I’ve been there too. I pulled Jing Yuan on my second ever 10-pull last year, snapped a dozen shots to show my friend group, and then spent 10 minutes tapping through every folder on my Android phone trying to find where the game saved them. That frustration is exactly why I put together this simple walkthrough for how to access Honkai Star Rail screenshots no matter what device you play on. Whether you’re capturing a perfect Memory of Chaos clear, a stunning shot of your favorite character in the Xianzhou Luofu cherry blossoms, or a silly clip of your team glitching through a wall, this guide will help you find those files in seconds.
How to Access Honkai Star Rail Screenshots by Device Type
The exact steps to find your captures vary a lot depending on what platform you use to play HSR, so we broke down instructions for every supported device below. For all devices, remember there are two types of screenshots you can take: ones captured with the in-game photo mode, and ones captured with your device’s default system screenshot tool. We’ll cover both cases for each platform.
For Windows PC players, the default in-game screenshot save path for Windows PC is C:\Users\[Your Username]\AppData\LocalLow\Cognosphere\Star Rail\ScreenShot. If you used the system print screen key instead of the in-game photo mode, those saves will go to your system’s default screenshots folder, usually in your Pictures library. But if you installed the game on a different drive than your C drive, you’ll need to navigate to the custom install folder you selected during setup, then open the Star Rail > ScreenShot subfolder to find your files.
For Android users, in-game photo mode saves are stored in Internal Storage > Android > data > com.miHoYo.StarRail > files > ScreenShot by default. That said, newer Android versions restrict access to the Android/data folder for security reasons, so you don’t have to root your phone or download extra file managers to get your shots. Just open the in-game photo mode, tap the album icon in the bottom left corner, select the shot you want, and tap export to save it directly to your main device gallery. For iOS players, all in-game photo mode saves automatically go to your main Photos app as long as you grant storage access permission to HSR when you first launch the game. If you don’t see them there, double check your app permission settings in your iOS settings menu.
For PlayStation 5 players, both in-game photo mode shots and system screenshots are stored in your console’s Media Gallery, under the Honkai Star Rail folder. You can filter captures by date or type to find the exact shot you’re looking for, and you can transfer them to a USB drive or upload them directly to social media from the Media Gallery menu.
Key Differences Between In-Game Photo Mode Captures and System Screenshots
Many new players don’t realize there’s a big difference between using HSR’s built-in photo mode and hitting your device’s default screenshot button, and that difference impacts where your files are saved and how good they look. In-game photo mode captures are always higher quality, and they come with a ton of extra editing features you don’t get with system screenshots.
To help you decide which tool to use for your next shot, here are the biggest advantages of using the in-game photo mode:
- No overlapping UI elements like health bars, quest prompts, or chat windows for cleaner, more polished shots
- Built-in filters, pose adjustments, character expression controls, and background blur tools that don’t require third-party editing apps
- Higher resolution output than most default system screenshot tools on mobile and console, so your shots look crisp even when shared on large screens
System screenshots are still a good option if you want to capture something unexpected that happens mid-battle, like a lucky crit that clears a boss before you can open photo mode. Just remember those saves will go to your device’s default screenshot folder, not the HSR game folder, so you’ll need to look there if you can’t find them in the in-game album. For example, if you snap a quick shot of a 5-star pull right as it pops up, that system screenshot will be in your main device gallery, not the HSR ScreenShot folder.
Common Issues Finding HSR Screenshots and Quick Fixes
Even if you follow the steps above, you might run into a few common roadblocks that stop you from finding your captures. Most of these issues take less than a minute to fix, so you don’t have to panic if you can’t find that perfect shot you took earlier.
The most common issue for PC players is not being able to see the AppData folder where HSR stores in-game screenshots. That’s because AppData is a hidden folder by default on Windows. To fix this, open your file explorer, go to the View tab, and tick the box next to enable hidden file visibility in your file explorer. You’ll now be able to see and access the AppData folder to get to your saves. If you still can’t find them, use your file explorer’s search bar to search for “Star Rail ScreenShot” and it will pull up the folder location for you.
The most common issue for Android users is not being able to access the Android/data folder as we mentioned earlier. Don’t waste time downloading third-party file managers that claim to unlock this folder, because most of them don’t work on newer Android versions and can pose security risks. The export function in the in-game photo album works 100% of the time, and it saves the full resolution version of your shot directly to your gallery.
For PS5 players, the most common issue is screenshots not showing up in your local Media Gallery. If that happens, check your PS Plus cloud sync settings first. If you have auto-sync enabled for captures, your shots might have been uploaded directly to the cloud instead of saved to your local console storage. You can access them from the cloud section of your Media Gallery, or adjust your sync settings to save copies locally in the future.
Pro Tips to Organize and Share Your HSR Captures
Once you know how to find your screenshots, you can take a few extra steps to make sure you never lose your favorite shots and can share them safely with the community. I take at least 5 HSR screenshots a week, so these tips are all ones I use personally to keep my library organized.
First, create a dedicated folder on your device or cloud storage for your favorite HSR screenshots, and rename them with relevant details so you can find them later. For example, instead of leaving the default file name like “Screenshot20240512182309”, rename it to “Seele 5 star pull 10 pity” or “MoC 10 3 star clear”. That way, if you want to show your friend your lucky pull a few months later, you don’t have to scroll through hundreds of files to find it.
Second, back up your favorite shots to a cloud storage service like Google Photos, iCloud, or Dropbox. If you switch devices or uninstall the game for any reason, you won’t lose all the shots you’ve taken over months of playing. I learned this the hard way when I switched phones last year and forgot to back up my HSR album, so I lost all my screenshots from my first 6 months of playing.
Third, always blur sensitive account details before sharing publicly. If your screenshot has your UID, payment receipt, or personal chat messages visible, blur those parts out before posting to Reddit, Discord, or other public HSR communities. Scammers often target public posts to find UIDs for phishing scams or account hacking attempts, so this small step keeps your account safe. You don’t need fancy editing tools to do this either, most built-in gallery apps have a blur or markup tool you can use in 10 seconds.
Next time you snap the perfect shot of your favorite character standing in the middle of Belobog’s snowfields, or capture that lucky 5-star pull on your first 10 pull, you won’t have to spend 10 minutes scrolling through random folders to find it. Knowing how to access Honkai Star Rail screenshots across all your devices makes it easy to save, share, and celebrate all your best HSR moments with the community. You can even submit your best shots to official HSR fan art contests for a chance to win in-game rewards, so there’s no better time to start building your collection of great captures.
