This guide shows two practical ways to grab images and videos from an Android device:

• Mirror the phone display to a computer and use desktop tools for screenshots and GIFs
• Use ADB commands (no UI mirroring required)

Both approaches assume USB debugging is enabled and ADB is installed.

Option 1: Mirror to Desktop and Capture There

• Display mirroring: Vysor (Chrome extension) or similar tools
• GIF capture: LICEcap (records a desktop window region directly into GIF)

Workflow example:

1. Mirror the device screen to the desktop
2. Use your OS’s screenshot shortcuts or LICEcap to record an area

Option 2: Pure ADB Commands

Screenshots with screencap

Prerequisite: the device shell includes /system/bin/screencap

A. Save on device, then pull to host

# Save PNG to device storage
adb shell screencap -p /sdcard/Pictures/snap.png

# Copy to host (Linux/macOS)
adb pull /sdcard/Pictures/snap.png ./

# Copy to host (Windows CMD)
adb pull /sdcard/Pictures/snap.png C:\captures\snap.png

# Optionally remove from device
adb shell rm /sdcard/Pictures/snap.png

B. Stream directly to the computer

Using exec-out avoids CR/LF issues and writes a clean PNG stream.

• Linux/macOS (bash/zsh):

adb exec-out screencap -p > screenshot.png

• Windows PowerShell:

adb exec-out screencap -p | Out-File -FilePath .\screenshot.png -Encoding Byte

• Windows CMD with sed (Git Bash or WSL installed):

adb shell screencap -p | sed "s/\r$//" > screenshot.png

The file is written to the current working directory.

C. Quick aliases/macros

• Linux/macOS (add to ~/.bashrc or ~/.zshrc):

snap() { adb exec-out screencap -p > "${1:-screen-$(date +%s).png}"; }

Usage: snap or snap myshot.png

• Windows CMD (temporary macro using doskey):

doskey snap=adb exec-out screencap -p ^> $1

Usage: snap shot.png (escape > with ^ in the macro).

For a persistent command on Windows, place a batch file (e.g., snap.cmd) somewhere on PATH:

@echo off
if "%~1"=="" (
  set "_name=screen-%RANDOM%.png"
) else (
  set "_name=%~1"
)
adb exec-out screencap -p > "%_name%"

Screen recording with screenrecord

Requirements:

• Available on Android 4.4 (API 19) and newer
• Output is MP4 video
• No audio capture
• Screen rotation during recording can crop or truncate frames on some devices

Basic recording

# Record until Ctrl+C or the default time limit (180s)
adb shell screenrecord /sdcard/Movies/capture.mp4

Set a maximum duration

# Record for 10 seconds
adb shell screenrecord --time-limit 10 /sdcard/Movies/capture.mp4

Control resolution

Some devices require a lower resolution if the native display is too large for the encoder.

# Record at 1280x720
adb shell screenrecord --size 1280x720 /sdcard/Movies/capture.mp4

Control bitrate

# 6 Mbps; accepts values like 6000000 or 6M
adb shell screenrecord --bit-rate 6M /sdcard/Movies/capture.mp4

Verbose output

adb shell screenrecord --time-limit 8 --verbose /sdcard/Movies/capture.mp4

Example messages include codec constraints, chosen size, and frame counters.

Experimental rotation

adb shell screenrecord --rotate /sdcard/Movies/capture.mp4

Behavior varies by device and OS version.

Help

adb shell screenrecord --help

Retrieve and clean up

# Pull to current directory
adb pull /sdcard/Movies/capture.mp4 ./

# Pull to a specific folder (Windows)
adb pull /sdcard/Movies/capture.mp4 D:\video\capture.mp4

# Optionally remove from device
adb shell rm /sdcard/Movies/capture.mp4

Converting recordings to GIF

• Use LICEcap to record a portion of you're desktop while the MP4 plays in a media player
• Alternatively, use command-line tools (e.g., ffmpeg + gifski) to convert MP4 to GIF