Android 16 lets you record what you’re doing on an external monitor

Using Android’s built-in screen recorder feature, it’s easy to record the screen of an Android phone. However, if you connect your Android phone to an external monitor, there’s no easy way to record what’s happening on the external display. That’s because Android’s screen recorder currently doesn’t support recording the content of external displays, but that’s set to change in the upcoming Android 16 update.

When I connected my Pixel phone running Android 16 Beta 3 to an external monitor, I noticed that the Android screen recorder dialog now had a third option in the dropdown menu: “Record HDMI Screen.” When I disconnected the phone from the external monitor, the options reverted to the familiar “Record one app” and “Record this screen.”