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May 13, 2010 How to Print Screen on a Mac What is known as “Print Screen” in the Windows world is called screen captures or screenshots in Mac OS X. You’ve probably noticed there is no ‘Print Screen’ button on a Mac keyboard, this is to both simplify the keyboard and also because it’s unnecessary. Nov 01, 2018 If you have bought new Mac or switched over to Mac in 2018, here is my beginners guide for new Apple fans on How to take a screenshot (print screen) on a Mac & MacBook Pro.Specially useful, if you are looking for the Print Screen button present on most of the standard keyboards designed for Windows OS. If you look at any Laptop or Desktop with windows OS, you will always find a simple.
- Print Screen For Mac Air
- How To Screen Print On Apple
- Print Screen Software For Mac Free Download
- Print Screen Tool For Mac
- Print Screen For Mac Computer
- Print Screen For Mac Pro
The most basic way of taking a screenshot a Mac is by pressing down Command + Shift + 3. But there are various other ways and options are available if you look further in. In this post, we shall show you the methods on how to print screen Mac.
In Windows to take a screenshot of the screen you just need to press the “Print Screen” often mentioned as “PrtScr” and the screenshot of the screen would be copied to your clipboard and you can save it either on OneDrive directly or save by opening it on any photo editor app. But in Mac, it’s a little different but easy to print screen. The methods are given in this article work on all Mac OS X and macOS, but there are some new features are added in the new Mojave which we will introduce too.
Print Screen For Mac Air
BASIC:
- The screenshot is automatically saved on Desktop by default in Mac. Although you can change the path of save on Mac.
- The screenshot will be saved in as a .png image file.
- The screenshot can be open in Preview and then you can change the different file type extension such as .jpeg or .jpg.
How to Screenshot of the Whole Screen on Mac
If you want to save everything on your screen then it’s really simple on Mac. The basic and simple way to screenshot on Mac is given below:
- Press and hold down Command + Shift + 3.
- You shall hear the sound of shutter click when it took the print screen on Mac.
- The taken Screenshot will be saved on Desktop as default saving location (we will tell you how to change the location of where screenshot saved in Mac later in this post)
How to Screenshot Part of the Screen
Sometimes when you don’t want a screenshot of the whole screen but a particular of the screen then, you can select an area within the screen to take a screenshot of it rather than taking the whole screenshot and crop it later. You can highlight a particular area of the screen and take a screenshot of it by the method given below.
- Press and hold down Command + Shift + 4.
- You shall see a cross on the screen with some numbers. Drag these crosshairs across the area you want to take the screen on your Mac screen. To do so, press the trackpad or click the mouse button and it will form a rectangle and by that, you can select the area you want to print screen on the Mac screen.
- When you have selected the area by your rectangle border, release the trackpad or mouse button, and your screenshot will be taken and saved.
- The taken screenshot shall be saved automatically on the desktop as we said earlier and on Mojave, you may see a thumbnail appear in the bottom right of the screen from there you can click and edit the image straight.
Tip – Once the crosshair appears on the screen, you can let go off the keyboard keys. After you have clicked the mouse button and started dragging the curser, you will be able to move the selected area by pressing Space. By pressing Shift you shall be able to move it horizontally.
To cancel the screenshot process, you can cancel it by pressing the Escape key.
How to Take Screenshots of a Particular Size
If you wish to take a screenshot of an area on the screen with particular pixel length and width, follow the steps given below:
- Press and hold down Command + Shift + 4.
- You shall see crosshairs on the screen, drag them to cover an area of the screen that equals the pixel length and width you want
- Before letting go of the Trackpad or Mouse button, press the Space Bar key, then you will be able to move the box around your screen until you have the area covered you want to screenshot.
How to Screenshot a Window without Shadow in Mac
- Press and hold down Command + Shift + 4.
- Hold down Alt/Option, when crosshairs show, then press Space + Alt
- Drag and position cursor over window and click. It will be highlighted in blue.
How to Take Timed Screenshot in Mac
In order to take a timed screenshot in Mojave, you need to follow the steps given below.
- Press and hold down Command + Shift + 5 and tap on the Options.
- Select 5 or 10 seconds under Timer.
- Choose any kind of the screenshot you need to take such as entire screen, a part of the screen or selected window.
- You shall see a timer start-up in count down and screenshot will be taken when it reaches zero.
If you are using an older version of macOS or Mac OS X, you can use Grab to take a timed screenshot in Mac. Hit the Command + Space and type Grab or search it through the Utilities folder.
- Open the Grab and click on Capture => Timed Screen
- Tap on Start Timer
- A red dial shall start showing beside the camera icon to notify how much time is left to take a screenshot.
- You should note that this will only screenshot the whole screen but if you want a part of it then you can edit it later.
Final Words:
These are the simple and basic methods to print screen on Mac. With the new update in the OS new additional features are added but the process of taking a screenshot is still the same as given above.
If you've upgraded to macOS Mojave or later, you can use the Screenshot app to take all types of screenshots, or make video recordings of your screen. You can open Screenshot by pressing Shift-Command (⌘)-5, or use Spotlight to find and open the app.
