How to Take a Screenshot on a Mac

Coming from Windows, this is the biggest mental switch: there is no dedicated Print Screen key on a Mac keyboard. The Command (⌘) key does the heavy lifting instead, and macOS gives you finer control out of the box — you can capture a single window cleanly, copy straight to the clipboard, or record video, all without installing anything.

Capture the whole screen — Shift-Command-3

1. Press Shift-Command-3 all at once.
2. You will hear a camera-shutter sound and a small thumbnail appears in the bottom-right corner of the screen.
3. Leave the thumbnail alone and it saves to your Desktop after a couple of seconds. Click it to mark up, crop or share the image first; drag it into a document, an email or a folder to drop it straight in; or swipe it to the right to dismiss and save immediately.

If you use more than one display, macOS captures each screen as its own separate file.

Capture a selected part of the screen — Shift-Command-4

1. Press Shift-Command-4. The pointer turns into a crosshair with pixel coordinates next to it.
2. Click and drag to draw a box around the area you want. Hold Space mid-drag to move the whole box, hold Shift to lock one edge, or hold Option to resize from the centre.
3. Release the mouse or trackpad to take the shot. Press Esc before releasing to cancel without capturing anything.

Capture a single window or menu

This is the cleanest way to screenshot one app — no manual cropping, and you get a tidy drop shadow around the window.

1. Press Shift-Command-4, then tap the Space bar. The crosshair becomes a small camera icon.
2. Move the camera over the window you want. It highlights in blue.
3. Click to capture just that window, including its shadow. Hold Option as you click if you would rather leave the shadow out.

The same trick works on an open menu: click the menu to open it, press Shift-Command-4, tap Space, then click the menu.

The Screenshot toolbar — Shift-Command-5

If you would rather point and click than memorise shortcuts, press Shift-Command-5 to open the built-in Screenshot app. A small control bar appears near the bottom of the screen with everything in one place.

1. The three buttons on the left are for still images: Capture Entire Screen, Capture Selected Window and Capture Selected Portion.
2. The next two buttons record video: Record Entire Screen and Record Selected Portion.
3. Choose a mode, then click Capture (or Record) on the right of the bar.
4. Click Options to set a timer, choose where the file is saved, show or hide the pointer, and toggle the floating thumbnail. Press Esc to close the toolbar.

Copy to the clipboard instead of saving a file — add Control

Sometimes you do not want another file cluttering the Desktop — you just want to paste an image straight into a chat, a document or an image editor. Hold Control together with any of the shortcuts above and the screenshot goes to the clipboard instead of to a file:

• Control-Shift-Command-3 — copy the whole screen.
• Control-Shift-Command-4 — copy a selection.

Then paste it wherever you need with Command-V. Nothing is written to disk.

Where screenshots are saved — and how to change it

By default macOS drops screenshots on the Desktop, named Screenshot [date] at [time].png. Screen recordings save the same way as .mov files — Apple's own macOS User Guide states the files are saved to the desktop with the name beginning "Screenshot" or "Screen Recording" plus the date and time. To send them somewhere tidier:

1. Press Shift-Command-5 to open the Screenshot toolbar.
2. Click Options.
3. Under Save to, pick a preset such as Documents or Clipboard, or choose Other Location… to point at any folder you like — a dedicated Screenshots folder is a popular choice.

Your choice sticks for future screenshots until you change it again.

Capture the Touch Bar — Shift-Command-6

If your Mac has a Touch Bar — the thin OLED strip above the keyboard on certain MacBook Pro models — you can photograph what it is showing with Shift-Command-6. The result is a long, narrow PNG saved to the same location as your other screenshots. On Macs without a Touch Bar this shortcut simply does nothing.

Changing or checking the shortcuts

All of these key combinations can be remapped if they clash with something else. Open System Settings (the current name — older macOS versions called it System Preferences), go to Keyboard → Keyboard Shortcuts… — the route Apple gives for changing keyboard shortcuts on Mac — and select Screenshots in the sidebar. From there you can turn individual shortcuts on or off, or click one and press a new combination to reassign it.

Shift-Command-3            Whole screen → file
Shift-Command-4            Drag to select a region → file
Shift-Command-4, Space     Click a window → file (with shadow)
Shift-Command-5            Screenshot toolbar + screen recording
Shift-Command-6            Touch Bar (if fitted)
Add Control to any of the above → clipboard instead of a file