Buzz
Discover various methods to capture screenshots on your Mac, whether you want to capture the entire screen, a portion of it, or a specific window. Learn these techniques here, along with many related shortcut keys.
Capture a Custom Area
Press Shift + Command + 4. The mouse cursor transforms into a plus sign, allowing you to freely select the area to capture: Hold in the starting position, then drag over the desired region (highlighted in a darker shade). Finally, release to capture.
Additionally, when pressing Shift + Command + 4, you can perform the following actions:
- Capture a window: Press the Space key, which turns the cursor into a highlighter as it passes over any window. Simply click on the window you want to capture.
- Edge lock: While dragging with the left mouse button, holding down the Shift key locks the top, left, and right edges, allowing adjustment only to the bottom edge of the selection. Similarly, moving the cursor to the right locks the top, left, and bottom edges. This helps in precise selection.
- Move the selection:
After creating a selection, if you want to change its position, hold the left mouse button and simultaneously press the Space key. You can then move the selection square to the desired location.
Screenshot Options Panel
Shift + Command + 5: This shortcut displays a toolbar at the bottom of the screen with various screenshot options, including capturing the entire screen, a marked area, or a specific window.
Explore the Options menu on the right side, this control panel allows you to choose where to save screen captures (save to), set a capture timer. This is handy if you want to arrange some things on your screen before taking a shot.
You can relocate this toolbar to any position on the screen.
Capture the entire screen
Shift + Command + 3: If you don't want to capture a specific window but the entire screen, this is the command you need. It will capture the entire screen from the menu bar at the top of your screen to the dock at the bottom.
Capture Touch Bar on MacBook Pro
Shift + Command + 6: This feature is exclusive to newer models of MacBook Pro with a touch bar at the top of the keyboard. This command will capture everything on your touch bar.
Copy screen captures to the clipboard
Hold the Control key when requesting any screen capture command above, the screen capture will be saved to the clipboard for you to edit before saving to your device.
Utilize Preview
The ultimate and most discreet screenshot tool in macOS is Preview. This application can capture screen shots based on system time with the cursor and allows instant annotation using Markup tools.
Type “preview” in the search bar to open this application.
While Preview is open, click on File >> Take Screenshot.
Here, choose the screen type you want to capture: From Selection... (custom area), From Window... (by window), and From Entire Screen... (entire screen).
If you select From Entire Screen..., a countdown timer will appear before the screen is captured.
Edit the captured screen image, then save it with File >> Save...
These are the basic ways for you to capture screen images on Mac. Mytour also has many other MacOS guides waiting for you to explore!
