How to Screenshot on a Mac: Capture Your Screen on a MacBook or Apple Desktop

Victoria Woollaston October 2, 2021

If you use your Apple computer for transactions, deliveries or financial matters, taking screenshots is an important skill to learn. Whether it’s to keep evidence of forms and data if you have a dodgy internet connection, or if it’s just to cover your back, knowing how to take screenshots on your Mac is useful both in the workplace and in day-to-day life.

How to Screenshot on a Mac: Capture Your Screen on a MacBook or Apple Desktop

Unlike Windows PCs, Apple MacBooks and desktops don’t have a dedicated print screen button, but it’s actually pretty easy to take screenshots on a Mac once you know how. Interested in capturing your screen or windows on your MacBook or Apple desktop computer?

In this article, we’ll cover how to screenshot on a Mac.

How to Take Screenshots on an Apple Mac

There might not be a dedicated button on your Mac’s keyboard for screenshots, but that doesn’t mean it’s particularly hard to do. In fact, taking screenshots on a Mac is simple, and it’s also possible to take pictures of the whole desktop, selected windows, or even a user-chosen area. Here’s how to do it:

How to Take a Screenshot of the Whole Desktop on a Mac

If you want to take a picture of your whole desktop, first make sure your desktop is displaying exactly what you want to capture, and then doing the following.
Hold down the Command key, along with Shift and the number 3 key (listed as Shift-Command (⌘)-3) on the official support page.
If you’ve done it correctly, you’ll hear the noise of a shutter – and that means a screengrab has been taken.
Apple’s operating system saves screenshots to the desktop by default, and it also timestamps them. If everything’s worked properly, you’ll find your screencaps on the desktop in a .png format.
If you’d rather save your screenshot to the Clipboard instead of your desktop, add Control to the key combinations above. So, press Control, Shift, Command and the number 3 at the same time.

How to Take a Screenshot of a Menu on a Mac

This time round, hold down the Command key and Shift, and this time press the number 4 key.
If you’ve done it correctly, you’ll see your mouse icon turn into a crosshair pointer.
After you’ve got the crosshair pointer, it’s time to select the area you want to capture. To do that, you just need to click and drag over the area you want, although holding the Shift, Option or Space bar will change the way the selection tool works.
Once you’ve selected the area you want, let go of your mouse or trackpad, and you’ll hear the same shutter noise as before.
You’ll then be able to find your selection saved to the desktop, once again in .png format.

How to Take a Screenshot of a Window on a Mac

To take a screenshot of a window, you first need to hold down Command + Shift + 4.
Once that’s done your cursor should switch to the crosshair, as if you were about to select an area of screen to capture. Instead, press the Space bar, and the crosshair will turn into a camera icon.
You can then point the cursor over any window, and clicking on it will result in the contents of the window being saved.
As with all other screenshots, your Mac will save the resulting images to your desktop in a .png format – and it will even timestamp them for you.

How to Take a Screenshot of a Selected Area on a Mac

Click on a menu title to see its list of contents.
Press Shift + Command + 4 and the pointer will change to a crosshair.
Drag to select the menu, or the area which you want to capture.
Release your mouse or trackpad button and the area inside the selected box will be taken as a screenshot. To cancel, press the Escape (esc) key before you release the button.
Find the screenshot as a .png file on your desktop.

Screenshots and Mac

Taking screenshots on a Mac is easy. Regardless of your screenshot needs, Mac has a built-in hotkey for it. With a few simple key combinations, you’ll have a quality screenshot for your documents or records.

Share your thoughts and experiences on MacBooks and desktops below.