Taking a screenshot on a Mac® is as easy as on a PC—when you know the keyboard shortcuts to do so.
- How To Take Partial Screenshot On Mac Desktop
- How To Take Partial Screenshot On Macbook Pro
- Full Screenshot On Pc
There are plenty of key commands in macOS® you might want to use for screen capture. Today, we'll break down the six best shortcuts for screenshots that any Mac user NEEDS to know—plus the one useful application that accomplishes all that and more with just one click.
Capture a Screenshot of an Area
Method 2: Take A Partial Screenshot. If you only want to take a screenshot of a portion of your screen rather than the entire screen, you can press Command + Shift + 4.This will turn your mouse cursor into a small target, like so. If you hear the click sound when taking a screen shot the the shot has been taken and it is in your Clipboard. To get it, open any application (like paint or other) and use the 'Paste command' to see it/modify and save as a file in a location of your choosing. Windows Key when running Win 8.1 in Boot Camp on a Mac. Boot Camp restarted. To take a partial screenshot on a Mac press the Command (cmd), shift and 4 keys at the same time. This will give you a crosshairs cursor which you drag out over the area you want to capture.
Figure 1 – Keyboard shortcut for taking a screenshot of part of a Mac screen
One of the most common needs for that 'print screen' command on a Mac is when we need to capture a portion of the screen. It's like a snipping tool for Mac. Be it an Instagram story, Twitter update, or part of a webpage to share with a colleague, you can screenshot any of those with just a few key combos.
(1) To capture a portion of the screen, do the following: Licencia office 2016 mac gratis.
- Press Command-Shift-4 to change a pointer to a crosshair.
- Select the area of a screen you want to capture by moving and dragging the cursor.
- After releasing the mouse button, the screenshot will be saved as a PNG image on your desktop.
Figure 2 – Apple Support tweets the solution for screen capturing on Mac.
(2) To copy a portion of the screen to the clipboard, do the following:
- Press Command-Control-Shift-4 to change a pointer to a crosshair.
- Select the area of a screen you want to capture by moving and dragging the cursor.
- After clicking on the mouse, the screenshot will be saved to the clipboard.
- Select the application where you want to insert the captured image, such as Word, Skype, or Outlook.
- Press Command-V to paste the screenshot.
Capture a Screenshot of an Active Window
Figure 3 – The process of taking screenshots of an active application
If you need a screenshot of a specific application that you're currently using, use this method. You can easily print screen an active window of any program, be it Safari, Chrome, Photoshop, or Microsoft Excel.
(3) To capture a screenshot of an active window, do the following:
- Press Command-Shift-4 to change a pointer to a crosshair.
- Tap on the spacebar on your keyboard. The cursor will change to a camera.
- Select the active application window you want to capture by moving your cursor.
- When you move the cursor over an application, the window will be highlighted.
- Click the mouse button on the window you want to capture. The screenshot will be saved as a PNG image on your desktop.
(4) To copy a screenshot of an active window to the clipboard, do the following:
- Press Command-Control-Shift-4 to change a pointer to a crosshair.
- Tap on the spacebar on your keyboard. The cursor will change to a camera.
- Select the active application window you want to capture by moving your cursor.
- When you move the cursor over an application, the window will be highlighted.
- Click the mouse button on the window you want to capture. The screenshot will be saved to the clipboard.
- Select the application where you want to insert the captured image, like Word, Skype, or Outlook
- Press Command-V to paste the screenshot.
Capture the Entire Screen
Figure 4 – Keyboard shortcut for capturing the entire screen on a Mac
(5) To capture a screenshot of a whole page, do the following:
- Press Command-Shift-3 to take a screenshot of the whole screen.
- The screenshot will be saved as a PNG image on your desktop.
(6) To copy a screenshot of a whole page to the clipboard, do the following:
- Press Command-Control-Shift-3 to copy the whole screen.
- The screenshot will be automatically saved to the clipboard.
