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How to print screen on a Mac
In This Article
Need to take a screenshot on your Mac? We’ve put together this guide to teach you how to do it in just two steps.
The quickest way to capture your screen on a Mac or MacBook is to use your computer’s built-in shortcuts. These allow you to capture the whole screen, a select portion of the screen or a window simply by holding a combination of keys on your keyboard.
Apple automatically saves screenshots to your desktop but, if you’d rather store them neatly in a folder, you do have the option to change the default location in the Screenshot app. You can also manually drag the thumbnail to your chosen folder as the image is saving.
Read on to learn how to print screen the entire screen on a Mac, or scroll down to the Troubleshooting section of this guide for shortcuts you can use to capture specific windows, menus and portions of your screen.
What you’ll need:
The Short Version
How to print screen on a Mac
Step1
Press and hold Shift, Command and 3 at the same time
This will capture the entire screen. To learn how to print screen a specific portion of the screen or a single window, scroll to the bottom of this guide.
Step2
Wait for the screenshot to save to your desktop
Or click the thumbnail in the corner of the screen to edit the image first.
Troubleshooting
If you don’t want to capture the entire screen and instead want to select a specific portion, press and hold Shift, Command and 4 at the same time.This will bring up a crosshair. Click and drag to select the portion of the screen you want to print screen and let go to save the screenshot.
To capture a specific window or menu, just press Shift, Command, 4 and the space bar at the same time.This will bring up a camera icon. You can click on any window or menu to capture it and save it to your desktop. The tool will automatically save the window’s shadow to your image, but you can press and hold the Option button as you choose your window to prevent this if you want.
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Hannah joined Trusted Reviews as a staff writer in 2019 after graduating with a degree in English from Royal Holloway, University of London. She’s also worked and studied in the US, holding positions …
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Why trust our journalism?
Founded in 2003, Trusted Reviews exists to give our readers thorough, unbiased and independent advice on what to buy.
Today, we have millions of users a month from around the world, and assess more than 1,000 products a year.
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
