To take a screenshot on a Mac, you have several built-in keyboard shortcuts depending on what you want to capture:
- Capture the entire screen: Press Shift + Command + 3 simultaneously. The screenshot will be saved automatically to your desktop
- Capture a portion of the screen: Press Shift + Command + 4. Your cursor will turn into a crosshair. Click and drag to select the area you want to capture, then release the mouse or trackpad button to take the screenshot. It will save to your desktop
- Capture a specific window or menu: Press Shift + Command + 4 , then press the Space bar. The cursor changes to a camera icon. Click the window or menu you want to capture. To exclude the window shadow, hold the Option key while clicking. The image will save to your desktop
- Screenshot toolbar (macOS Mojave and later): Press Shift + Command + 5 to bring up a screenshot toolbar with options to capture the entire screen, a window, or a selected portion, plus screen recording features
Additional tips:
- Adding the Control key to any of these shortcuts (e.g., Shift + Command + Control + 3) copies the screenshot to the clipboard instead of saving it as a file, so you can paste it directly into another app
- On MacBooks with a Touch Bar, Shift + Command + 6 captures the Touch Bar display
Screenshots are saved as PNG files on your desktop by default, and if a thumbnail appears in the corner of your screen, you can click it to edit or share the screenshot immediately
. This covers all the common ways to take screenshots on a Mac.
