How to take a screenshot on a Mac
Every Mac has screenshot tools built in, driven by keyboard shortcuts. This guide covers all of them: the whole screen, a rectangle you draw, a single window, copying to the clipboard instead of saving, and recording the screen as a video. Nothing needs installing.
What you'll need: Any Mac running macOS Mojave or later. The shortcuts use the Shift, Command (⌘) and number keys, so on an external keyboard made for Windows, press the Windows key wherever Command is mentioned.
Capture the whole screen
Hold down Shift and Command, then press 3. You'll hear a camera shutter sound, unless the Mac is muted, and a small thumbnail of the screenshot slides in at the bottom-right corner of the screen.
Capture part of the screen
Hold down Shift and Command, then press 4. The pointer turns into a crosshair. Drag across the area you want, then let go of the mouse or trackpad. The screenshot is taken the moment you release.
To back out without taking a screenshot, press Esc.
Capture a single window
Hold down Shift and Command, press 4, then press the Space bar. The crosshair becomes a small camera icon. Move it over the window you want, which turns blue, and click.
This works on menus, the Dock and the menu bar too, not only on windows.
Find the screenshot
Screenshots are saved to the Desktop as PNG files. Each one is named with the date and time it was taken, for example Screenshot 2026-09-23 at 10.15.30.png.
The thumbnail in the bottom-right corner stays for a few seconds. Leave it alone and the file saves by itself. Click it to open the screenshot for cropping or marking up, or swipe it to the right to dismiss it straight away.
Copy a screenshot instead of saving it
Add Control to any of the shortcuts above. Hold down Control, Shift and Command, then press 3 or 4. The screenshot goes to the clipboard and nothing is saved to the Desktop.
Paste it into an email, a document or a chat with Command and V.
Open the Screenshot toolbar
Hold down Shift and Command, then press 5. A toolbar appears near the bottom of the screen. The first three buttons take screenshots: Capture Entire Screen, Capture Selected Window and Capture Selected Portion. Click one, then click Capture at the right-hand end of the toolbar, or click the screen or window you want.
These do the same as steps 1 to 3. The toolbar is there for the options in the next two steps.
Change where screenshots go, or add a delay
With the toolbar open, click Options. Under Save to, choose Desktop, Documents, Clipboard, Mail, Messages, Preview or Other Location…. Under Timer, choose 5 Seconds or 10 Seconds if you need time to open a menu before the screenshot is taken.
The same menu has a Show Mouse Pointer switch, which is off unless you turn it on. Your choices are remembered for next time, including for the keyboard shortcuts in steps 1 to 3.
Record the screen as a video
With the toolbar open, click Record Entire Screen or Record Selected Portion, drag out the area if asked, then click Record. To stop, click the Stop button, a square inside a circle, that has appeared in the menu bar at the top of the screen. The recording is saved to the same place as your screenshots, as a .mov file.
Variations
While dragging out an area in step 2, and before you release the mouse, hold the Space bar to move the whole selection around the screen. Hold Shift to lock one edge and adjust only the other. Hold Option to resize from the centre outwards.
A window screenshot includes the soft drop shadow around the window, which adds a wide transparent border to the file. To leave it out, hold Option while you click the window in step 3.
Click the thumbnail in the bottom-right corner as soon as it appears. The screenshot opens with the Markup tools along the top: draw, add text, shapes, a signature or a crop. Click Done to save, or the bin icon to delete it.
Troubleshooting
Check that Shift and Command are both held down before you press the number, and that you're pressing the number key along the top of the keyboard. If it still does nothing, the shortcut may have been switched off or changed. Open System Settings, click Keyboard, click Keyboard Shortcuts…, then click Screenshots in the list on the left and check each shortcut is ticked. Third-party screenshot apps sometimes take over these shortcuts as well, so quit any you have running and try again.
Wait a few seconds after the thumbnail disappears; the file isn't written until then. If it still isn't there, someone has changed the save location. Press Shift, Command and 5, click Options and look at which entry under Save to is ticked. If it says Clipboard, the screenshot was copied rather than saved, and pasting will show it.
On a Mac with a Retina display, a screenshot has twice the pixels in each direction that the screen appears to have, so a full-screen capture can be several megabytes. For a smaller file, open the screenshot in Preview, choose Export… from the File menu, and change Format to JPEG or lower the size under Tools then Adjust Size….
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