How to Take Netflix Screenshots Even If They Don’t Want To

We’ve all experienced the confusing frustration of watching a show when all of a sudden you want to pause it and take a screenshot, maybe to create a meme or share a joke with a friend. But when you click the screenshot button, all you get is a blank image, possibly with subtitles. This is a common problem on many streaming services like Netflix, Prime Video, Hulu, and more, but there is a workaround. We get an argument for video recording blocking, but what can a harmless screenshot do?

You don’t have to wait for industry-level changes to take screenshots of streaming media. You can do this directly on your computer in several ways. (Sorry, iPhone and Android users: there’s no easy, reliable way to do this on mobile other than taking a picture of your phone’s screen.)

Disable hardware acceleration

Simply disabling hardware acceleration — a feature that uses your computer’s GPU to speed up — in browsers like Chrome and Edge can be enough to unblock screenshot streaming. In Chrome, go to “Menu” > “Settings ” > “System ” and find the option ” Use hardware acceleration when available “. Turn it off and restart your browser. In Edge, go to Menu > Settings > System & Performance . Here, find “Use hardware acceleration when available” and disable this feature.

If you are a Firefox user on Windows 11, you are in luck. Streaming screenshots will work by default. If you’re using a different platform or they don’t work, go to Settings > Performance and uncheck Use recommended performance settings . Then turn off the “Use hardware acceleration” feature.

Once hardware acceleration is disabled, you can go back to media and take real screenshots to your heart’s content.

Alternatively try this chrome extension

If you don’t want to disable hardware acceleration (for fear of losing quality and resolution), you can try the Video Screenshot extension for Chrome and Chromium browsers. It works with multiple services such as Netflix, Disney+, Prime Video, and more.

Once installed, Video Screenshot will add a camera button to the video player interface on all streaming services. Click on it and the extension will save a copy of the screenshot to your Downloads folder. The only downside is that the extension doesn’t seem to capture subtitles, which isn’t great for the aforementioned meme creation. But you can add them yourself using any basic graphics editor.

[ Fringe ]