Hotkeys For Screenshot Mac



You can take a screenshot on a 16-inch MacBook Pro or any other model with a Touch Bar. Simply press ‘Command + Shift + 6’ to take the screenshot of the Touch Bar screen. Other than this, if you want the screenshot copied to your clipboard, then you need to press ‘Control + Command + Shift + 6.’. Source: HowToGeek.com. To take a screenshot of your entire screen, press Command+Shift+3. Press all three keys at once and your Mac’s desktop will flash, you’ll hear a camera sound, and the screenshot will appear on your desktop as a.png file. Take a Screenshot of Part of Your Screen To take a screenshot of part of your screen, press Command+Shift+4 instead.

  1. Mac Hotkeys Pdf
  2. Hotkey For Screenshot Mac
  3. Discord Hotkeys For Mac

Taking a screenshot on a Mac® is as easy as on a PC—when you know the keyboard shortcuts to do so.

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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

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:

  1. Press Command-Shift-4 to change a pointer to a crosshair.
  2. Select the area of a screen you want to capture by moving and dragging the cursor.
  3. 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.

Mac Hotkeys Pdf

(2) To copy a portion of the screen to the clipboard, do the following:

Hotkeys For Screenshot Mac
  1. Press Command-Control-Shift-4 to change a pointer to a crosshair.
  2. Select the area of a screen you want to capture by moving and dragging the cursor.
  3. After clicking on the mouse, the screenshot will be saved to the clipboard.
  4. Select the application where you want to insert the captured image, such as Word, Skype, or Outlook.
  5. Press Command-V to paste the screenshot.
Hotkey

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:

  1. Press Command-Shift-4 to change a pointer to a crosshair.
  2. Tap on the spacebar on your keyboard. The cursor will change to a camera.
  3. Select the active application window you want to capture by moving your cursor.
  4. When you move the cursor over an application, the window will be highlighted.
  5. 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:

  1. Press Command-Control-Shift-4 to change a pointer to a crosshair.
  2. Tap on the spacebar on your keyboard. The cursor will change to a camera.
  3. Select the active application window you want to capture by moving your cursor.
  4. When you move the cursor over an application, the window will be highlighted.
  5. Click the mouse button on the window you want to capture. The screenshot will be saved to the clipboard.
  6. Select the application where you want to insert the captured image, like Word, Skype, or Outlook
  7. 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:

  1. Press Command-Shift-3 to take a screenshot of the whole screen.
  2. 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:

  1. Press Command-Control-Shift-3 to copy the whole screen.
  2. The screenshot will be automatically saved to the clipboard.
  3. Select the application where you want to insert the captured image, like Word, Skype, or Outlook
  4. 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.

Hotkeys For Screenshot Mac

To fix that, do the following:

  1. From the Apple menu in the top left corner, open System Preferences and click on the Keyboard.
  2. In the new window, click on Shortcuts.
  3. Find Screen Shots in the left menu.
  4. Check if the shortcuts are active and have the same key combos you type.
  5. 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. To solve that, use the Parallels Toolbox application for screen capturing.

Best screen capturing app
Use CleanShot X for all your screen recording needs.

Screenshots have become so ubiquitous nowadays that we don’t give them too much thought anymore. Yet every day we use them to show, explain, and communicate. Whether it’s sending an image of a software bug to customer support, a quick how-to GIF to a colleague, or a heartfelt joke a loved one, screenshots help us enrich and liven up our daily communication patterns.

Naturally, for creating and editing screenshots, Windows PC has its widely respected Snipping Tool. In fact, if you’ve recently switched your PC for Mac, at some point you’re guaranteed to wonder where and what is Snipping Tool for Mac.

Rest assured, you’re not left without screenshots forever. A snipping tool for Mac does exist. Moreover, just like on Windows, it’s built right into the operating system — which is the answer to the common question of where to download snipping tool for Mac. In addition, there are plenty of third-party snipping tools out there that considerably expand on the functionality of the pre-installed option.

Mac Snipping Tools: get the full pack for free

A superb edition of best apps that take your snipping on Mac to the new level. All in one pack.

What is the best Snipping tool for Mac?

Mac OS snipping tool is so baked into the operating system that it doesn’t even have a name. It just … well, works, mirroring the Snipping Tool you’ve grown accustomed to on Windows almost to a T.

Plus, there’s not just one snipping tool on Mac — there are dozens. Below, we’ll compare the default screenshot snipping tool Mac offers to its Windows alternative, and introduce third-party tools like CleanShot, Dropshare, and Capto as well.

How to use Snipping tool on macOS

What is the shortcut key for Snipping Tool? The shortest answer to “How to snip on Mac?” is to press ⇧⌘5. The shortcut calls up a small menu in the lower part of the screen with lots of options to choose from.

This menu is new to Mac, as it first appeared in macOS Mojave in 2018. Before then, Mac users were limited to either using ⇧⌘3 to take a screenshot of the whole screen or ⇧⌘4 to select an area (these shortcuts still work the same). If you’re using one of the macOS versions before Mojave, make sure to update to the latest macOS available to make full use of the snipping tool on Mac.

