The new iOS 26 software update for iPhone introduces a new full-screen preview experience when taking a screenshot. This includes some new visual lookup functionality, but it also can be a bit annoying if you just want to capture something for later and get on with what are you doing.
iOS 18 and earlier would simply show a small unobtrusive thumbnail of the screenshot in the corner of the screen. Thankfully, this behavior is still possible on iOS 26 as well. Here’s how to change it back.
Firstly, why did Apple add this new full-screen UI? It’s because they are trying to promote the new image lookup and visual intelligence features.
When you take a screenshot, by holding down the side button and volume button, the iPhone automatically detects any text in the image. You can then long-press on it to quickly select and copy out some text.
On Apple Intelligence enabled phones, there are also new quick actions to ask ChatGPT about what you are looking at, or do an image search using Google or other providers.
If the iPhone sees a location, or a date and time, there might also be quick shortcuts to add an event to your calendar or navigate to the place in Maps.
While these features are handy, you probably don’t need them every time you take a screenshot. Luckily, there’s a way to customize your phone so the full-screen experience is not presented by default.
How to turn off full screen iPhone screenshot mode
Navigate to Settings -> General -> Screen Capture and disable the toggle for ‘Full-Screen Previews’.
With this setting off, taking a screenshot works like older versions of iOS again, where a small thumbnail is shown in the corner of the screen. After a couple seconds, the thumbnail automatically dismisses itself.
With the full-screen previews setting disabled, you can still jump into the full-screen experience from the thumbnail if you want to. Simply tap on the thumbnail to open the new full-screen experience, where you can find the visual search features.
Other screenshot settings
There are also a couple of other new settings for screenshots. In the same page of settings, you can now enable or disable CarPlay Screenshots. When connect to a car with CarPlay, if you take a screenshot on your iPhone, it can also capture the screenshot from the projected car’s display. But if you don’t want this to happen, just turn this setting off and only the image of your actual phone screen will be saved.
You can also choose the image format for captured screenshots. There’s a choice between HDR and SDR here. HDR captures the full dynamic range of on-screen content, but it means the system will save the screenshot as a HEIF file. If you just want a simple PNG instead, choose the ‘SDR (Most Compatible)’ option.