Other keyboard shortcuts, such as Shift-Command-3 and Shift-Command-4, continue to work in all versions of macOS.
Capture the entire screen
Press Shift-Command-5 or Shift-Command-3 as described below.
In macOS Mojave or later
- Press Shift-Command-5 on your keyboard to see the onscreen capture controls:
- Click Capture Entire Screen . The pointer changes to a camera .
- Click anywhere on any screen to capture the screen of that display, or click Capture to capture the screen of every display.
- A thumbnail of the screenshot briefly appears in the corner of your screen. Interact with the thumbnail to edit the screenshot, move it, or take other actions. Or wait for the screenshot to appear on your desktop.
In all macOS versions
- Press Shift-Command-3 to capture the screen of every display.
- Find the screenshot on your desktop.
Capture a window
Press Shift-Command-5 or Shift-Command-4 as described below.
In macOS Mojave or later
How To Screen Print On Apple
- Press Shift-Command-5 to see the onscreen capture controls.
- Click Capture Selected Window . Your pointer changes to a camera .
- Click a window to capture that window.
To exclude the window's shadow from the screenshot, press and hold the Option key while you click. - A thumbnail of the screenshot briefly appears in the corner of your screen. Interact with the thumbnail to edit the screenshot, move it, or take other actions. Or wait for the screenshot to appear on your desktop.
In all macOS versions
- Press Shift-Command-4.
- Press the Space bar. The pointer changes to a camera .
- Click a window to capture that window.
To exclude the window's shadow from the screenshot, press and hold the Option key while you click. - Find the screenshot on your desktop.
Capture a selected portion of the screen
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Press Shift-Command-5 or Shift-Command-4 as described below.
In macOS Mojave or later
- Press Shift-Command-5 to see the onscreen capture controls.
- Click Capture Selected Portion .
- Drag to select an area of the screen to capture. To move the entire selection, drag from within the selection.
- Click Capture.
- A thumbnail of the screenshot briefly appears in the corner of your screen. Interact with the thumbnail to edit the screenshot, move it, or take other actions. Or wait for the screenshot to appear on your desktop.
In all macOS versions
- Press Shift-Command-4.
- Drag to select the area of the screen to capture. To move the entire selection, press and hold Space bar while dragging.
- After you release your mouse or trackpad button, find the screenshot on your desktop.
Capture a menu
Press Shift-Command-5 or Shift-Command-4 as described below.
In macOS Mojave or later
- Click the menu to reveal its contents.
- Capture the menu using either of these methods, which use Shift-Command-5:
- Capture a window (the menu is treated like a window).
- Capture a selected portion of the screen that includes the menu.
Print Screen Tool For Mac
In all macOS versions
- Click the menu to reveal its contents.
- Press Shift-Command-4.
- Drag to select the area of the menu to capture, then release your mouse or trackpad button to capture that area.
- Or press Space bar to change the pointer to a camera , then click the menu to capture it.
- Find the screenshot on your desktop.
Capture the Touch Bar
If you have a Mac with a Touch Bar and macOS Sierra 10.12.2 or later, press Shift-Command-6 to capture what is currently displayed on the Touch Bar. Then find the screenshot on your desktop.
Print Screen For Mac Computer
You can also customize the Control Strip region of your Touch Bar to include a Screenshot button.
Use the screenshot thumbnail
When you take a screenshotin macOS Mojave or later, a thumbnail of the screenshot appears briefly in the lower-right corner of your screen.
- Take no action or swipe the thumbnail to the right: The screenshot is automatically saved to your chosen save location, which by default is the desktop.
- Control-click the thumbnail to choose more actions, such as change the default save location, open the screenshot in an app, or delete the screenshot without saving it.
- Drag the thumbnail to move the screenshot to another location, such as to a document, an email, a Finder window, or the Trash.
- Click the thumbnail to open the screenshot. You can then use the markup tools in the toolbar to crop, rotate, annotate, and take other editing actions. Or click the share button to share the screenshot.
Clicking the thumbnail opens it in editing view. Hover your pointer over each button in the toolbar to see its function.
If you don't want the thumbnail to appear, click Options in the onscreen controls, then use the ”Show Floating Thumbnail” option to change the setting.
Print Screen For Mac Pro
Learn more
- Screenshot controls in macOS Mojave or later are provided by the Screenshot app, which is in the Utilities folder of your Applications folder. This app replaces the Grab app from earlier versions of macOS.
- By default, screenshots are saved with the name ”Screen Shot date at time.png”.
- To cancel taking a screenshot, press the Esc (Escape) key before clicking to capture.
- To store the screenshot in the Clipboard instead of saving it, press and hold the Control key while you click to capture. You can then paste the screenshot into a document, message, or other location. Using Universal Clipboard, you can even paste it on another Apple device.
- You can open screenshots with Preview, Safari, or other apps that can edit or view images. Preview can export to a different format, such as JPEG, PDF, or TIFF.
- Some apps, such as DVD Player, might not let you take screenshots of their windows.