I’m working on a series of blogs about banking apps, and screenshots are important to document what I see: however some banking apps don’t allow screenshots at all. Starling, for example, has an option to enable screenshots for 15 minutes but Cooperative Bank doesn’t have that option.

Getting round this took me while to figure out! This guide might not be the best way, but this is what I did.

Please note this not that simple to do, you’ll need some trouble shooting skills in addition to the info below. You can take screenshots from the web interface for banks, so I’d suggest trying that instead if it will do, or use bank statements etc.

You will need

• A phone
  • Android 11 or earlier
  • Android 12 or later must be rooted [read more]
• An application called scrcpy
  • Instructions below are for Dedora linxs
  • Scrcpy docs here
• USB C to C or C to A cable
  • I found the process very sensitive to cable
    • One phone would only work with the C to C cable I use to charge my other laptop
    • The other phone would only work with a C to A cable from a phone charger
      • I suspect the second phone was drawing more power
    • People mention things like “using the original cable worked”
      • https://github.com/Genymobile/scrcpy/issues/3054#issuecomment-1783908797
      • https://github.com/Genymobile/scrcpy/issues/283

On your computer

• Install scrpy – instructions here for fedora using snapd
• Reboot – I also had to fully reboot between installing Snapd and Installing scrpy

On the Android phone

• Open developer options – I searched for these options tapping on the settings cog
• Enable usb debugging [read more]
  • I had to switch off “autoblocker” security tool (again, searched for that under settings)
• I also had to change default usb configuration to USB tethering [read more] then reconnect phone after
• I also suspect turning off usb tethering hotspot helped in my older phone

Connect them together

• Run scrcpy
  • For me this was snap run scrcpy
• I had a lot of troubleshooting at this step, changing cables and settings did evntually get this working

I then get a window on my screen that mirrors the phone screen exactly. On the older version of android I can see my banking apps!

There may be an easier way of doing this on android 11 or earlier, perhaps screen mirroring isn’t necessary, I did find screenshots are still blocked on banking apps for e.g. android 9 but didn’t research any further as I have already figured this solution out at that point.