It wasn’t until Android 4.0 that Android allowed screenshots as part of the core OS, now in Android 6.0 Google is updating the screenshot feature to make it even easier – and they’re using their headline feature Google Now On Tap to do it.
An update to version 5.7.13.19 of the Google App is hitting users on Google’s Beta Channel, offering the option to share their screens by opening Google Now On Tap instead of requiring the usual Volume Down + Power button press. The share screen option seems to be quite intermittent, it hasn’t appeared for us here, but other users on the beta channel are reporting success. To find out if you have it, long press the Home button and call Now On Tap – if successful you will have a share icon in the bottom left of the window.
Droid-Life, who first reported the new feature shared screenshots of it in action and the resulting screenshots, which as you can see removes any notifications, icons or even the clock in the status bar
Obviously the new option is only available to users running Marshmallow which includes Now On Tap, and seemingly only to members of Google’s Beta channel – which you can join by clicking this link.
Once you’ve updated your Google Search App on your device running Marshmallow, see if you have the share button in the bottom left hand corner.
While that looks useful, it doesn’t seem to be a direct replacement for being able to take screenshots that are immediately saved to a file. You can’t take several screenshots in quick succession, for example.