How to Print Screen on A Mac?{Best Methods}

There is a keyboard key dedicated to capturing the screen on a typical Windows machine but taking a screenshot on a Mac is a little bit different than taking a screenshot on a Windows machine. However, you will have more options to take a screenshot on Mac as compared to a Windows machine because you can use a set of keys for capturing the screen in various ways on a Mac and the print screenshots on Mac are much more advanced.

Easy ways to take a screenshot on a Mac

The screenshots are saved in PNG format from Mac OS X 10.6 and above and are saved to the desktop by default along with date and time. You can open the saved screenshots with Safari, Preview, and other apps. So below are the five ways to print screen on a Mac:

1. Capturing the full screen

If you need to capture the full screen, follow the below steps:

• You need to press the Command + Shift + 3 keys simultaneously.

• In this way, you can save a copy of your screen on your desktop and you can alternatively press the same combination with the Control key in order to save the image to your clipboard.

• If you have updated Mac to the latest version which is known as Mojave then a preview of the screenshot will appear in the corner of your screen that gives you quick access to editing tools.

There is also another benefit of the new screenshot ‘Stacks’ feature which groups together similar files on your desktop such as screenshots. For this, you need to just right-click on your desktop and all of them will be quickly grouped together.

2. Capturing a particular portion

If you need to take a screenshot of a particular portion of the screen, follow the below steps:

• You need to press the Command + Shift + 4 key together.

• The cursor turns to a Print Screen icon where you can click and drag to select a particular portion of the screen.

• When you do this, the particular portion will automatically be captured.

3. Capturing a window

If you need to take a screenshot of the window, follow the below steps:

• You need to press the Command + Shift + 4 keys simultaneously so that your cursor turns into a crosshair.

• Then press the Spacebar and the pointer will change to a camera icon.

• When you hover over the window, it will be highlighted in blue which indicates that only this window will be captured in your screenshot.

• Then you need to click on the window you want to screenshot and an image of it will be saved to the desktop.

• The saved image will be a transparent PNG of the window along with its shadow. If you do not need the shadow to be included then you need to press and hold the Option key which is labeled as Alt on some Mac keyboards.

• You can also add Control to the key combination to ensure the image will be saved to the clipboard instead of your desktop.

4. Capturing timed screenshots

If you need to take a timed screenshot in Mojave, follow the below steps:

• You need to press the Command + Shift + 5.

• Then click on options and under Timer you need to choose 5 or 10 seconds.

• After that, you need to choose the kind of screenshot you want to take such as the entire screen, selected portion, and selected window.

• When the timer startup and reaches zero, your screenshot will be taken.

If you have an older version of Mac OS or Mac OS X then you can use Grab to take a timed screenshot. Follow the below steps:

• You need to press the Command + Space and start to type Grab or search through the utility folder that you will find in the Applications folder.

• Then open Grab and click on Capture the Timed Screen.

• Then click on the Timer to start.

• When the timer startup and reaches zero, your screenshot will be taken.

This method will only enable you to screenshot the whole screen but you can edit it later.

5. Capturing a screenshot using Preview

Preview is the default tool that enables you to open photos and PDF files on your Mac. You can edit the images with Preview simply by clicking the toolbox icon and it can also capture screenshots. Follow the below steps:

• You need to open the Preview.

• Then select the file option in the menu bar.

• You need to select Take Screenshot either from Selection, from Window, or from Entire Screen depending on your preferences from the drop-down menu.

The main benefit of Preview is that you can choose where your screenshots end up. Preview opens the screenshot and allows you to make a few edits and then you can save the file as per your preference.

Read More: How to Reset your Mac Before Selling it

The above mentioned five ways would definitely help you to take different kinds of screenshots on Mac quickly and more beneficial to newcomers to the Mac platform. Mac provides more powerful options that go far beyond just pressing a single button on a keyboard.

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