How to Take a Screenshot on Mac (2025)

Mac has excellent built-in screenshot capabilities. Here’s everything you need to know.

Quick shortcuts

Shortcut	Action
Cmd+Shift+3	Capture entire screen
Cmd+Shift+4	Select an area to capture
Cmd+Shift+4 + Space	Capture a specific window
Cmd+Shift+5	Open Screenshot app
Cmd+Shift+6	Capture Touch Bar (if available)

Pro tip: Add Ctrl to any shortcut to copy to clipboard instead of saving a file.

Method 1: Area selection (Cmd+Shift+4)

The most commonly used method:

1. Press Cmd+Shift+4
2. Your cursor becomes a crosshair
3. Click and drag to select the area
4. Release to capture

The screenshot saves to your Desktop by default.

Modifiers while selecting:

• Hold Space: Move the selection without resizing
• Hold Shift: Lock one dimension while resizing
• Press Escape: Cancel the screenshot

Method 2: Window capture

To capture a clean window with shadow:

1. Press Cmd+Shift+4
2. Press Space - cursor becomes a camera
3. Hover over any window (it highlights)
4. Click to capture

This captures the entire window with Mac’s nice drop shadow effect.

Method 3: Screenshot app (Cmd+Shift+5)

The Screenshot app (introduced in macOS Mojave) gives you all options in one place:

• Capture entire screen
• Capture selected window
• Capture selected portion
• Record entire screen
• Record selected portion

Click Options to:

• Change save location
• Set a timer (5 or 10 seconds)
• Show/hide mouse pointer
• Enable/disable floating thumbnail

Method 4: Touch Bar screenshot (Cmd+Shift+6)

If your MacBook has a Touch Bar, this captures it. Useful for documentation and app demonstrations.

Changing screenshot settings

Change save location:

1. Press Cmd+Shift+5
2. Click Options
3. Under “Save to”, choose Desktop, Documents, Clipboard, etc.

Change file format:

Open Terminal and run:

defaults write com.apple.screencapture type jpg

Replace jpg with png, pdf, tiff, or gif.

Disable shadow on window screenshots:

defaults write com.apple.screencapture disable-shadow true

After any Terminal change, run:

killall SystemUIServer

For web content: Use browser tools

Mac screenshots capture pixels on screen. For web-specific features like:

• Element-level capture
• Full-page scrolling screenshots
• Automatic styling

Use browser extensions like Pluck (Chrome) or Firefox’s built-in screenshot tool.

When to use what

Need	Best method
Quick capture of anything	Cmd+Shift+4
Specific app window	Cmd+Shift+4 + Space
Recording your screen	Cmd+Shift+5
Styled web elements	Pluck browser extension
Full scrolling web page	Browser DevTools or extension

Mac’s built-in tools are excellent for general screenshots. For beautiful, styled web element captures, browser extensions complement them perfectly.