I recently got myself an HTC Magic running Android and wondered if there’s a way I can take a screenshot of what’s running on the display. My previous phone was a Windows Smartphone and I had an application that did that for me. Is there a simple way to do this on my Android?

This might be the start of a series of Android questions., as I’ve just got my hand on one of these HTC Magic phones and I just had so many questions in the first few days. Anyway, I was preparing to answer a different question, when I realised that I didn’t quite know how to take a screenshot off the device. So I thought I’d answer this question first.

In order to take screenshots off the device, you don’t really need a dedicated application, as Google have kindly supplied everything you need with the SDK that you can freely download for Android. Here are the steps you need to set yourself up to take screenshots off your phone.

1. Download and install the Android SDK on your computer
2. Enable USB debugging on your phone, by going to Settings -> Application -> Development

3. Plug your phone to your computer using your USB connection. If this is the first time you are doing this, you will need to point the driver installation process to the Drivers folder of the SDK you have downloaded

4. Go to the Tools folder in the SDK and open the DDMS (Dalvik Debug Monitor Service) batch file
5. Click on your device in the application and choose Device -> Screen Capture

6. Use your device to navigate to the screen you want to want, click Refresh to capture the screen and Save to save it anywhere you like.

That should walk you through all the steps you need. Happy screenshooting.