So the menu for the Mac OS snipping tool features the following options:

  • Capture Entire Screen,
  • Capture Selected Window,
  • Caption Selected Portion (area),
  • Record Entire Screen,
  • and Record Selected Portion (area).

Besides, there is also an Options dropdown, where you can change where to save the resulting image, set a timer, and choose whether to show the mouse pointer.

BTW, did you know that you can use Mac Snipping tool also to taking screenshots of the Touch Bar itself?

  • To save a screenshot of Touch Bar as a file on your desktop press ⇧⌘6
  • To copy what you see on Touch Bar to your clipboard press ⌃⇧⌘6

You can customize your keyboard shortcuts by going to System Preferences > Keyboard > Shortcuts > Screen Shots

Hotkey For Screenshot Mac

Right away you can see how similar the functionality of a snipping tool on Mac is to its Windows counterpart. Let’s compare screenshot capabilities side by side:

  • Full screen: Mac and Windows
  • Single app window: Mac and Windows
  • Area: Mac and Windows
  • Freeform: Windows only
  • Video: Mac only
  • Delay: 5 or 10 seconds on Mac, 1 to 5 seconds on Windows
  • Editing: full toolkit on Mac, limited on Windows

Diving into details, you might notice that the snipping tool on Mac doesn’t allow for a freeform capture. Likewise, its Windows alternative can’t record video and only offers limited annotation options. So naturally, this default screenshot grabber on Mac would be your go-to in most cases. However, if you need to be able to capture screenshots with a freehand selection or you’re just eager to use something more powerful, third-party Mac apps have a lot to offer.

Snipping tool alternatives

Download apps that allow to customize and enjoy screenshotting on Mac – better than default programs.

Snipping tool to capture your screen without distractions

While Mac’s default snipping tool can create basic screenshots, a professional utility like CleanShot seamlessly enhances its functionality. It allows you to hide all desktop icons to capture your screen with no distractions, change the wallpaper, preview screenshots before you save them, copy the resulting image or video into your clipboard, annotate images with ease, and much more.

To give yourself an example of what CleanShot is truly capable of, choose Capture Area within the app (notice how desktop icons disappear), drag your mouse to make a screenshot, and click the pen icon to edit the result before it gets saved.

To be able to always capture your screen without all the desktop icons getting in your way, set and use custom hotkeys in the Preferences menu of the CleanShot app. And if you wonder what’s the most effective way to share your screenshot with others, you need to know about one more app.

Share screenshots with others instantly

Unlike the default snipping tool on Mac, we have a tool approaches the problem of screenshots as a sharing problem first and foremost.

Dropshare is a Mac snipping tool alternative that allows you to choose between capturing a specific area, capturing and editing, and recording an area or full screen. After you done, all URLs would be saved automatically and ready to share with your team. Every time you take a screenshot, Dropshare swiftly uploads it to the cloud and gives you a short link to share with others. It’s also robust in its uploading options, offering you a choice between 10 GB of its own storage or any of the cloud providers you already use, such as Dropbox, Google Drive, Rackspace, Amazon S3, etc.

However, if you want to make 100% freehand selections or take webpage screenshots of any length, you need to combine Dropshare with another brilliant utility.

How to capture freehand region on a Mac

Hotkey for screenshot mac

Compared to other tools discussed above, Capto is in a league of its own and virtually redefines how to snip on Mac. It lets you capture full screen, circle area, rectangle area, freeform area, single app window, menus, webpages, and more. Besides, it features a robust editor to help you modify the results.

To create screenshots of any type, simply choose Freehand and draw out the shape.

Similarly, the options for instantly taking seamless screenshots of long webpages are available under the Web tab, where you can choose to use a built-in browser to search for the website or open the current URL.

Discord Hotkeys For Mac

This feature completely eliminates the need for the old-school way of taking screenshots as long as your display allows and then somehow stitching them all together by hand.

Does Mac have a snipping tool for me?

Yes, and lots! As you can see, your Mac has a wide array of snipping tools to cover every need possible. And hopefully, by reading this far, you’ve come a long way from wondering whether “Mac has snipping tools at all” to “how to use snipping tool for Mac” to “omg, which snipping tool do I choose.”

Your choice in using a specific snipping tool should correlate to your needs. It’s probably a good idea to disregard the default Mac OS snipping tool and instead use CleanShot right away, as it features more functionality and much cleaner experience. But if communication is key, turn to Dropshare, which enables you to stay in the loop in a super-productive and visual way. And finally no screenshot functionality is too complicated for Capto, which brings all custom screenshot needs under one roof.

Best of all, you can try and download all these apps, and decide which one you like the most for free because all of them are available through Setapp, a platform for over 150 best-in-class Mac apps for any job. Taking screenshots with unique apps from Setapp will bring you the most beautiful results of the highest quality in no time. Screenshot away!

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