The Apple macOS Blog

Hello again, Mac users! Today we're going to talk about a super handy feature already on your Mac. The built-in screenshot app is pretty good. This tool is useful if you're trying to save a web payment reciept or just share something interesting with a friend. Knowing how to quickly and easily take a screenshot on your Mac is just "good to know how".

Let's break it down step-by-step, then start capturing screenshots like a pro!

To Capture the Entire Screen

To grab a shot of your whole screen.

• 1 Press ⌘ + Shift + 3 at the same time.
• 2 There is no real step 2! The screenshot will have been saved to your desktop. Just navigate to your Desktop in Finder to open the file. Another way is to click the small preview on the bottom right of your screen.

That's it! Now you've got a full snapshot of everything on your screen.

Capturing a Portion of the Screen

Sometimes you only want to capture a section of your screen.

• 1 Press down the ⌘ + Shift + 4 buttons on the keyboard. Now your mouse cursor will turn into a crosshair.
• 2 Press and hold your mouse button to drag that crosshair and select the area you want to capture.
• 3 Release the mouse button, and the screenshot will be saved to your desktop.

Easy, right? This method is perfect for grabbing just what you need without any extra clutter.

Capturing A Window

Want to screenshot a specific window only? Not problem at all!

• 1 Press ⌘ + Shift + 4, then tap Spacebar on your keyboard.
• 2 Your cursor will change to a camera icon. Hover over the window you want to capture.
• 3 Click on the window, and the screenshot will be saved to your desktop.

This is a fantastic way to keep your screenshots neat and focused on just one window.

4. Using the Screenshot Tool Interface

If you prefer a more visual approach, you can use the Screenshot tool's own user interface:

• 1 Hit ⌘ + Shift + 5 to show the screenshot app's toolbar.
• 2 You'll see options to capture the entire screen, the selected window, or just a selected portion of the screen. You can also set where the screenshots are saved, time delay, and record video of your screen from here!

The macOS Screenshot toolbar with the Options menu expanded.

5. Open the Screenshot App with Finder

If you prefer not to use a keyboard shortcut, you can use Finder to open the Screenshots tool, for reference it lives in: Applications > Utilities > Screenshots.app.

Where to Find Your Screenshots

Your screenshots are saved to your desktop folder with a name like "Screen Shot [date] at [time].png". If you take a lot of screenshots your desktop might get cluttered, but don't worry! You can easily drag them into another folder or change the default save location in the Screenshot tool's options.

To Recap

Today I've shown you quick and easy ways to: take screenshots of your whole screen , capture a specific window, or just capture a freeform section of what's on your Mac's screen — all using the handy built-in screenshot macOS utility. There are heaps of third party screenshot tools available, but most of the time Mac's own Screenshot.app does a fine job. Hope this helped you save some time and money!

Until next time,

  ❤️ Maria