Taking a screenshot on your Mac is a fundamental skill, whether you’re sharing a funny online moment, creating a tutorial, or reporting a technical issue. macOS offers a variety of built-in tools to capture exactly what you need on your screen. This guide will walk you through all the methods for screen capturing on your Mac, from simple keyboard shortcuts to the powerful Screenshot app.
Capture the Entire Screen
The quickest way to capture everything visible on your Mac’s display is using a simple keyboard shortcut.
- Press and hold the Shift, Command (⌘), and 3 keys simultaneously. Then release them.
- You might see a brief flash on your screen. This indicates that a screenshot has been taken.
- A thumbnail of your screenshot will briefly appear in the bottom-right corner of your screen.
A video thumbnail illustrating how to take a screenshot on a Mac using keyboard shortcuts.
What happens next?
- Edit immediately: Click the thumbnail before it disappears to open a Quick Look preview where you can quickly edit, mark up, share, or delete the screenshot.
- Save automatically: If you don’t click the thumbnail, the screenshot will automatically be saved to your desktop as a PNG file named “Screen Shot [date] at [time].png”.
Capture a Portion of the Screen
Sometimes you only need to capture a specific area of your screen. macOS lets you easily select and screenshot just a portion.
- Press and hold the Shift, Command (⌘), and 4 keys simultaneously. Then release them.
- Your cursor will transform into a crosshair pointer.
- Click and drag the crosshair to select the rectangular area you want to capture.
- As you drag, a rectangle will appear, outlining the area to be screenshotted.
- Release the mouse or trackpad button to take the screenshot.
Tips for capturing a portion:
- Cancel: Press the Esc (Escape) key at any time to cancel the screenshot.
- Reposition selection: While dragging, if you need to adjust the position of your selection without resizing it, hold down the Space bar and drag.
- Edit or save: Just like with full-screen captures, a thumbnail will appear for quick editing, or the screenshot will save to your desktop.
Capture a Window or Menu
Need to capture a specific application window or a dropdown menu? macOS has a dedicated mode for that.
- Open the window or menu you want to capture. Ensure it is active and visible on your screen.
- Press and hold the Shift, Command (⌘), and 4 keys simultaneously, then release.
- Press the Space bar. The crosshair cursor will change into a camera icon.
Inline camera icon that appears as the cursor when selecting a window or menu to screenshot on macOS.
- Click on the window or menu you want to capture. The selected window will be highlighted.
Options for window capture:
- Cancel: Press the Esc (Escape) key to cancel.
- Exclude shadow: To capture the window without its shadow, hold down the Option (⌥) key while you click on the window.
- Edit or save: A thumbnail allows for immediate editing, otherwise, the screenshot saves to your desktop.
Using the Screenshot App for Advanced Options
For more control and features, macOS includes a dedicated Screenshot app.
- Press and hold the Shift, Command (⌘), and 5 keys simultaneously. Then release.
- A small toolbar will appear at the bottom of your screen.
This toolbar provides various options:
- Capture Entire Screen: (First icon to the left) Takes a screenshot of the entire display, similar to Shift-Command-3.
- Capture Selected Window: (Second icon) Allows you to select a specific window to capture, similar to Shift-Command-4 + Space.
- Capture Selected Portion: (Third icon) Lets you draw a rectangle to capture a specific area, similar to Shift-Command-4.
- Record Entire Screen: (Fourth icon) Starts recording a video of your entire screen.
- Record Selected Portion: (Fifth icon) Starts recording a video of a selected area of your screen.
- Options: (On the right side – “Options”) Click this for settings like:
- Save to: Choose where screenshots and recordings are saved (Desktop, Documents, Clipboard, etc.).
- Timer: Set a delay before the screenshot or recording starts (None, 5 seconds, 10 seconds).
- Show Floating Thumbnail: Toggle the thumbnail preview on/off.
- Remember Last Selection: Keeps your selected area for portion capture for future screenshots.
- Show Mouse Clicks in Video: Useful for screen recordings for tutorials.
You can also find and open the Screenshot app by going to Applications > Utilities > Screenshot.
Screen Recording on Mac
Besides screenshots, macOS also makes it easy to record videos of your screen. You can use either the Screenshot app (Shift-Command-5) as mentioned above, or QuickTime Player.
- Screenshot App: The Screenshot app toolbar includes options to record your entire screen or a selected portion.
- QuickTime Player: Open QuickTime Player (Applications > QuickTime Player), then choose File > New Screen Recording from the menu bar to start a screen recording.
For detailed instructions on screen recording, you can refer to guides specifically on “how to record the screen on your Mac”.
Finding and Managing Your Screen Captures
By default, screenshots and screen recordings are saved to your Desktop.
- File Naming: Files are named starting with “Screen Shot” or “Screen Recording” followed by the date and time, and saved as PNG files for screenshots and MOV files for screen recordings.
- Quick Access: The thumbnail preview provides a quick way to interact with your screenshot immediately after capture.
- Changing Save Location: Use the “Options” menu within the Screenshot app (Shift-Command-5) to change the default save location for your captures.
- Organizing: You can easily drag and drop the screenshot thumbnails or the saved files from your Desktop into other folders for better organization.
Pro Tips for Mac Screen Capture
- Save to Clipboard: To save a screenshot directly to your clipboard instead of saving a file, hold down the Control key while using any of the screenshot shortcuts (e.g., Control-Shift-Command-3 for full screen to clipboard). You can then paste the screenshot directly into documents, emails, or image editing software.
- App Restrictions: Some applications, particularly those playing protected video content like Apple TV, might prevent screenshots of their windows for copyright reasons.
- Thumbnail Behavior: If you hover your mouse pointer over the screenshot thumbnail, it will remain visible longer, allowing you more time to interact with it.
Mastering screen capture on your Mac enhances your productivity and communication. Experiment with these different methods to find the quickest and most efficient way to capture and share your screen content!
