Use Shift-Command-5
The command + shift + 5 shortcut summons a screenshot control panel to screenshot Mac. Mac unzip command line. You can select to capture the entire screen, a selected part of the screen, or a selected window from this panel.
If you're using macOS Mojave or later, press Shift-Command (⌘)-5 on your keyboard to see onscreen controls for recording the entire screen, recording a selected portion of the screen, or capturing a still image of your screen. You can also record the screen with QuickTime Player instead.
Record the entire screen
- Click in the onscreen controls. Your pointer changes to a camera .
- Click any screen to start recording that screen, or click Record in the onscreen controls.
- To stop recording, click in the menu bar. Or press Command-Control-Esc (Escape).
- Use the thumbnail to trim, share, save, or take other actions.
Record a selected portion of the screen
- To save your Mac screenshot to the clipboard instead of to a file on your desktop, the magic key is Control (displayed on some older Mac keyboards as ⌃). You simply take an existing screenshot keyboard shortcut and add Control to the mix. For example, the keyboard shortcut to capture then entire screen is Shift (⇧) + Command (⌘) + 3.
- From macOS Mojave onwards, there’s a built-in shortcut on a Mac that lets you start recording your screen. Press Shift + Cmd + 5 and you’ll get an on-screen menu giving you various recording.
- Click in the onscreen controls.
- Drag to select an area of the screen to record. To move the entire selection, drag from within the selection.
- To start recording, click Record in the onscreen controls.
- To stop recording, click in the menu bar. Or press Command-Control-Esc (Escape).
- Use the thumbnail to trim, share, save, or take other actions.
Trim, share, and save
After you stop recording, a thumbnail of the video appears briefly in the lower-right corner of your screen.
- Take no action or swipe the thumbnail to the right and the recording is automatically saved.
- Click the thumbnail to open the recording. You can then click to trim the recording, or click to share it.
- Drag the thumbnail to move the recording to another location, such as to a document, an email, a Finder window, or the Trash.
- Control-click the thumbnail for more options. For example, you can change the save location, open the recording in an app, or delete the recording without saving it.
Change the settings
Click Options in the onscreen controls to change these settings:
- Save to: Choose where your recordings are automatically saved, such as Desktop, Documents, or Clipboard.
- Timer: Choose when to begin recording: immediately, 5 seconds, or 10 seconds after you click to record.
- Microphone: To record your voice or other audio along with your recording, choose a microphone.
- Show Floating Thumbnail: Choose whether to show the thumbnail.
- Remember Last Selection: Choose whether to default to the selections you made the last time you used this tool.
- Show Mouse Clicks: Choose whether to show a black circle around your pointer when you click in the recording.
Use QuickTime Player
![Full screen mac os x Full screen mac os x](https://static.macupdate.com/screenshots/118122/m/grabit-screenshot.png?v=1568239349)
- Open QuickTime Player from your Applications folder, then choose File > New Screen Recording from the menu bar. You will then see either the onscreen controls described above or the Screen Recording window described in the following steps.
- Before starting your recording, you can click the arrow next to to change the recording settings:
- To record your voice or other audio with the screen recording, choose a microphone. To monitor that audio during recording, adjust the volume slider (if you get audio feedback, lower the volume or use headphones with a microphone).
- To show a black circle around your pointer when you click, choose Show Mouse Clicks in Recording.
- To record your voice or other audio with the screen recording, choose a microphone. To monitor that audio during recording, adjust the volume slider (if you get audio feedback, lower the volume or use headphones with a microphone).
- To start recording, click and then take one of these actions:
- Click anywhere on the screen to begin recording the entire screen.
- Or drag to select an area to record, then click Start Recording within that area.
- To stop recording, click in the menu bar, or press Command-Control-Esc (Escape).
- After you stop recording, QuickTime Player automatically opens the recording. You can now play, edit, or share the recording.
Learn more
- When saving your recording automatically, your Mac uses the name ”Screen Recording date at time.mov”.
- To cancel making a recording, press the Esc key before clicking to record.
- You can open screen recordings with QuickTime Player, iMovie, and other apps that can edit or view videos.
- Some apps, such as DVD Player, might not let you record their windows.
- Learn how to record the screen on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch.
Not sure how to screenshot on Mac or where to find the screenshot on your computer? Want to change the default file format and save screenshots in other formats than PNG? Here you can get answers to all your questions about taking screenshots on Mac, no matter what Mac OS version you have.
