Categories: How to take a screenshot

Does Facebook notify when you screenshot?

Does Facebook notify when you screenshot? Well, simplest answer is NO, it does not notify. So let me tell you clearly that if you are thinking of your own privacy or do not want your friend to get notified while you take a screenshot on his or her Facebook profile pic, then unlike Snapchat where the other friend would be notified, in Facebook you can easily take a screenshot without them knowing 🙂

Does Facebook notify when you screenshot?

No, FB does not notify. You can take a screenshot of anything on Facebook without them knowing including the private messages, profile pictures and stories.
Having said that, if you are really concerned about own privacy then best way is to switch to Social Apps like Snapchat where the other side user is immediately notified if you take a screenshot of Snapchat story or limit your exposure on Facebook so that your photos are not used by someone else without your knowledge.
In fact as of today anyone who can see your Facebook public stories can not only screenshot the stories but also download the photos in high resolution.
And same is applicable even while using the chat App from Facebook as called as Facebook messenger, so when you take a screenshot of Facebook story or Facebook messenger, after taking a screenshot only your phone will notify you! that you have generated a screenshot, and no one else would even know or notified about it! and this may not happen even in near future!
In fact Facebook promotes sharing the content! it provides simple and direct sharing option to your profile photo or stories which are public.
Now I will divide this post into Two main aspects

Your profile picture and its privacy against screenshot by someone else
Private messages sent over Instant messaging system in Facebook and it privacy against screenshot

What is Risk of profile picture stealing and how to arrest it on FaceBook?

Having said that FB has over 1.94 billion active Facebook users in a month, Facebook finally seems to have creeping security stage by stage, and the first attempt is to provide privacy to your profile Picture with new feature of Profile Picture Guard on the Facebook app for Android.
In real world there are thousands of unreal people creating fake Facebook profiles for some unwanted reasons and may misuse your profile picture for the same.
Some fake accounts may be created by stealing identities, profile information, profile pictures downloading the same from some real account! Further the account may be misused to target people you know or even cause some unknown amount of damage including financial as well as spoiling your prestige!
Hence it is very very important to protect your private information and the profile picture, which is fulfilled to some extent after Facebook introduced Profile Picture Guard last year.

How to Use Profile Picture Guard in FaceBook?

Profile picture guard will surely help protect your current profile picture from misuse by someone without your consent.
When profile picture guard is turned on:

On Desktop, Laptop or Android App, you will see Guard Shield indicating that this profile picture is protected for privacy.
Only you and your Facebook friends can tag your current profile picture.
Other people who opens up your profile picture can’t tap Share, Send in message, Share externally or Download from your current profile picture on Facebook and on Desktop the picture will be downloaded as a HTML file instead of an image file.
By default right click will be disabled on desktop version once the shield is ON.
However there are serious limitations to this method, since on Android the standard screenshot method works even when the picture guard is ON or even on desktop or laptop you can easily use screen capture / printscreen button to take a screenshot.
So FaceBook needs to bridge miles to get to the level of Snapchat and they are nowhere near by 1% also to the Snapchat security.
So still real users may be discouraged from posting their real photos as profile pictures, hopefully this will be fixed soon to get it to more robust technique, at least I am happy to see that the direction set by Facebook is right.
However still the new blue shielded border is a “visual cue” of protection, rather than any hard barrier and Facebook says that something as simple as adding a design overlay to a picture means that others are at least 75 percent less likely to copy it.

How to Turn on Profile Picture Guard in FaceBook?

To turn on profile picture guard for your current profile picture follow these simple steps —
1) Go to your profile and click your profile picture.
Note: When you turn profile picture guard on or off, you need to click on the top of your profile picture and not on Update Profile Picture.
2) Now Click on Options.
3) You will see the guard icon >> Click Turn On Profile Picture Guard.
4) Click Save.
You will see now that a profile-picture-guard icon is appearing on the bottom of your profile picture showing that it is protected.
Note : I tried switching ON this Profile Picture Guard feature from the desktop version (as mentioned on Facebook official guide), however said option is not available while tried on Desktop version but I was able to enable the guard from Android version.
Note 2 : The feature is not available in the US. It’s prime target appears to be countries in South Asia

Does Facebook notify when you screenshot the Private messages sent over Instant messaging system?

Now why someone wants to take a screenshot of private message?
Needless to say the reasons, may be they are intimate reasons or you wish to use the screenshot against the other person legally, without them knowing?
Maybe when you receive some nasty picture or a really disturbing comment in an instant message, you want to capture a screenshot to use as a proof against that person inside your company or report to the local authorities?
Well, unlike Snapchat or Instagram where private instant messaging systems are capable of notifying other side users about screenshot, Facebook does not notify the other user about screenshot even for the Private instant message.
So you can take a screenshot of private instant message and use it as per your wish!
One other GOOD thing is that even the person on the other side who has offended you (or in love with you!) deletes the offending photo and message from his account, it will still be visible in your account (since deleting chat or IM is one way action in Facebook) so you can still show / use your account to report to authorities, so protect the message at your end and do not delete it.
However, one BAD thing is that if the other person deletes the FB account before you take any legal action, the message may not show the senders name and show as “Facebook User” for the deleted account, so best way to initiate action without them knowing.

There is one more clear evidence showing that Facebook does not notify

Does Facebook notify somebody if I save one of their pictures? (Like snapchat)

Question :

Someone accidentally saved a photo from unknown account, and he was nervous that they might get a notification XYZ person downloaded your photo! or something like that
So question is that “Does facebook send those types of notifications to people?”

Answer from FaceBook help team

No, no one will know if you download or save their photos.
Facebook community guide (official guide question answer page) – Source

Bottom line

In the view of current incidents it is suggested to use privacy protection systems to its best, like the Profile picture shield provided by Facebook.
Other things do include checking all the privacy settings on Facebook carefully to protect vital information like birth date, current city, education details from becoming Public and limit it to your friends only.
And after reading this post if you feel that Facebook should notify the other user or you about screenshot of pictures, then do put comments below to provide inputs to designers and programmers (assuming that FB keeps an eye over internet happenings and being a good blog gets automatic notification on user requirements using data collection algorithms)
Hope this helps!
Cheers!!