How to Take a Full-Page Screenshot on iPhone

Why a Normal Screenshot Is Not Enough

A normal screenshot captures exactly what is on your iPhone screen at one moment. That is fine for a funny message or a map, but it is useless when what you want to keep is longer than the screen: a full web article, a long receipt, a complete chat thread, or a set of directions. Stitching several screenshots together by hand is fiddly, and the joins never look clean.

The iPhone has a built-in answer, and it has been there since iOS 13: a full-page screenshot. It captures an entire web page, document, or long view in one image, as a PDF you can save, mark up, or share. The catch is that it only works in certain apps, and the button to take one is hidden behind the normal screenshot flow, so many people never discover it. This guide shows you exactly where it is, how to use it, and what to do when it does not appear.

Before You Start: What You Need to Know

First, full-page screenshots work in Safari and in apps that use Apple’s standard web and document views, such as Mail and some document apps. They do not work everywhere: most third-party apps, including many social media and messaging apps, only allow a normal screenshot, and the full-page option simply will not appear there.

Second, a full-page screenshot saves as a PDF, not as a photo. That is actually an advantage: a PDF keeps the text sharp at any zoom level, stays small in file size, and can be searched and printed. If you need a picture file instead, you can convert the PDF afterwards, and this guide shows you how.

Third, make sure your iPhone is running iOS 13 or later. If you are unsure, go to Settings, then General, then About, and check the iOS version. Any iPhone sold in the last several years will qualify.

Step 1: Open the Page You Want to Capture

1. Open Safari and go to the web page you want to save in full.
2. Wait for the page to finish loading, including images. A full-page capture takes the page as it is when you trigger it, so a half-loaded page gives a half-loaded PDF.
3. Scroll down once to confirm the page is longer than the screen and that the content you want is actually there.

If you want to capture a document from Mail instead, open the message and tap the attachment or document so it opens in the full-screen viewer. The same steps apply from there.

Step 2: Take a Normal Screenshot

A full-page screenshot starts exactly like a normal one. Use the button combination for your iPhone model:

• iPhone with Face ID (no Home button): press the Side button and the Volume Up button at the same time, then release both quickly.
• iPhone with a Home button: press the Home button and the Side button (or the top button on older models) at the same time, then release both quickly.

The screen flashes and a small thumbnail of the screenshot appears in the bottom-left corner. Do not swipe it away: that thumbnail is your way into the full-page option.

Step 3: Tap the Thumbnail and Choose Full Page

1. Tap the screenshot thumbnail in the bottom-left corner before it disappears. It stays on screen for a few seconds, so be reasonably quick.
2. The screenshot editor opens, showing your capture with editing tools at the bottom.
3. At the top of the editor, look for two tabs: Screen and Full Page. Tap “Full Page”.
4. The view changes to show a long, thin preview of the entire page, with a scrollbar on the right. Scroll through the preview to check that everything you wanted is included.

If you do not see a Full Page tab at the top, the app you are in does not support full-page capture. Try the same page in Safari: open the same URL there and repeat the steps. If the tab is missing in Safari too, check that you are not looking at a page inside another app’s built-in browser, which often blocks the feature.

Step 4: Crop the Full Page if You Need To

Sometimes the full page includes more than you want, such as a long comments section, a footer full of links, or a cookie banner at the top. You can trim it before saving:

1. In the full-page preview, drag the handles at the top and bottom of the crop frame to include only the part you want.
2. Check the preview again to make sure you have not cut off a heading or the last paragraph.
3. If you crop too much, drag the handles back out again. Nothing is final until you tap Done.

Cropping is optional. If you want the whole page, skip this step entirely and go straight to saving.

Step 5: Mark Up the Capture (Optional but Handy)

The editor includes the same markup tools as a normal screenshot: a pen, a highlighter, a pencil, an eraser, and a colour picker, plus shapes, text, and a magnifier. This is useful when you want to draw attention to one part of a long page before you send it to someone.

1. Tap the pen or highlighter tool and choose a colour.
2. Draw or underline directly on the preview. You can zoom into the preview first by pinching, so your marks land precisely.
3. Use the undo arrow at the top if you make a mistake.
4. When you are happy, move on to saving. Markup is baked into the saved PDF, so make sure it is right before you tap Done.

