applications or changing the interface to Google TV .
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