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If there is a device with a screen somewhere, someone will want to take a screenshot. Most streaming media players for TVs have the capability, such as Android TV. Does that include Roku? Technically yes.
How to Take Screenshots on a Roku the Hard Way
There is an official way to take screenshots on a Roku, but it’s very, very limited. The feature is only intended to be used by developers to take screenshots for use in their Channel Store listings. It is only possible to take screenshots of downloaded apps.
Doing this requires enabling developer settings and connecting to Roku through the IP address in the browser on another device. From there, the screenshot tool is located in the “Utilities” menu. You can remotely take screenshots and save them. It works fine, but this is not a solution for regular old screenshots.
How to Take Screenshots on a Roku the Easy Way
Well, what if you need to get a picture of what’s on your Roku’s screen? How are you supposed to do that without a feasible screenshot function? You just have to be a little more creative.
One thing you can do is treat your TV screen like it’s a photo or document that you need to scan. You can use your smartphone camera and apps like Google Drive to take a photo and automatically crop it.
For most cases, that’s going to be perfectly fine. It might not look as good as a real screenshot, but you’ll get the point. If it’s not good enough for what you’re doing, there’s another option that will require substantial setup.
A capture card can be used to display the Roku interface on your PC, which you can then capture and even screen record. However, you should know that capture cards are not cheap and some need to be installed inside your PC. If you’re comfortable with that, take a look at our capture card buying guide.
Unfortunately, there are no great options for taking a screenshot on a Roku. The good news is that it’s a streaming media device and you probably won’t need to do it very often.
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