Chrome Story

How do you take a picture on a Chromebook? To take a picture, open the Camera app and tap the circular icon.

Want to learn more about taking photos using your Chromebook? Read on.

Note: If you are looking for a way to take a screenshot and not a photo, click here.

Do Chromebooks have cameras?

Do Chromebooks have cameras? Yes, they do. Chromebooks come with a built-in camera app as well.

Most Chromebooks have one front-facing Camera. However, some of the Pixel Slate or Lenovo Chromebook Duet might have a back-facing camera, too, like other tablets in the market.

Take a Picture on a Chromebook

Chromebooks come with a built-in camera app. To take a picture on a Chromebook, launch the camera app and click the circular icon.

Read on to learn more about the Chromebook camera app. We will also go through some tips and tricks to use the Camera app to take pictures or videos using your Chromebook.

Open the Camera app

Click the search icon and type in Camera. Next, click the camera icon to open it.

You can also “Pin” the Camera app to your taskbar to access it with a single click. While the camera app is open, right-click the camera icon on the Shelf and choose “Pin.”

Pinned apps show up on your Chromebook’s Shelf. Click the camera icon on the Shelf to open it the next time.

Take Picture

To take a picture on a Chromebook, click the circular icon on the right-hand side of the Camera app.

Record Videos on Chromebook

To record a video on your Chromebook, open the Camera app and switch to Video by clicking “Video” from the list on the right-hand side:

The circular icon for taking photos will now change to a red record icon for videos. Tap this icon to start recording:

Next, let us look at the additional options and settings available on the Camera app.

Chromebook Camera App Settings

To access settings, click the gear icon on the top-left corner.

From the Settings screen, you can:

• Enable grid lines
• Set a timer (you can choose between 3 and 10 seconds)
• Change camera resolution
• Send feedback
• Access help

Apart from switching between video and photo, the scroll menu on the right-hand gives the following options:

• Square
• Portrait

Take Selfie Using the Chromebook Camera

Most Chromebooks have only a front-facing camera. This makes Selfie mode the only mode on these devices. So when you are looking at the screen of your Chromebook, you are looking at the camera. So take a picture to take a selfie.

On devices like Pixel Slate, where you have a front-facing camera and a regular camera, you can switch between the two to get to selfie mode.

Find pictures from your camera

Now that you know how to take pictures using your Chromebook’s camera let me show you where to find them.

The camera app shows your most recent photo in the screen’s bottom-right corner. Click this thumbnail to open the photo.

That’s about the most recent photo. What about others?

By default, Chromebook saves your photos and screenshots into the Downloads folder. To access this:

1. Open the Files app
2. Click My Files and then Downloads. Downloads”>
3. On the Downloads folder, you will see your photos starting with the file name IMG. The remaining numbers in the file name will be the year, month, and date. For example, IMG_20200826_142044.jpg is from 08 (August) 26th, 2020.

Third-party Camera and Image Editing Apps

If your Chromebook supports Android apps, you can download and install third-party camera apps from the Play Store. For example, here is the Cinema FV-5 Lite app installed on a Pixel Slate.

In the same way, you can install Android apps to edit images and videos too. So what’s your favorite camera or image-editing app? Let us know in the comments section.