Capturing a screenshot is especially useful to share whatever you are seeing on the screen. Whether it’s sharing messages to your friends and family or taking an error message and sending it to tech support.
There are four simple ways to take screenshots on your Mac and how each step captures a different part of your screen. The process are all the same whether you are using macOS Mojave, macOS Catalina or macOS Big Sur. Taking a screen shot with Mac is a simple process and you just have to remember the keyboard shortcut which only differs in the last number that you use. This guide will help you take a screenshot on your Mac devices, whether you want the whole screen or just part of it. We will also walk you through how to use the screenshot toolbar.
Screenshot Tool
Since the launch of macOS Mojave, Mac users have a built in tool for taking screenshot. You can open the screenshot tool by going to Launchpad > Other > Screenshot or using Command + Shift + 5. You are given an option to take a screenshot of the entire screen, a selected window or a custom section of the screen. This is useful to record video, including the entire screen or a custom section of the screen. An options drop-down menu allows you to choose where to save the screenshot, set up a timer, and other settings. This is perhaps the most robust of the screenshot shortcuts as it offers several options and more flexibility.
After pressing the shortcut, you’ll see the toolbar appear at the bottom of the screen and you can move them if you like. The options let you choose if you want to set a timer and where to save the screenshot. It also allows you to choose if you want to show the mouse pointer or not. These is what each of the button means:
Command + Shift + 3
This is the simplest way to take a screenshot by screen grabbing your entire screen. Note that if you use a dual or three monitor setup, pressing this shortcut automatically takes a screenshot of all your monitors and not just your active screen.
Command + Shift + 4
Using this keyboard shortcut turns your cursor into a crosshair, which you can drag to select a portion of your screen to capture. Release the mouse button or trackpad to take that portion of the screen. You can press the ESC key to cancel. You can also capture a menu or menu items using this shortcut. Just drag the pointer over the menu items you want to capture.
If you want to take a screenshot of a window, you can press Command + Shift + 4 + Spacebar. This will change the pointer into a camera. You can move your pointer to the window you want to capture and it will highlight the window you want to capture. You can click on your mouse or your trackpad to take the screenshot or you can again press the ESC key to cancel.
Command +Shift + 6
If you have a Mac with a Touch Bar, you can take a screenshot of it using this keyboard shortcut.
When you take a screenshot, it appears as a thumbnail on the bottom left of the screen. It will stay there and will be saved to your screenshot folder in your desktop by default.
Screenshots are saved as .png files and screen recordings are saved .mov files. Filenames starts with “Screen Shot” or “Screen Recording” and includes the date and time. Please note that some apps such as Apple TV, DVD Player and Netflix might not allow you to take screenshots of the windows.
Press and hold the Control key while you take the screenshot if you want to use the Universal Clipboard to paste it to another Apple device.
