How to screenshot on Mac

The Macintosh is a family of personal computers designed, manufactured, and sold by Apple Inc. since January 1984. The original Macintosh is the first successful mass-market all-in-one desktop personal computer to have featured a graphical user interface, built-in screen, and mouse.

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As we all know, Apple has released two new versions M1 and M2 of most of its iconic Macs, but how you take a screenshot remains the same.

Screenshot tools for Mac have always been easy to use, yet somewhat rudimentary. You could capture just about anything—if you knew the right keyboard shortcuts. Since the release of Mojave, macOS now has a built-in screenshot tool—similar to what you might find in Windows—that allows you to take screen grabs with the click of a button.

To open the screenshot tool, navigate to Launchpad > Other > Screenshot, or use the keyboard shortcut Shift + Command + 5. The floating toolbar will offer options to grab the entire screen, a selected window, or a custom section of the screen. You can also capture a video of the entire screen or a custom selection. Here’s how to capture what’s on your screen.

How to screenshot on Mac

To take a screenshot, press and hold these three keys together: Shift, Command, and 3.
If you see a thumbnail in the corner of your screen, click it to edit the screenshot. Or wait for the screenshot to save to your desktop.

How to screenshot on Mac (a portion of the screen)

Press and hold these three keys together: Shift, Command, and 4.
Drag the crosshair to select the area of the screen to capture. To move the selection, press and hold Space bar while dragging. To cancel taking the screenshot, press the Esc (Escape) key.
To take the screenshot, release your mouse or trackpad button.
If you see a thumbnail in the corner of your screen, click it to edit the screenshot. Or wait for the screenshot to save to your desktop.

How to screenshot on Mac (a window or menu)

Open the window or menu that you want to capture.
Press and hold these keys together: Shift, Command, 4, and Space bar. The pointer changes to a camera icon. To cancel taking the screenshot, press the Esc (Escape) key.
Click the window or menu to capture it. To exclude the window’s shadow from the screenshot, press and hold the Option key while you click.
If you see a thumbnail in the corner of your screen, click it to edit the screenshot. Or wait for the screenshot to save to your desktop.

Where to find screenshots

By default, screenshots save to your desktop with the name ”Screen Shot [date] at [time].png.”

In macOS Mojave or later, you can change the default location of saved screenshots from the Options menu in the Screenshot app. You can also drag the thumbnail to a folder or document.

Bonus for Touch Bar MacBooks: Cmd-Shift-6

If you’ve got an older 15- or 16-inch MacBook Pro or a current 13-inch MacBook Pro, which is the very last model with the Touch Bar, you can also take a screenshot of what’s currently showing on the Touch Bar. Just hit Cmd-Shift-6 to take a very wide and skinny screenshot of your Touch Bar.