How To Take A Screenshot On The Steam Deck

Eager to take a screenshot on the Steam Deck and show off your gameplay moments to friends but don’t know how? Not to worry. We can help with that. Especially since it’s not as simple as pressing a single button like on the PS5 or Xbox Series X|S. Of course, just because it’s not as simple doesn’t mean it’s not simple at all.

Quite the contrary, actually. Taking screenshots is really rather easy and once you’ve grabbed what you need, sharing them around is just as easy. Valve coded in a nice little shortcut to make screenshots possible. And with the plethora of control inputs on the device, there’s a handful of different shortcuts you’ll want to make note of.

For now though, let’s talk about the screenshots first. So, how do you take screenshots on the Steam Deck?

How to take a screenshot on the Steam Deck

Know that when you take a screenshot, you’ll be able to capture whatever’s on the screen at the time. Any screen, any content. Or so it would seem. While we haven’t tried to take screenshots of literally every single menu and screen there is, it would seem there are no limits here.

Though we could imagine you would really only want to take screenshots mostly of in your in-game moments.

To capture screenshots press the Steam button and R1 button simultaneously

This is all there is to it. You simply press the Steam button and the R1 button. The Steam button sits right below the left touch pad. You have to press these at the same time otherwise you’ll just end up opening up the left side menu. So there’s no holding down buttons or anything like that. Just a quick click and that’s it.

Where are screenshots saved?

To access your screenshots for sharing, you can do one of two things. First, once you take a screenshot on the Steam Deck, it’ll immediately pop up a small preview in the bottom right corner of the UI. If you want to view the screenshot right away, simply tap on that preview using the touchscreen.

Your other option is to head to your media library. And as luck would have it, there’s a dedicated menu for this, which you can access by pressing the Steam button. Pressing the Steam button remember, opens up the menu, and “media” is 5 options down, just below “friends & chat.”

Once there, you can find you recent screenshots taken. There’s also tags for “all,” “public,” “friends only,” “unlisted,” and “private.” Worth noting is that you’ll find screenshots that you’ve taken on the Windows version of Steam here as well. Though not necessarily all of them.

Upload them to your Steam library

Once you’ve captured your screenshots, if you want to view them off the Steam Deck you’re going to need to upload them. And once you upload them you can easily view them on your PC from the screenshots library.

Once uploaded, you can also manage them right from the Steam Deck. Including changing the visibility, adding captions, adding them to your favorites and adding spoiler tags.

You do not however seem to be able to view comments or interact/respond to them on the Steam Deck. You can however do those things from the screenshot library in the Windows version of Steam if you upload them first and share them to your feed.