How to Take a Screenshot on Mac

Capture any part of your Mac screen with a simple keyboard shortcut — then find, edit, or share it in seconds.

In this guide (5 steps):

1.Capture your entire screen
2.Capture a selected area of the screen
3.Capture a single window
4.Use the screenshot toolbar for more options
5.Find your saved screenshots

Capture your entire screen

~24s

Hold down the Cmd key, then hold the Shift key, then press the number 3 key (all three together: ⌘+Shift+3). You will see a small thumbnail appear briefly in the bottom right corner of your screen. If you click it, you can edit the screenshot. If you do nothing, it saves automatically to your Desktop as an image file.

Quick Tip

This is the fastest way to capture everything on your screen at once.

Capture a selected area of the screen

~16s

Press ⌘+Shift+4. Your mouse cursor will turn into a small crosshair. Click and drag to draw a box around the part of the screen you want to capture. When you release the mouse button, the screenshot is taken and saved to your Desktop.

Capture a single window

~20s

Press ⌘+Shift+4, and then press the Space bar. Your cursor will change into a small camera icon. Move the camera over the window you want to capture — it will highlight in blue. Click on it to take a screenshot of that window only. This is great for capturing a single app or dialog box without the rest of your screen.

Use the screenshot toolbar for more options

~29s

Press ⌘+Shift+5. A small toolbar will appear at the bottom of your screen with buttons for capturing the full screen, a window, or a selected area. It also has a screen recording option. This toolbar is the best choice if you cannot remember the other keyboard shortcuts.

Quick Tip

If you want to copy a screenshot to your clipboard instead of saving it as a file, add the Ctrl key to any shortcut (for example, Ctrl+⌘+Shift+3). You can then paste it into an email or document with ⌘+V.

Find your saved screenshots

~16s

By default, all screenshots save directly to your Desktop. You will see them as image files with names like "Screenshot 2026-04-14 at 10.30.00 AM." If you want to change where screenshots are saved, press ⌘+Shift+5 to open the toolbar, click "Options," and choose a different save location.

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