Keyboard shortcuts for taking a screenshot on Mac
The quickest way to do computer tasks is by using keyboard shortcuts. If you like to rely on them, here are the keyboard shortcuts for taking screenshots on Mac. Each keyboard shortcut has a different purpose.
Command-Shift-3 is for capturing a screenshot of your entire screen on Mac versions that are older than Mojave. If you are using Mojave or later Mac operating system, press Command-Shift-5. A small toolbar will show up and you just need to click on the monitor icon, which says Capture Entire Screen. The final step is to click on the Capture button.
Shift-Command-4 – shortcut is for Mac versions older than Mojave, if you want to take a screenshot of one window only or a specific screenshot size. With the left mouse you can drag and draw a rectangle, capturing only a part of the screen you want. Hold the mouse until you select the screenshot size and release it once you are done.
If you use Mojave or newer versions, the same keyboard shortcut we mentioned above will do the job Command-Shift-5. When a toolbar shows up, instead of clicking on the Capture Entire Screen, click on the next icon Capture Selected Window. The third button is for manually selecting a part of your screen that you wish to capture.
Command Shift 6– This shortcut works only if you have a Mac with Touch bar. Your entire Touch Bar is captured and the file is automatically saved on your desktop. To have more options for saving the screenshot, press Ctrl key to save the file to the clipboard, or Command + V to put the screenshot into a Word document, image editor, or email.
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Mac screenshot to clipboard
As we mentioned above, you don’t need to save the screenshot, but instead you can copy it to clipboard where you will do what you need with it. To copy the screenshot to clipboard, you need to hold the Ctrl key at the same time you capture the screenshot. Choose one of the above ways to capture the screenshot, or if you don’t like to use keyboard shortcuts, check other screenshot options below.
How to screenshot on Mac without keyboard
If you don’t like to use keyboard shortcuts, there are other ways to screenshot on Mac. Grab and Preview are default apps that come with Mac so let’s see the difference between those two.
Grab – Snipping tool alternative for Mac
Windows has Snipping tool, Mac has Grab. Similar to Snipping tool, you can use time delay option to take the screenshot after 10 seconds or so. Not to mention that you can choose between three ways to capture the screenshot: a whole screen, one window on the screen or a specific section of the screen.
To activate the time delay option just find the Timed Screenshot option from the Grab menu. Also check the Preferences menu and check the pointer icon, otherwise it won’t show up by default.
Preview tool
This tool serves for opening PDF files, photos, editing images and capturing screenshots. What is cool about this tool is that you can choose where you will save your screenshot. To take a screenshot with Preview, click on the Highlight File and from the drop-down menu click on Take Screenshot. You will have three options, to take a screenshot From Selection, From Window and From Entire Screen. After the screenshot is taken, you can even edit the image in the same tool.
How to take a screenshot of a specific size
Full Screen Mac Os X
When you choose to take a screenshot that is not a screenshot of the entire screen or one window, you actually drag it with your mouse and by dragging it you change the size of it.
Command Shift 4 (for Mac versions older than Mojave) and Command Shift 5 (for Mojave or later versions) activate that dragging option and you will see on the screen what is the pixel width and depth. If you want to move the area that you want to screenshot, press the Spacebar and start moving the selected box until the whole area is covered. Don’t release the mouse click until you are satisfied with the selection.
Where do screenshots go on Mac?
If you use keyboard shortcuts to take a screenshot on Mac, you probably know that every screenshot you take is saved on desktop. But if you use Mojave or newer versions of Mac, you will find the Options menu when you use Shift Command 5. From the Options menu go to Save to and select the location where you want to save the file.
When you copy screenshot to clipboard (see the instructions above), it is saved in the clipboard. If you cannot find your screenshots check System Preferences (Keyboard>Shortcuts>Screenshots).
Mac Grab Utility
In older versions of Mac you can create a folder that will be a new location for storing screenshots automatically. You just need to open the Terminal app and type: defaults write com.apple.screencapture location. The last step is to drag a screenshot folder in Terminal and hit the Enter button.
Mac Grab Tool
Can you screenshot in other file formats than PNG?
The easiest way to change the default format in which the screenshots are saved is to run the Terminal app and to write: defaults write com.apple.screencapture type JPG. To confirm the changes press the Enter key. Now type: killall SystemUIServer. Press Enter again and that’s it. To change the default settings to other formats than PNG and JPG, just type some other format instead of JPG and repeat all these steps.
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If you don’t want to change the default file format settings, you can just open the screenshot you’ve made in any image editor and change the file format.