How to Screenshot on Mac
Every Mac screenshot method explained. Full screen, selected area, specific windows, timed captures, and where to find your files.
If you have ever tried to take a screenshot on a Mac by pressing Print Screen and had nothing happen, welcome to the club. Macs do not have a Print Screen key. They have a set of keyboard shortcuts instead, and Apple does not exactly advertise them prominently.
Once you learn these shortcuts, they are actually more flexible than the Windows approach. You can capture the full screen, a selected region, a specific window, or even set a timer for delayed captures. You can save to a file, copy to clipboard, or both. macOS also includes a built-in screen recording tool through the same shortcut family, so once you learn these combinations, you never need a third-party capture app.
Here is every method, from the one you will use daily to the ones you will use occasionally but be glad you know.
Capture the full screen with Cmd + Shift + 3
This captures your entire screen instantly and saves it as a PNG file on your desktop. If you have multiple monitors, each monitor becomes its own separate file. You will see a small thumbnail appear in the bottom-right corner of your screen. Click it within 5 seconds to open a quick markup editor where you can crop, annotate, add text, draw, or share directly from the preview. If you do nothing, the thumbnail fades away and the file auto-saves to your desktop after those 5 seconds. The file is named "Screenshot" followed by the date and time. This method captures absolutely everything visible on that display, including the menu bar, Dock, and desktop wallpaper.
Capture a selected area with Cmd + Shift + 4
This is the most commonly used screenshot method. Press the shortcut and your cursor turns into a precise crosshair with pixel coordinates displayed beside it. Click and drag to select exactly the area you want to capture. The pixel dimensions of your selection appear next to the crosshair as you drag, which is helpful for capturing specific sizes. Release the mouse button to take the screenshot. It saves to your desktop as a PNG. If you start dragging and change your mind, press Escape to cancel without capturing anything.
Good to know: After pressing Cmd+Shift+4, press the Spacebar to switch to window capture mode. Your cursor becomes a camera icon. Hover over any window and click to capture just that window with a nice drop shadow. This works on any window, including individual dialog boxes, menus, and even the Dock.
Use the screenshot toolbar with Cmd + Shift + 5
This opens a floating toolbar at the bottom of the screen with all capture and recording options in one unified interface. From left to right, the toolbar offers five modes. Capture Entire Screen takes a full screen shot. Capture Selected Window lets you click any window. Capture Selected Portion lets you drag a rectangle. Record Entire Screen and Record Selected Portion handle video recording. Below these icons is a dropdown labeled "Options" where you can change the save location (Desktop, Documents, Clipboard, Mail, Messages, Preview, or a custom folder), set a 5 or 10 second countdown timer, choose whether to show the mouse pointer in the capture, show the floating thumbnail preview, and remember your last selection area. This toolbar is the most versatile option and is the only built-in way to access screen recording on Mac.
Copy to clipboard instead of saving a file
Any screenshot shortcut can be modified to copy to your clipboard instead of saving a file. Just hold the Control key in addition to the normal shortcut. Cmd+Ctrl+Shift+3 captures the full screen to clipboard. Cmd+Ctrl+Shift+4 lets you select an area and copies it to clipboard. From there, paste it directly into Messages, Mail, Slack, Google Docs, or any application that accepts images with Cmd+V. No file is saved to your desktop. This is extremely useful for quickly sharing screenshots in conversations without creating files you need to clean up later.
Capture menus, tooltips, and the Touch Bar
Menus and tooltips disappear when you try to interact with them, which makes them tricky to capture. The solution is the window capture mode. Open the menu you want to screenshot, then press Cmd+Shift+4 followed by Spacebar. The menu counts as a "window" and you can click it to capture it standalone. For timed captures of hover states, use Cmd+Shift+5, set a 5-second timer in Options, click Capture, then position your mouse over the element before the timer expires. If your Mac has a Touch Bar, Cmd+Shift+6 captures it.
Change where screenshots are saved
By default, screenshots save to your desktop, which gets cluttered quickly. To change this, press Cmd+Shift+5 to open the toolbar, click "Options," and select a different location from the "Save to" list. You can choose Desktop, Documents, Clipboard, Mail, Messages, Preview, or a custom folder. We recommend creating a dedicated Screenshots folder in your Documents and selecting that. Your desktop stays clean and all screenshots are organized in one place.
The shortcut you will use 90% of the time is Cmd+Shift+4 for selecting an area. It is fast, precise, and becomes second nature within a week. Everything else is for specific situations. If you find yourself taking lots of screenshots for documentation or bug reports, the Cmd+Shift+5 toolbar is worth exploring. Being able to change save location, set a timer, and access screen recording from one interface saves time when you are doing it frequently.
Questions we get asked about this
Answers from experience, not a textbook.
The desktop. Every screenshot creates a new PNG file on your desktop named with the date and time. If you use the Cmd+Shift+5 toolbar, you can change the save location to any folder, clipboard, or directly into an application. The clipboard option (using Ctrl modifier) saves nothing to disk.
Yes, but it requires a Terminal command. Open Terminal and type: defaults write com.apple.screencapture type jpg (or pdf, tiff, gif). Press Enter, then type: killall SystemUIServer (this step may not be necessary on macOS Mojave and later, but it ensures the change applies immediately). This changes all future screenshots to your chosen format. PNG is recommended for most uses because it is lossless and supports transparency.
Open the menu first. Then press Cmd+Shift+4, then Spacebar to enter window mode. Hover over the open menu (it highlights blue) and click. The menu is captured as a standalone image with a transparent background. This works for context menus, dropdown menus, and menu bar items.
Yes. When you take a screenshot, a thumbnail appears briefly in the bottom-right corner. Click it before it disappears (within about 5 seconds). This opens a quick markup editor where you can draw, add text, add shapes, crop, and sign. When finished, click Done to save or Share to send it directly.
Press Cmd+Shift+5 and select either the full screen recording icon (fourth from left) or the selected area recording icon (fifth from left). Click Record. A small Stop button appears in the menu bar when recording is active. Click it to stop. The recording saves as a .mov file to the same location as your screenshots. There is no built-in time limit for screen recordings.
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