The Best Way to Share Your PlayStation Screenshots

The slow death of Twitter (er, X) continues on. This week, Sony announced it will be dropping X integration on both PS4 and PS5 starting Nov. 13. From that point on, PlayStation customers will not be able to share screenshots and game play footage to their X accounts, at least not directly from their consoles.

That’s not great news for any players who frequently upload their game progress to X, but it doesn’t mean they’re out of luck. It’s not hard to share your PlayStation screenshots and game clips wherever you like, as long as you get it set up first.

Taking a screenshot or recording gameplay on PlayStation

You likely already know how to capture your gameplay on your PS5 or PS4, but just in case, here’s a quick refresher:

• PS5: Press the Create button, then choose Take Screenshot, Start New Recording, or Save Recent Gameplay. If you choose to start recording, you’ll need to hit the Create button again to choose Stop Recording when finished.
• PS4: To take a screenshot, you can do one of the following: Press and hold the Share button on your controller; press the Share button, and then press the triangle button; or press the Share button, then hit Save Screenshot. To record a video, you can hit the Share button twice to start recording, then twice again to stop. You can also press the Share button, then choose Save Video Clip.

Sharing PS5 screenshots and game recordings

Right now, the easiest way to share screenshots and clips from your PS5 is to use the PlayStation app for iPhone and Android. If you haven’t set it up already, open the app, then go to Settings > Link Console to App. The on-screen instructions will walk you through linking the app to your PS5.

You’ll also need to make sure your PS5 always stays connected to the internet, even during rest mode. To do so, turn on your PS5, go to Settings > System, choose Power Saving > Features Available in Rest Mode, then enable Stay Connected to the Internet.

With all this set up, your PlayStation app will save your screenshots and game recordings (under three minutes) automatically, but only for 14 days. If you want to add screenshots and game clips manually, go to Media Gallery on your PlayStation, highlight the media you want to move, press the Options button, then choose Upload to PlayStation app.

You’ll find all this media in the PlayStation app from Library > Captures. You can save media directly to your phone by hitting Download, or share elsewhere from Share > Share via.

You don’t need to rely on the PlayStation app, however. If you have a USB drive, plug it into your PS5. Next, open Media Gallery, highlight the media you want to move, then hit More > Copy to USB Drive. Now, you can plug that USB drive into a computer and share your content from there.

Sharing PS4 screenshots and game recordings

Unfortunately, the PlayStation app isn’t as useful for sharing PS4 screenshots and game recordings. You can use it, but with a weird workaround. To do so, make sure your console is linked to the app (see above for instructions), open Capture Gallery, choose the media you want to share, then press the Share button. When asked where you’d like to share the image to, choose Messages, then pick a friend to send the media to.

Once you hit Send, open the PlayStation app, go to your messages, then open the thread with your friend. Here, you’ll find your shared images, which you can save to your phone.

But you can also use a USB drive to move media to and from your PS4. Open Capture Gallery, choose a screenshot or clip, press the Options button then choose Copy to USB Storage. Finally, choose your files, then hit Copy.