When you want to share something with your team, friends or want to a snapshot of a tutorial you will find that taking a screenshot is the easiest way to capture this.
When using MacOS you can easily capture a screenshot on your Mac using the built-in keyboard shortcuts. Using keyboard shortcuts will help you to improve your productivity by completing a task more quickly.
In this guide, we will show you how to screenshot the entire screen, just a portion of the screen or the entire window using keyboard shortcuts to a file and also how to capture the entire or just a portion of the screen to the clipboard.
Capture the Entire Screen
To capture a screenshot of the entire screen on your Mac press the Command, Shift and the number 3 simultaneously.
If you want to cancel the screenshot, simply press the ESC key.
Note
If you use more than one display on your Mac, when you capture a screenshot of the entire screen it will automatically capture each display.
Capture a Portion of the Screen
To capture a portion of the screen on your Mac press the Command, Shift and the number 4 simultaneously.
This will make the crosshair icon appear. Now drag the crosshair across the portion of the screen you want to capture. When you have captured the screenshot release the button on your mouse.
If you want to cancel the screenshot, simply press the ESC key.
Capture an Entire Window
To capture an entire window on your Mac press the Command, Shift, the number 4 simultaneously and then press Space.
The icon will now change from crosshair to a camera. Now move your mouse pointer to the window you want to capture as a screenshot. The selected window will highlighted. Once you are happy simply click your mouse to capture the screenshot.
When you capture the screenshot, the Screenshot application will automatically add a border and shadow to the captured image. See the example below.
If you want to just capture the entire window without adding any border or shadow to the image, simply hold down the Option key when you click the mouse. See the example below.
By default, the all captured screenshots will be saved to your desktop with the filename Screen Shot [date] at [time] in a PNG format. If you are using MacOS Mojave or later, you can change the default location of your screenshots from the Options menu in the Screenshot application.
Capture Screenshots to the Clipboard
If you want to paste your screenshots into another application such as Photoshop, you can copy the screenshot to the clipboard instead of creating a screenshot file by adding the Control key to the keyboard shortcuts above.
Capture Entire Screen to Clipboard
To capture the Entire Screen to clipboard simply press the Control Command, Shift and the number 3 simultaneously.
Capture Portion of the Screen to Clipboard
To capture a Portion of the Screen to clipboard simply press the Control Command, Shift and the number 4 simultaneously.
That’s it. You have now successfully learnt how to save a screenshot the entire screen, just a portion or the entire window using keyboard shortcuts to a file or to the clipboard.