Step 6: Save the Full-Page Screenshot

1. Tap Done in the top-left corner of the editor.
2. Choose “Save PDF to Files”. Do not choose “Delete Screenshot” unless you want to discard the capture.
3. Pick a location in the Files app, such as iCloud Drive or On My iPhone, and a folder if you use them.
4. Rename the file if you want something more descriptive than the default, then tap Save.

Your full-page capture is now a PDF in the Files app. You can open it from Files at any time, and it will look sharp no matter how far you zoom in, because the text is stored as text rather than as a picture of text.

Step 7: Share or Convert the PDF

To send the PDF to someone, open it in Files, tap the share icon, and choose Messages, Mail, AirDrop, or any other app. The recipient gets a proper document they can read, search, and print.

If you specifically need an image file, for example to post the page as a picture, convert the PDF to an image:

1. Open the PDF in Files and take a screenshot of the part you need, or use the share sheet to send it to an app that converts PDFs to images.
2. Alternatively, open the PDF on a Mac or PC and export it as a PNG or JPEG.
3. On the iPhone itself, the free Shortcuts app can be set up with a “Make Image from PDF” action if you convert PDFs often.

For most purposes, though, the PDF is the better format to keep and share, and converting it is only worth doing when an image is specifically required.

Full-Page Screenshots in Other Apps

Beyond Safari, the feature appears in a handful of places. In Mail, open an email and take a screenshot, then tap the thumbnail: the Full Page tab captures the whole message. In the Files app, opening a PDF or a long document and screenshotting it can offer the same option. In Notes, a long note may offer it too.

What does not work is just as important to know. Instagram, WhatsApp, Facebook, X, and most chat apps do not support full-page capture, because they do not use Apple’s standard scroll views. In those apps you will only ever see the Screen tab. The workaround is the old-fashioned one: take several overlapping screenshots and stitch them in a collage or panorama app, or use the app’s own export or share feature if it has one.

Practical Uses for Full-Page Screenshots

• Saving articles to read later: capture a long article as one PDF instead of bookmarking a page that might change or disappear.
• Keeping receipts and confirmations: a full booking confirmation or order page, saved as a PDF, is easier to find and print than a photo of half a screen.
• Documenting a web page: if you need proof of what a page said on a particular day, a full-page PDF is far more complete than a single screen.
• Sharing instructions: send someone a whole tutorial page as one document instead of five separate screenshots.
• Archiving research: students and professionals can file full pages into folders in the Files app and search them later.

Troubleshooting

The Full Page tab does not appear

You are almost certainly in an app that does not support it. Open the same content in Safari and try again. Also check that you tapped the thumbnail quickly: if it disappeared before you tapped it, the editor never opened, and you only saved a normal screenshot.

The PDF is missing images or shows blank sections

The page probably had not finished loading when you captured it. Go back, let the page load fully, scroll through it once to trigger lazy-loaded images, then take the screenshot again.

The PDF file is very long and hard to read on a phone

That is the nature of a full-page capture: a long page becomes a long, thin PDF. On a phone it is best read by zooming and scrolling; on a tablet or computer it reads more naturally. If you only need one section, crop the capture before saving, as described in Step 4.

I saved it but cannot find it

Full-page screenshots save to the Files app, not to Photos. Open Files, tap Browse, then Recents, and your PDF should be at the top. If you chose a specific folder during saving, check there instead.

The screenshot thumbnail disappeared before I could tap it

Open Photos, find the normal screenshot that was saved, and check whether the page is still open. You will need to retake the screenshot: once the thumbnail is gone, the full-page option for that capture is gone with it. With practice, tapping the thumbnail becomes automatic.

One Capture Instead of Ten

Full-page screenshots are one of those iPhone features that feel obvious once you know they exist and invisible until then. The whole trick is the thumbnail: take a normal screenshot, tap it, switch to Full Page, and save a PDF. After doing it twice you will wonder why you ever stitched screenshots together by hand, and long web pages, receipts, and documents become single files you can actually keep, search, and share.