How do I get screenshots out of an iPhone screen recording?

One or two frames: use Photos

In iOS 27, Photos can save the frame you paused on (Apple’s instructions):

1. Open the screen recording in Photos and play it.
2. Pause on the frame you want.
3. Tap the More button, then Save Video Frame as Photo.

The picture is saved to your library next to the recording. On earlier versions of iOS, the usual workaround is to pause the video, tap once to hide the player controls, and take an ordinary screenshot.

This is the right tool for a frame or two. For a recording of a whole task, it means scrubbing to every screen by hand and hoping you paused after the animation, not during it.

Every screen at once: let the screen changes decide

A screen recording of an app has a useful shape. The screen moves, then settles, then moves again when you tap. Each settled stretch is one screen you would have screenshotted by hand.

Walkthru finds those stretches on the iPhone. It compares each frame of the recording with the last and cuts where the picture changed and then stopped changing. For each cut, it takes a frame from the middle of the still stretch, so the picture is not caught mid-animation. A 30-second recording of a seven-screen task should give you about seven pictures, not hundreds of frames or one picture every second.

Nothing is uploaded. There is no account, and the recording stays on the phone.

One of the step images Walkthru exported from the site’s 33-second demo recording, at 1320 × 2868 pixels. The tap marker, label and black redactions were added in the editor and drawn into the PNG; a step you leave alone exports as a plain screenshot.

Clean them up before you export

Because the pictures come out of an editor rather than straight from the video, you can fix them first:

• Remove the ones you do not need, such as a spinner that appeared for a second.
• Pick a better frame with Replace screenshot if a keyboard or banner got in the way.
• Add a missing screen with Add Screenshots if you moved past something too quickly, then drag it into place.
• Crop to the part of the screen that matters. The original stays in the guide.
• Cover private details. Walkthru offers to redact email addresses, phone numbers, card numbers and other details it reads on each picture.

If you want more than a folder of pictures

The same steps export as a numbered PDF guide, a Markdown bundle for a docs site or an MP4 video. To add instructions and turn the pictures into a guide, see turning a screen recording into a PDF guide. If you already have the screenshots, start from turning screenshots into a guide.

When a picture comes out wrong

What you see	What to do
A screen is missing	You moved on too quickly for it to settle. Record again with a short pause on each screen, or add a screenshot.
Two pictures of the same screen	Something on the screen kept changing, such as a timer or a loading bar. Delete the extra step.
A picture is caught mid-animation	Use Replace screenshot and choose a later frame.
Small text looks soft	That is video compression. For a picture where every letter must be crisp, take a real screenshot and use Replace from Photos.
The recording is black	Some apps block screen recording, and Apple notes this in its screen recording guide. Screenshots of those apps may be blocked too.