- Select the application where you want to insert the captured image, like Word, Skype, or Outlook
- Press Command-V to paste the screenshot.
Mac App for Taking Screenshots
Figure 5 – Parallels Toolbox: The ultimate Mac application for screen and video capturing
Sometimes, remembering all the dozens of shortcuts to take a Mac screenshot is not our main priority. All we need is a simple application that has everything ready for us with just one click.
Parallels® Toolbox Screen and Video Pack is the best Designed to help optimize your workday, it has all the important tools for everyday needs, such as screen and video capturing, video converter, YouTube video downloader, and more.
You can try Parallels Toolbox without any obligations and decide for yourself whether a small introductory price is a fair cost for all the time saved.
Where to Find Screenshots on a Mac
Figure 6 – The primary location for all screenshots on a Mac is the desktop
Once you're done taking them, where do screenshots on a Mac go?
Normally, screenshots are saved as PNG images (titled with the current date and time stamp) right on the desktop. The format looks as follows: 'Screen Shot 2018-07-04 at 12.25.36.png'. Alternatively, a user can copy Mac screenshots to the clipboard by adding Control to the key combination and then pasting it right in the needed document. Here at Parallels, we practice this often—we love taking a MacBook® screenshot and sharing it with coworkers. It's an easy and quick way to effectively communicate what we see on our end.
What to Do if Screen Capture on Mac Is Not Working
The shortcuts for screen capturing may not work for a few reasons. One of the most common ones: they are simply disabled.
To fix that, do the following:
- From the Apple menu in the top left corner, open System Preferences and click on the Keyboard.
- In the new window, click on Shortcuts.
- Find Screen Shots in the left menu.
- Check if the shortcuts are active and have the same key combos you type.
- To change a shortcut, select it and click the new key combination.
If the shortcut is working but screenshots turn out blank, the reason is often copyright issues with the third-party application on the screen. Is fl studio compatible with mac. To solve that, use the Parallels Toolbox application for screen capturing.
If you have been a windows OS user and looking for a tutorial on how to take a screenshot on a Mac or you've been using MacBook and want to know different methods, then you've reached the right place.
Here in this post, I'll explain different methods of taking a screenshot on your Mac.
Contents
- 1 How to Take a Screenshot on a Mac (Partial & Full Screen)
- 1.2 How to take a screenshot on a Mac – 4 different methods
- 1.2.3 Method -3: Take a screenshot of the full screen & copy to clipboard
- 1.2.4 Method -4: Take the timed/regular screenshot of full/partial screen/window with GRAB (inbuilt application of Mac)
- 1.2 How to take a screenshot on a Mac – 4 different methods
I heard from quite a few people that Macbook is a bit difficult to operate but the things are completely opposite to that. MacBook is much simpler and has more options to perform a specific task.
Here in this article, I'll discuss several ways of doing the same thing differently i.e. How to Take a Screenshot on a Mac.
Why do you need to take a screenshot?
There could be hundreds of reasons why one would need to take a screenshot.
Whether you want to take a screenshot of the payment confirmation page that displays after you make online payment Or you want to take a screenshot of other documents such as keynote slide with important points Or you need to take a screenshot of a game score that you want to share with your friends on Facebook or Twitter.
To be specific, taking a screenshot of the live chat with a customer support executive of the company you have purchased/purchasing any product from can have you some proof to show them later if needed. It happened to me! thankfully I had taken screenshots.
I ordered a Bluetooth speaker from this website (can't disclose the website). When I got it home, I found the product was faulty.
I got in touch with the customer support team through online chat. This man assured me of replacing the item with a new one. I took the screenshot of all my discussions with him for my record.
In the end this man told me, they will send someone within one day to pick the item and replace it with a new one.
Nobody came for two days and I called them over the phone to understand the matter.
This time they said they can't replace the item and they didn't commit to replacing it.
I showed them the screenshot and won the argument and they had to replace this faulty Bluetooth speaker.
So the purpose of taking a screenshot could be different for different people, I am not going into many details.
