How to Take a Screenshot on Mac OS X

If you need to take a screenshot for an interesting chat, show an expert an error message on your system, write instructions on how to perform a task, or even contribute an article to wikiHoww, then a screenshot is a good idea so someone can see exactly what appears on your screen. Taking a screenshot on Mac OS X is very simple, here are a few ways that you can easily do it.

Table of Contents

Capture Part of the Screen

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Press Command + Shift + 4. Your cursor will turn into a crosshair square.

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Click and drag the cursor to select the area you want to capture. A rectangle will appear where you drag the pointer. If you need to adjust the entire window, press Escape to return the cursor to its original shape.

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Release the mouse. You will hear the camera shutter sound very quickly if you have the sound on on your computer. This sign indicates that your screen has been captured.

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Find the screenshot on the desktop. The image will be saved in .png format and named “screenshot” with the date and time.

Previous versions of OS X saved the image as “Picture #”—for example, if this was the 5th screenshot on your computer, it would be named “Picture 5”.

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Use screenshots. Once the screen is captured, the image is now ready to be used when needed. You can attach it to an email, upload it to a web page, or even drag an image into a word processor.

Capture Full Screen

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Make sure the screen shows exactly what you want to capture. Don’t forget to open the relevant windows.

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Press Command + Shift + 3. If sound is on, your computer will make a camera shutter sound.

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Find the screenshot at the desktop. The image will be saved as “screenshot” with the date and time.

Previous versions of OS X saved the image as “Picture #”—for example, if this was the 5th screenshot on your computer, it would be named “Picture 5”.

Save Screenshot to Clipboard

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Press Command + Contrp + Shift + 3. This does the same thing as above, except it won’t export the image file immediately. Instead, the image will be saved at the clipboard, a temporary storage area where you remember the text you copied.

You can also capture part of the screen by pressing Command + Contrp + Shift + 4 and dragging the cursor around the part of the screen to capture, just like how to capture a part of the screen instructed above.

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Use Command + V or Edit (Edit) > Paste to paste your photo. Screenshots can be pasted directly into any compatible application, such as a Word document, an image editing program, or other email services.

Screenshot An Open Window

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Press Command + Shift + 4 at the same time with the spacebar (Spacebar). The rectangular pointer will turn into a small camera. You can use the spacebar to return the cursor to its original shape.

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Move the cursor to the window you want to capture. The camera will mark those windows in blue when you hover over them. You can use the Command+Tab keyboard to switch to the window you want to capture while still in this mode.

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Click on the window. The image of the window you select will be saved to the desktop by default, just like any other way.

The Grab Utilities Method

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Click Applications > Utilities > Grab . It will open the Grab app and a menu will appear in the lower left corner of the screen, but no windows will appear.

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Click on the Capture panel and choose one of the 4 different items.

To capture the entire screen, select Screen (or use Apple Key + Z ). A window will appear asking you to click and indicating that the window will not disappear from the snapshot.
To capture part of the screen, select Selection . A window will appear instructing you to hover to select the area to capture.
To capture a certain window, select Window . Then click on the window you want to capture.

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When the new window appears, select Save . You can also choose Save As to give it a different name or choose a location to save the image, keep in mind that the image is only saved in the .tiff format. Note further that the file will not be automatically saved.

Change Default File Storage Location

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Create a new folder. In the Finder by choosing File > New Folder .

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Name the folder by clicking on it. Type in the name you want, for example “Screenshot”.

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Open a terminal screen. You can find it in the “finder” folder, under “utilities”.

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In the command line, copy the line defaults write com.apple.screencapture location , making sure that there is a space after the word location . Don’t press (Back) Return .

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Drag the folder you want to the terminal screen. It will add the screenshot’s destination to the command line.

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Select Return . A new command line will appear.

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Copy the killall SystemUIServer line to the command line and press Return . It will restart the terminal screen and immediately apply the above changes.

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Be careful not to delete the folder. Otherwise, you will have to initiate and redo the whole process to specify a new default location for the screenshots.

Other methods

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Use Skitch. Skitch will help you make basic edits on screenshots and upload them to the web.

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Monosnap is a powerful tool for taking screenshots. Screen capture, annotate and upload to cloud storage, save or open on other editing utilities.

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Use Jing. Similar to Skitch, Jing will help you take screenshots and upload them directly to the website. You can also record movies on your screen.

Advice

The file from the screen capture tool is saved on the desktop by default in PNG format. This is not a good practice and this will fill up the desktop if you don’t manage it. The simplest way to solve this problem is to create a screenshots folder in the way described in “Changing Default File Storage Location”
Another but longer way is to use the Mac OS X Lion’s Preview application. Screenshot options will appear in the “File” menu and combine what is available via keyboard shortcuts.
Proficient and knowledgeable users of the terminal application on Mac OS X Lion can use the “screen-capture” command to capture the screen from the command line.
Another way to save Grab file as TIFF format is to copy and open Preview. Then in Preview, select File – New from the Clipboard, the image will be opened and can be exported as jpg or png to any folder of your choice. If you select “Select All” and copy an image, you can directly add an image via Paste or Paste Picture.
The keyboard shortcuts used to take screenshots can be changed by going to the System Preferences section, then selecting the Keyboard section, and clicking the Screenshot section of the shortcut. Shortcuts). You choose the type of screenshot you want to change the shortcut for, you can press the keys at the same time to create a new shortcut combination.

Warning

Posting screenshots containing copyright information may involve legal issues, so be careful and make sure you have the right to capture the information displayed on your screen.
When taking a screenshot to pass on to someone else, or to post it on the Internet, make sure that no personal or confidential information appears in the image.

Steps