Android has a nifty hidden feature that lets you take partial screenshots

Android is pretty cool, but taking decent screenshots could be painstakingly frustrating – especially when you want to capture only a small part of your screen. Fortunately, things might be about to get a lot easier.

A resourceful YouTuber going by the name Maxr1998 has come across an intriguing snippet of code hidden inside Android Nougat that hints future versions of Google’s mobile operating system might include a nifty feature that lets you effortlessly take partial screenshots.

The functionality was first discovered by recreational Android geek MrWasdennnoch, when he accidentally stumbled upon a snippet – called ‘Partial Screenshot‘ – in the source code of Nougat 7.1.

As demonstrated in this video by Maxr1998, the feature lets you seamlessly snap partial screenshots by adjusting the size and grid position with your fingers.

Maxr1998 and MrWasdennnoch were quick to point out that the feature is not readily available for all users – instead, you’ll need to tweak a few lines of code to activate it. You can enable the functionality by changing line 53 of TakeScreenshotService to takeScreenshotPartial().

The new feature is bound to make a lot of Android users happy as it significantly simplifies the process of taking partial screenshots. Personally, I can’t wait to use it myself.

Unfortunately, there’s no telling when the hidden partial screenshot functionality will officially roll out to all Android users – let’s just hope it’s sooner rather than later.