Whatever a person wants to take a screenshot on a MacBook, I'm going to discuss the easiest ways of doing so.
You can choose to automatically save the file on the desktop or copy to clipboard to edit it further using a photo editor before saving it as a final version.
How to take a screenshot on a Mac – 4 different methods
So there are several methods you can do this task with but I'll discuss the most common and simple ones. These methods are for taking a screenshot of full screen or partial.
Canon cd labelprint mac. You can choose to save the file automatically in .png format or copy it to the clipboard to edit with a photo editor before finally saving it.
Method -1: Take a screenshot of Full Screen & auto safe on Desktop
In case you decide to take a screenshot of the entire screen, go for this option.
It will take the screenshot when you press the keys that I'm going to tell below and save the file on your desktop. Let's take a look at the process.
Step:1– Open files /documents that you want to take a screenshot of. By default, it will capture the whole screen irrespective of what all you have on the screen and whether or not you want to capture everything.
So let's open all those files and documents you want to include in this screenshot.
Step:2– Make sure the speakers of Macbook is not muted.
How To Take Partial Screenshot On Mac Desktop
Step:3– Now you need to press SHIFT + COMMAND + 3. When you do that, you will hear a photo clicking sound that confirms a Screenshot on Mac has been taken.
Step:4– By default, the captured screenshot is saved on Desktop in a format the looks similar to 'Screen Shot YYYY-MM-DD at Hour.Min.Sec PM.png'.
Here, the YYYY stands for year, for example, 2017, MM for month & DD for the date of taking the screenshot.
It also includes time as you can notice in the sample file name format. The PM will be replaced by AM if you take the screenshot before the afternoon.
So the general rule is, when you have done with taking the screenshot, go to the desktop and look for the file that starts with 'Screen Shot'.
In case you have taken multiple screenshots, you will then have to open the file manually and see which one you want.
By default, it saves the file in the .png file extension.
Also see: Best iOS Emulator for Windows
Method -2: Take a screenshot of partial screen & auto safe on Desktop
Sometimes you don't want to capture everything from the screen and need to find out a way to capture only the selected area.
If you have to do that, try this method. Here you will be able to select an area which you want to include in this screenshot and autosave on the desktop.
Step:1– So here again open the file/documents which you want to include in the screenshot.
You need to bring the file forward on the screen. Since you can select the area, you can leave other files open backward.
Step:2– Make sure your Macbook speaker is not muted.
Step:3– Now you need to press SHIFT + COMMAND + 4and the curser of your MacBook will be transformed into a crosshair.
How To Take Partial Screenshot On Macbook Pro
You can now select the area (documents/images) on the screen that you want to capture in this screenshot.
When the cursor becomes a crosshair and you start with selecting area to be captured, click & hold and move from start to endpoint and release.
You will hear a clicking sound which means the screenshot of the selected area on your Mac has been taken.
The format of the screenshot will be the same as I discussed in the above method and the file will be saved in the .png file extension.
Step:4– Open the file to check whether it captured all that area you were needed.
You can always change the file extension to other formats through file editor's 'save as' option but that is not recommended as saving a screenshot in other extensions might result in loss of picture quality.
It becomes troublesome when the screenshot has tables and figures.
Full Screenshot On Pc
Method -3: Take a screenshot of the full screen & copy to clipboard
If you don't autosave the screenshot on the desktop, follow this method. In this method, the screenshot that you capture will get copied to the clipboard and you can use any picture editor to edit the file before saving it as a final version. Take a look.
Step:1– Again, open the document or images you want to take screenshots of. Re-arrange the file exactly like you want to see in a screenshot.
Step:2– Unmute Mac's speakers if its muted.
Step:3– Now you need to press SHIFT + COMMAND + 3 + CONTROL keys. Again at the time of screenshot is taken and copied to the clipboard, you will picture clicking sound.
Step:4– Open your favorite photo editor and press 'Command + V'. The screenshot capture will be pasted into the picture editor. Edit it or simply save it, it is your choice.
