I recommended some commercial screen capture utilities in my previous guide for BlackBerry
but you can safely ignore that advice as here are alternate solutions
that aren’t just free, some of them will even help you grab images of
your BlackBerry screen without having to connect the phone to the
computer.
1. Capture BlackBerry Screenshots from Command Prompt
Get the free Java Loader Commander utility from BBforums (mirror)
and unzip the file to some folder on your hard drive. Now connect the
BlackBerry device to your computer via the USB cable and navigate to
the screen that you want to save as an image.
Open the command prompt and switch to the folder that contains the extracted files. Type JL_Cmder.cmd and press enter. Just follow the simple wizard to save screenshots of your BlackBerry screen.
2. Take Screenshots with BB Screenshooter
The
official RIM command line utility discussed above can be a bit
intimidating for non-techies so here’s a standard GUI based application
for capturing screenshots of BlackBerry.
The utility is called BBScreenshooter and it lets you take captures in multiple image formats from your Windows desktop. You can even preview screenshots before shooting.
To use BB Screeenshoter, first download the JavaLoader tool and unzip it to a folder. Then download the BBscreenshoter.exe file in the same folder and run. Specify the location of Java Loader utility and the application is now ready to take pictures of your BlackBerry screen.
3. Wireless Screen Captures for BlackBerry
The downside with either of the above solutions is that they both are desktop based so you first need to connect the BlackBerry phone to the computer before taking screen captures.
Now
in situations where you want to grab the BlackBerry screen while you’re
miles away from the computer, CaptureIt will come very handy. Open m.thetechmogul.com in your BlackBerry browser and install the CaptureIt application (mirror).
This will add a "Capture It" option to your BlackBerry menu - you can select that option, wait until the vibration is over and an image of your current BlackBerry screen will get saved either in the external memory card or to the device memory.
Alternatively, you can go to Home - Options - Screen Keyboard and assign a convenience key to the Capture It application. Then you’ll be able to capture screenshots with a simple click without having to use the menu option.
BES Monitoring Tool
Tired of BES Outages? Up in 15 minutes. Get free trial! www.enowconsulting.com
Zimbra for BlackBerry®
Over-the-air wireless sync now To the web and your desktop, too! www.01.com
Find this article at: http://www.labnol.org/gadgets/capture-blackberry-screenshot-images/6192/
web: http://www.labnol.org/ email: amit@labnol.org
Reader Comments
Great Tip. Unfortunately I don’t have Blackberry.
Written by Chris Martin on 12.23.08
the wireless app capture it did not work for me alas. do i need to reboot my bb?
Written by anil on 12.23.08
Anil - I could install Capture It OTA without requiring a reboot. Did you set the right install permissions for the application?
Written by Amit on 12.23.08
I’m going to test out the BBScreenshooter application you have listed at #2. I have published a lot of Blackberry content, some of which includes pictures I have taken of the screen with a digital camera. :-)
Written by Ken Hanscom on 12.26.08
Here’s one more alternative. Use the BB simulators. They have built in capability for screen snapshots.
Cheers,
Peter
Written by Peter Cranstone on 01.02.09
I’m new to BB, retiring from Palm OS. I just installed CaptureIt on the Storm. It installs and works flawlessly. I’ve been hoping to find a freeware screen capture app. Many thanks Amit.
Written by Shawn on 01.03.09