Taking screenshots on your Mac is essential for capturing what’s on your screen, whether it’s for work, study, or personal use. If you’re wondering how to screenshot on Mac, macOS offers several convenient ways to capture the entire screen, a window, or a specific portion. Let’s dive into the different methods and extra features that make taking screenshots on your Mac quick and flexible.

1. Capture the Entire Screen

One of the simplest ways to take a screenshot is to capture your entire screen. Follow these steps:

• Press and hold the Shift, Command, and 3 keys simultaneously.
• A screenshot of the entire screen will be automatically saved to your desktop as a PNG file.

If you see a thumbnail in the corner of your screen, you can click it to edit the screenshot before it’s saved, or simply wait for it to appear on your desktop.

2. Capture a Portion of the Screen

Sometimes, you might only want to capture a specific part of your screen. Here’s how:

• Press and hold Shift, Command, and 4 together.
• Your cursor will change to a crosshair.
• Drag the crosshair to select the area of the screen you want to capture. If you need to move the selected area, press and hold the Spacebar while dragging.

Once you’re satisfied with the selection, release the mouse or trackpad, and the screenshot will be saved to your desktop. If you see a thumbnail, you can click it for quick edits.

3. Capture a Window or Menu

• Open the window or menu you want to capture.
• Press and hold Shift, Command, 4, and then tap the Spacebar. Your pointer will turn into a camera icon.
• Hover over the window or menu you want to capture, and click.

If you don’t want to include the window’s shadow in your screenshot, hold the Option key while clicking. Just like other screenshots, a thumbnail will appear for editing, or you can wait for it to be saved to the desktop.

4. Use the Screenshot Toolbar (macOS Mojave and Later)

macOS Mojave and later versions come with a versatile screenshot toolbar that allows you to capture the entire screen, a portion, or even record your screen. To access this:

• Press Shift, Command, and 5 simultaneously.
• A toolbar will appear at the bottom of your screen, giving you options to capture different parts of your screen or record it.

In this toolbar, you can also set a timer, choose where screenshots are saved, or capture the Touch Bar (if you have a MacBook Pro with Touch Bar).

5. Taking Screenshots with a Timer

If you need a delay before capturing the screen, the screenshot toolbar also allows for this:

• Press Shift, Command, and 5.
• Click Options in the toolbar, and select a timer of 5 or 10 seconds.

This is useful when you need time to set up your screen before taking a shot.

6. Save Screenshots to Clipboard

f you don’t want to save a screenshot as a file and would rather copy it to your clipboard for pasting elsewhere, hold the Control key along with the regular screenshot command. For example:

• Press Command + Control + Shift + 3 to capture the entire screen.
• Press Command + Control + Shift + 4 to capture a selected portion.

Once copied, you can paste the screenshot directly into a document or image editor using Command + V.

7. Capturing the Touch Bar

If you’re using a MacBook Pro with a Touch Bar, you can even take a screenshot of what’s displayed there:

• Press Shift, Command, and 6.

This captures the Touch Bar content and saves it as a file on your desktop.

Where to Find Your Screenshots

By default, all screenshots are saved to your desktop with a name like “Screen Shot 2025 at [time].png”. However, in macOS Mojave and later, you can change the default save location:

• Open the screenshot toolbar by pressing Shift, Command, and 5.
• Click Options and choose a different save location such as Documents, Clipboard, or a custom folder.

You can also drag the thumbnail preview that appears after taking the screenshot to any folder or app, like Mail or Messages.

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Extra Tip:

• You can capture the entire screen, a window, or just a portion of the screen by using the built-in tools, and edit them instantly if needed.

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