One of the most common needs for that 'print screen' command on a Mac is when we need to capture a portion of the screen. It's like a snipping tool for Mac. Be it an Instagram story, Twitter update, or part of a webpage to share with a colleague, you can screenshot any of those with just a few key combos.
(1) To capture a portion of the screen, do the following: Licencia office 2016 mac gratis.
- Press Command-Shift-4 to change a pointer to a crosshair.
- Select the area of a screen you want to capture by moving and dragging the cursor.
- After releasing the mouse button, the screenshot will be saved as a PNG image on your desktop.
Figure 2 – Apple Support tweets the solution for screen capturing on Mac.
(2) To copy a portion of the screen to the clipboard, do the following:
- Press Command-Control-Shift-4 to change a pointer to a crosshair.
- Select the area of a screen you want to capture by moving and dragging the cursor.
- After clicking on the mouse, the screenshot will be saved to the clipboard.
- Select the application where you want to insert the captured image, such as Word, Skype, or Outlook.
- Press Command-V to paste the screenshot.
Capture a Screenshot of an Active Window
Figure 3 – The process of taking screenshots of an active application
If you need a screenshot of a specific application that you're currently using, use this method. You can easily print screen an active window of any program, be it Safari, Chrome, Photoshop, or Microsoft Excel.
(3) To capture a screenshot of an active window, do the following:
- Press Command-Shift-4 to change a pointer to a crosshair.
- Tap on the spacebar on your keyboard. The cursor will change to a camera.
- Select the active application window you want to capture by moving your cursor.
- When you move the cursor over an application, the window will be highlighted.
- Click the mouse button on the window you want to capture. The screenshot will be saved as a PNG image on your desktop.
(4) To copy a screenshot of an active window to the clipboard, do the following:
- Press Command-Control-Shift-4 to change a pointer to a crosshair.
- Tap on the spacebar on your keyboard. The cursor will change to a camera.
- Select the active application window you want to capture by moving your cursor.
- When you move the cursor over an application, the window will be highlighted.
- Click the mouse button on the window you want to capture. The screenshot will be saved to the clipboard.
- Select the application where you want to insert the captured image, like Word, Skype, or Outlook
- Press Command-V to paste the screenshot.
Capture the Entire Screen
Figure 4 – Keyboard shortcut for capturing the entire screen on a Mac
(5) To capture a screenshot of a whole page, do the following:
- Press Command-Shift-3 to take a screenshot of the whole screen.
- The screenshot will be saved as a PNG image on your desktop.
(6) To copy a screenshot of a whole page to the clipboard, do the following:
- Press Command-Control-Shift-3 to copy the whole screen.
- The screenshot will be automatically saved to the clipboard.
- Select the application where you want to insert the captured image, like Word, Skype, or Outlook
- Press Command-V to paste the screenshot.
Mac App for Taking Screenshots
Figure 5 – Parallels Toolbox: The ultimate Mac application for screen and video capturing
Sometimes, remembering all the dozens of shortcuts to take a Mac screenshot is not our main priority. All we need is a simple application that has everything ready for us with just one click.
Parallels® Toolbox Screen and Video Pack is the best Designed to help optimize your workday, it has all the important tools for everyday needs, such as screen and video capturing, video converter, YouTube video downloader, and more.
You can try Parallels Toolbox without any obligations and decide for yourself whether a small introductory price is a fair cost for all the time saved.
Where to Find Screenshots on a Mac
Figure 6 – The primary location for all screenshots on a Mac is the desktop
Once you're done taking them, where do screenshots on a Mac go?
Normally, screenshots are saved as PNG images (titled with the current date and time stamp) right on the desktop. The format looks as follows: 'Screen Shot 2018-07-04 at 12.25.36.png'. Alternatively, a user can copy Mac screenshots to the clipboard by adding Control to the key combination and then pasting it right in the needed document. Here at Parallels, we practice this often—we love taking a MacBook® screenshot and sharing it with coworkers. It's an easy and quick way to effectively communicate what we see on our end.
