Learn how to stop your iPhone or iPad from automatically opening a full-screen image when taking a screenshot, and display a thumbnail in the screen corner instead, just like it used to be.
Taking a screenshot on iOS 18 and earlier produces a thumbnail in the bottom-left corner momentarily that you can touch to open the fullscreen interface with Markup, Crop, and other tools.
iOS 26 turns this upside down as the captured screenshot opens in fullscreen. And if you exit the Markup interface by hitting the pencil icon, you can use visual intelligence on the screenshot. This change poses a significant hindrance to taking multiple screenshots in a quick succession, and gets in the way of instantly sharing a screenshot without extra steps.
The good news is, you can revert this behavior with a few taps. Even better, we have step-by-step instructions showing you how it’s done.
Turn off iPhone screenshot preview on iOS 26
You’ll see a small popup after taking your first screenshot on iOS 26, asking if you’d like to change this behavior.
If you missed it, go to Settings > General > Screen Capture and turn off the Full-Screen Previews switch.
This will stop subsequent screenshots from opening automatically after being taken.
To check, grab a test screenshot and you should see a thumbnail in the bottom-left corner instead of the fullscreen interface. Like before, the thumbnail swooshes out of view after 3 seconds and gets saved in Photos.
Also, check out: How to take a full-page screenshot in any iPhone app
