Android may be a wide-open world compared to iOS, but there are still some things you just can’t do on Google’s mobile platform. One of them is capturing screenshots within apps that prohibit the act — either because the screen contains sensitive information or content protected by digital rights management. Lucky, then, that we have a trick up our sleeve called rooting! Yes, even in 2020, it still has utility for the people who need it the most. So, if you’d like to grab a freezeframe to meme up or spoil a drama series or keep some backup passcodes where you can easily pull them out, we’ve got a way to do that.
This is not a comprehensive tutorial on how to root your device because that’s not what you came to this particular article for (hopefully). The initial process is different from device to device and there are other things we’d want to explain in detail that we can’t do here for brevity. There are probably plenty of articles you could search for to help you out, no matter your expertise or where along in the process you are in.
Here are some convenient links to basic resources if you happen to need them:
From this point on, though, we’re going to assume you have a rooted device.
The good thing about this method for attaining screenshots where you usually can’t is that it ultimately works as a Magisk module. But while you do need to “create” the module yourself, you can do it in 5 to 10 minutes with a simple tool called the Smali Patcher courtesy of fOmey, a developer and XDA forums regular — you can check out their full write-up here or get straight to downloading the tool either here or with this Google Drive mirror link.
Now, we’ll take it step by step:
- Make sure your Android device has USB debugging enabled.
- Fire up your ADB tool on your computer and connect your phone. Make sure your phone’s recognized by executing:
adb devices
- Download and extract [email protected], then run SmaliPatcher.exe
SmaliPatcher requires your computer to have at least 3GB of RAM, .NET Framework 4.7.1 or later, Java, and an Android 6.0+ device.
- There are plenty of great patches you can apply here, but the one that we want here is Secure flag. Select that checkbox and hit the ADB PATCH button below.
- The tool will then generate a patch that will eventually appear in the same folder as SmaliPatcher.exe named [email protected]
- From there, you can sideload it onto your phone, open Magisk, hit Modules in the side menu, tap the + icon, and select that zip file. Then, reboot the device.
- Or you can boot into your recovery and load the zip file through an ADB sideload command.
And we’ve landed! Despite fOmey’s disclaimer that some of the tool’s patches may not work with Android 10 devices, we were able to take down the Secure flag on our Pocophone F1. Above on the left, you’ll see an attempted screenshot (using a Google Assistant-based workaround explained here by Tech Help KB on Medium) of the time-based codes from version 5.10 of Google Authenticator. On the right is the shot I got after patching my phone. Big difference, eh?
Kim’s Convenience / CBC, Netflix
It also works on Netflix, too!
Some shot-blocking apps may not fall to this patch — Amazon Prime Video among other streaming sources plus banking and password manager apps to name some — so your mileage may vary here. But if you need to grab a still on your phone by any means necessary, this will be your best bet.