What to Do if Screen Capture on Mac Is Not Working
The shortcuts for screen capturing may not work for a few reasons. One of the most common ones: they are simply disabled.
To fix that, do the following:
- From the Apple menu in the top left corner, open System Preferences and click on the Keyboard.
- In the new window, click on Shortcuts.
- Find Screen Shots in the left menu.
- Check if the shortcuts are active and have the same key combos you type.
- To change a shortcut, select it and click the new key combination.
If the shortcut is working but screenshots turn out blank, the reason is often copyright issues with the third-party application on the screen. Is fl studio compatible with mac. To solve that, use the Parallels Toolbox application for screen capturing.
If you have been a windows OS user and looking for a tutorial on how to take a screenshot on a Mac or you've been using MacBook and want to know different methods, then you've reached the right place.
Here in this post, I'll explain different methods of taking a screenshot on your Mac.
Contents
- 1 How to Take a Screenshot on a Mac (Partial & Full Screen)
- 1.2 How to take a screenshot on a Mac – 4 different methods
- 1.2.3 Method -3: Take a screenshot of the full screen & copy to clipboard
- 1.2.4 Method -4: Take the timed/regular screenshot of full/partial screen/window with GRAB (inbuilt application of Mac)
- 1.2 How to take a screenshot on a Mac – 4 different methods
I heard from quite a few people that Macbook is a bit difficult to operate but the things are completely opposite to that. MacBook is much simpler and has more options to perform a specific task.
Here in this article, I'll discuss several ways of doing the same thing differently i.e. How to Take a Screenshot on a Mac.
Why do you need to take a screenshot?
There could be hundreds of reasons why one would need to take a screenshot.
Whether you want to take a screenshot of the payment confirmation page that displays after you make online payment Or you want to take a screenshot of other documents such as keynote slide with important points Or you need to take a screenshot of a game score that you want to share with your friends on Facebook or Twitter.
To be specific, taking a screenshot of the live chat with a customer support executive of the company you have purchased/purchasing any product from can have you some proof to show them later if needed. It happened to me! thankfully I had taken screenshots.
I ordered a Bluetooth speaker from this website (can't disclose the website). When I got it home, I found the product was faulty.
I got in touch with the customer support team through online chat. This man assured me of replacing the item with a new one. I took the screenshot of all my discussions with him for my record.
In the end this man told me, they will send someone within one day to pick the item and replace it with a new one.
Nobody came for two days and I called them over the phone to understand the matter.
This time they said they can't replace the item and they didn't commit to replacing it.
I showed them the screenshot and won the argument and they had to replace this faulty Bluetooth speaker.
So the purpose of taking a screenshot could be different for different people, I am not going into many details.
Whatever a person wants to take a screenshot on a MacBook, I'm going to discuss the easiest ways of doing so.
You can choose to automatically save the file on the desktop or copy to clipboard to edit it further using a photo editor before saving it as a final version.
How to take a screenshot on a Mac – 4 different methods
So there are several methods you can do this task with but I'll discuss the most common and simple ones. These methods are for taking a screenshot of full screen or partial.
Canon cd labelprint mac. You can choose to save the file automatically in .png format or copy it to the clipboard to edit with a photo editor before finally saving it.
Method -1: Take a screenshot of Full Screen & auto safe on Desktop
In case you decide to take a screenshot of the entire screen, go for this option.
It will take the screenshot when you press the keys that I'm going to tell below and save the file on your desktop. Let's take a look at the process.
Step:1– Open files /documents that you want to take a screenshot of. By default, it will capture the whole screen irrespective of what all you have on the screen and whether or not you want to capture everything.
So let's open all those files and documents you want to include in this screenshot.
Step:2– Make sure the speakers of Macbook is not muted.
How To Take Partial Screenshot On Mac Desktop
Step:3– Now you need to press SHIFT + COMMAND + 3. When you do that, you will hear a photo clicking sound that confirms a Screenshot on Mac has been taken.
