How to capture a screenshot from a YouTube Video – Ghacks

Have you ever tried to take a screenshot from a YouTube video? You may have run into a few roadblocks, including YouTube controls visible in the screenshot or a rather bad resolution of it.
This guide walks you through the steps of creating YouTube video screenshots that have the following characteristics:
YouTube itself does not support the capturing of screenshots. While it is possible to use functionality of the browser or operating system, these cause the issues mentioned above. Downloading the videos does not work well either, unless the media player that is used supports taking screenshots.
This leaves browser extensions and online services as your go-to resources.
Update: There is actually a built-in way, but it is hidden from plain view.
Here is what you need to do:
Firefox users do not have that option. While there is a take snapshot option, it does take a low-resolution screenshot of the video frame only.
End of update
Before the guide starts, it may be useful to look at some of the reasons why someone would want to take a screenshot:
For pure YouTube screenshots, it is necessary to rely on browser extensions.
Here is a selection for all modern web browsers:
YouTube Screenshot Button (Firefox)
The extension adds a Screenshot link to the YouTube player. It furthermore enables the keyboard shortcut Shift-A on YouTube to take a screenshot without having to use the link.
Screenshot YouTube Video (Chrome)
The extension works on YouTube and a few other sites. It is a bit discouraging that it requests access to all sites, when it could just request access to the sites it supports.
Other than that, it adds a take screenshot button to the player.Click on it and you get a screenshot of the current frame in the same resolution as the video.
YouTube Video Screenshot Tool (Firefox)
The extension adds a Take Screenshot option to the Settings menu. Users who prefer a clean interface may prefer this over the other Firefox add-on.
The main benefit of online services is that you do not have to install an extension in a browser. They mostly work by pasting the video URL into a form and hitting a capture button.
Downsides
I could not find a single online tool that supports easy captures of YouTube videos.
Do you take screenshots of YouTube videos frequently or regularly? Which tools do you use for that? Feel free to write a comment down below.
https://greasyfork.org/en/scripts/402659-youtube-screenshot-button
https://improvedtube.com/
I am sure there are several others. There was at least one more script for this too.
— How about Flameshot?
https://flameshot.org/
“Powerful, yet simple to use open-source screenshot software.”
For Windows, MacOS, and Linux.
I pause the video and use the windows snipping tool (old version 10.0.16299.15) but I’ve never wanted or tried to take a fullscreen snip of a YT video.
If I wanted a high resolution full screen image I would download the vid with a command line tool and then open it in Shotcut (a free, open source, cross-platform video editor) where I can search frame by frame.
The [Double right-click > Save video frame as] is a neat trick for screenshotting paused videos.
And if you set the video to 4K before screenshotting, it will save 4K screenshots.
I was reading some old microsoft “help” design philosophy, and it’s not good practice to list reasons why someone should want to do something.
The theory being if someone is seeking for help or guidance on how to do something, they already know why they want to do it. When you add an extra section on “why” someone might want to do this, you’re basically advertising the feature and trying to convince someone to try do something they might not have had any intention of doing.
Also the best mentioned method which requires no extensions is also somehow the only one without a screenshot to accompany it, that seems backwards.
I always like to take a YouTube picture with the free program PicPick.
Which program or addon do you like to make short (Like . GIF) YouTube impressions?
The free tool screentogif enables you to record a selected area of your screen and save it as an animated GIF.
But I want the full screen in a good 1080p resolutions, or even more. Any suggestions?
On Windows, press PrtScn or Snipping Tool. On macOS, press Command + Shift + 4 to select the area
Exactly, I do use it and cannot find an easier way 🙂
Doesn’t let you queue up the desired frame, you have to catch it live during playback – who wants to do that?
Or you can just double right click twice on the video and press “Take Screenshot”
Why would anyone use an add on for this lol
This is actually not working in all browsers. I can get this to work in Chromium-based browsers on the desktop when I hold down the Shift-key.
Double right click works in Firefox
This does not work – the screenshot includes Youtube controls. This article is exploring ways of taking screenshots of the whole video still, but without those elements.
well .. yes and know
if you double right click in Firefox on a paused YouTube stream, you’ll get a menu, that contains several entries, including the following TWO entries:
– Take screenshot
– Take snapshot
Selecting “Take screenshot” activates the common Firefox screenshot tool, which you could also activate by pressings CTRL + Shift + S.
A Screenshot taken with this option will include the YT controls on top of the image.
This is unless you select the area to not exclude them, but in this case you’d only capture a part, not the entirety, of the picture.
Selecting “Take snapshot” in contrast will allow you to take a screenshot of the entire image, without the YT controls being displayed.
If you set the stream resolution to max and set the stream display to full screen, this will allow you to capture a screenshot with the same resolution as your monitor. This might be less than the stream resolution, but should suffice for most cases. At least for wallpapers etc this is sufficient.
If you really need a higher resolution image than your monitor is capable of displaying, play the video using VLC and use it’s snapshot feature.
Lesson to be learned: just use the tool, that does the job best.
Yes this does work and no it does not include YT controls.
Note I’m only talking about Firefox, god knows how chromium based browsers work.
Yes I know my son … and now I’ll share my heavenly knowledge with you:
chromium-based browsers work because of black magic (and it involves sacrificing cat images on the internet .. I’ll spare you the dar details).
In contrast Microsoft browsers (pre-chromium), do not work at all, because they are based on kaput magic (and involves praying to videos of dancing monkey boys).
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Ghacks is a technology news blog that was founded in 2005 by Martin Brinkmann. It has since then become one of the most popular tech news sites on the Internet with five authors and regular contributions from freelance writers.

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