Chrome is getting a dedicated screenshot tool via its new share menu

In the Chrome browser, one can take a screenshot via the standard system keyboard shortcuts – though they differ on Chrome OS, Windows, macOS, and Linux, they are baked directly into the operating system. Interestingly enough, I never really thought about the fact that Chrome itself didn’t have such a feature to itself. Including OS-level features directly in the browser ensure its portability and its universal standardization across platforms. Now, there is a dedicated screenshot tool in the works that may soon be accessible via the new ‘Share’ menu which Google’s been working on!

Reddit user Leopeva64-2 has uncovered a patch on the Chromium Gerrit that places a ‘Screenshot’ button directly in the new paper airplane icon known as the share menu. The menu is new to Chrome and has been gaining features such as the ability to copy and share links out to apps and web apps, QR code generation, sending links to other devices that the user owns, and more.

sharing: add “Share” submenu skeleton

This change begins implementation of the “Share” submenu, which will centralize and deduplicate the various sharing options that are currently scattered across various menus. This change:
1. Adds a new feature named ShareMenu, which is default disabled
2. Adds a new class (ShareSubmenuModel) which implements this new submenu
3. Modifies RenderViewContextMenu to use the new ShareSubmenuModel when the new feature is enabled.

Chromium Gerrit

As you can see, this new “Share” submenu seeks to centralize all of the browser’s relevant options, and while it’s currently disabled by default, it is, in fact, there. Leopeva64-2 was able to get the menu to appear, and in the image above, the screenshot tool can be seen ready for use. There doesn’t seem to be a dedicated keyboard shortcut available to activate it at this time, but snapping a screengrab is only two clicks.

The development team does have some very interesting next steps planned for this share menu too. While “Copy Link” already exists here, the newly added “Copy Link to Text” feature for the right-click contextual menu in the browser will soon join it in the Omnibox share menu. Additionally, it looks like they plan to implement the sharing submenu into each individual browser tab when you right-click them. It’s unclear at this time whether or not the entire share menu will appear upon right-clicking, or if a screenshot option will appear alongside the other existing options like tab group creation, closing and duplicating tabs, and so on.

[DesktopScreenshots] Create ScreenshotFlow for region capture.

Creates directory for containing image_editor project.

Chromium Gerrit

Another commit actually indicates that capturing a specific region of the user’s browser screen may also be implemented in due time. As Leopeva64-2 rightly points out, Chromium Edge has had a dedicated screenshot function for some time now, and as both Chrome and Edge teams work closely together on the same source code, it was only a matter of time before this became a thing for the former. I’m willing to bet we also see other features from Edge come to Chrome soon, like vertical tabs (yuck), Collections, and more. Let me know in the comments what you think about a separate screenshot option being baked directly into the browser!