Step:4– By default, the captured screenshot is saved on Desktop in a format the looks similar to 'Screen Shot YYYY-MM-DD at Hour.Min.Sec PM.png'.
Here, the YYYY stands for year, for example, 2017, MM for month & DD for the date of taking the screenshot.
It also includes time as you can notice in the sample file name format. The PM will be replaced by AM if you take the screenshot before the afternoon.
So the general rule is, when you have done with taking the screenshot, go to the desktop and look for the file that starts with 'Screen Shot'.
In case you have taken multiple screenshots, you will then have to open the file manually and see which one you want.
By default, it saves the file in the .png file extension.
Also see: Best iOS Emulator for Windows
Method -2: Take a screenshot of partial screen & auto safe on Desktop
Sometimes you don't want to capture everything from the screen and need to find out a way to capture only the selected area.
If you have to do that, try this method. Here you will be able to select an area which you want to include in this screenshot and autosave on the desktop.
Step:1– So here again open the file/documents which you want to include in the screenshot.
You need to bring the file forward on the screen. Since you can select the area, you can leave other files open backward.
Step:2– Make sure your Macbook speaker is not muted.
Step:3– Now you need to press SHIFT + COMMAND + 4and the curser of your MacBook will be transformed into a crosshair.
How To Take Partial Screenshot On Macbook Pro
You can now select the area (documents/images) on the screen that you want to capture in this screenshot.
When the cursor becomes a crosshair and you start with selecting area to be captured, click & hold and move from start to endpoint and release.
You will hear a clicking sound which means the screenshot of the selected area on your Mac has been taken.
The format of the screenshot will be the same as I discussed in the above method and the file will be saved in the .png file extension.
Step:4– Open the file to check whether it captured all that area you were needed.
You can always change the file extension to other formats through file editor's 'save as' option but that is not recommended as saving a screenshot in other extensions might result in loss of picture quality.
It becomes troublesome when the screenshot has tables and figures.
Full Screenshot On Pc
Method -3: Take a screenshot of the full screen & copy to clipboard
If you don't autosave the screenshot on the desktop, follow this method. In this method, the screenshot that you capture will get copied to the clipboard and you can use any picture editor to edit the file before saving it as a final version. Take a look.
Step:1– Again, open the document or images you want to take screenshots of. Re-arrange the file exactly like you want to see in a screenshot.
Step:2– Unmute Mac's speakers if its muted.
Step:3– Now you need to press SHIFT + COMMAND + 3 + CONTROL keys. Again at the time of screenshot is taken and copied to the clipboard, you will picture clicking sound.
Step:4– Open your favorite photo editor and press 'Command + V'. The screenshot capture will be pasted into the picture editor. Edit it or simply save it, it is your choice.
Bonus Tip-
If you want to select the area to be captured and saved to the clipboard, replace numerical key '3' with '4' in the above method.
Method -4: Take the timed/regular screenshot of full/partial screen/window with GRAB (inbuilt application of Mac)
This is the easiest method I've ever seen to take a screenshot on a Mac. You can take timed screenshots with the GRAB app which is an in-built app in Macbook.
Grab app takes 10 seconds to take a screenshot of the whole window and open the captured screenshot in the GRAB app itself.
Apart from that, you can also take regular screenshots as well with this app.
How to find GRAB App?
Go to 'Finder' and type Grab. The Grab app will pop up in the result. Click the app to start.
Alternatively, you can go to th search option on the top right corner of your Macbook screen and search for the Grab app.
How to take the timed screenshot
With the Grab inbuilt app, you can take the timed screenshot. Open the Grab app and go to capture as shown in the below image.
When you select 'Timed Screen' option from 'Capture' It will ask you to start the timer for taking a screenshot. When you click the button, the screenshot of the windows is automatically taken after 10 seconds. Wasn't it super easy?
The Grab app can be used for taking regular screenshots as well as 'selection', 'Window' & 'Screen' option that you see in the above image.