Taking a screenshot on Mac: a quick guide

If you've upgraded to a Mac from Windows, you've probably noticed that the standard keyboard doesn't have a dedicated Print Screen button. But that doesn't mean you have to download a specific program to take screenshots because any functionality you may need was already built into the system. This is how you can take a screenshot on Mac in just a few clicks.

Shooting the selected area

This way to make a screenshot has its own hotkeys that will allow you to select an area as accurately as possible. The first thing you need to do is to press ⌘ + Shift + 4 - and then select the capture area. While doing this, you can:

• Hold down Alt to make the changes symmetrical.
• Hold down Shift to move only one edge of the frame.
• Hold down the Space bar to move the selection across the screen.

How to take a screenshot

At the same time, let us remind you how to make other types of screenshots. Here are the most convenient combinations for this:

• ⌘ + Shift + 3 - Make a standard snapshot of the whole screen.
• ⌘ + Shift + 4 - Capture the selected area.
• ⌘ + Shift + Spacebar + 4 - Capture the selected window.
• ⌘ + Shift + 5 - View all screen capture methods (including video recording).
• ⌘ + Shift + 6 - Make a screenshot with the Touch Bar.
• ⌘ + Ctrl + Shift + 3 - Takes a screenshot of the whole screen and saves it to the clipboard.
• ⌘ + Ctrl + Shift + 4 - Capture the selected area and save it to the clipboard.

Pressing ⌘ + Shift + 5 also gives you the ability to choose where to save screenshots, whether to display previews or set a timer.

Tip: If you want to take beautiful screenshots of the application window with shadows, use the combination ⌘ + Shift + Space + 4 - just make sure that the application is open in window mode, not full screen. If you want, you can disable the shadow. To do this, just select the window to be captured by holding down the ⌥ key.