Screenshots can be really useful. You can use them to show your grandparents how to use a new app. You can use them to send a snapshot of this strange error message to your company’s IT department. You can use them to capture tweets before they get lost in the erasure black hole. So, if you need to capture a screenshot or two, here is a quick and simple guide to take a screenshot on your Mac.
Recent versions of macOS (Mojave and Catalina) come with an app that saves your screenshots as .PNG files. Press Shift-Command (⌘)-5 to get a command bar at the bottom of the screen.
- The first three buttons from the left allow you to take a screenshot of the entire screen, a specific window, or an outlined selection of the screen.
- The next two buttons let you start video recording of all or part of your screen.
- The “Options” button lets you choose where you want to save your screenshot, set a delay of 5 or 10 seconds, and show or hide your cursor.
- When you’re ready, click the “Capture” button at the right end of the command bar.
If you’re in a hurry and don’t want to mess with the command bar, or if you haven’t upgraded to Mojave or Catalina, you can still save screenshots to your desktop.
- Press Shift-Command-3 to take a screenshot of the entire screen
- Press Shift-Command-4 to take a screenshot of part of the screen and then drag the cursor to outline the area you want to capture
- Press Shift-Command-4 if you want to capture a specific window. Press the spacebar. The cursor will change to a camera. Move the cursor over the window you want to capture until it is highlighted, and then click on it.
