How To Screenshot on Mac

Taking a screenshot on Mac is quick once you know the keyboard shortcuts. macOS has powerful built-in screenshot tools — you can capture your full screen, a selected area, or a specific window, and even record your screen. Here’s every method for taking screenshots on a Mac in 2026.

Method 1: Cmd + Shift + 3 (Full Screen Screenshot)

This captures your entire screen instantly:

1. Press Cmd (⌘) + Shift + 3
2. You’ll hear a camera shutter sound and see a thumbnail preview in the bottom-right corner
3. The screenshot is automatically saved to your Desktop as a PNG file
4. Click the thumbnail to annotate or edit before it saves, or let it disappear to auto-save

If you have multiple monitors, this captures all screens as separate files.

Method 2: Cmd + Shift + 4 (Selected Area)

This is the most popular method — you drag to select exactly what you want to capture:

1. Press Cmd (⌘) + Shift + 4
2. Your cursor changes to a crosshair (+)
3. Click and drag to select the area you want to capture
4. Release the mouse button to take the screenshot
5. The screenshot saves to your Desktop

Pro tips while the crosshair is active:

• Hold Spacebar while dragging to move the entire selection area
• Hold Shift while dragging to lock one dimension (height or width)
• Hold Option (⌥) to resize from the center
• Press Escape to cancel

Method 3: Cmd + Shift + 4, Then Spacebar (Window Screenshot)

To capture a single window with a nice shadow effect:

1. Press Cmd (⌘) + Shift + 4
2. Press Spacebar — the crosshair turns into a camera icon
3. Hover over the window you want to capture (it highlights in blue)
4. Click the window to capture it
5. The screenshot saves with a drop shadow around the window

Tip: Hold Option (⌥) while clicking to capture the window without the shadow.

Method 4: Cmd + Shift + 5 (Screenshot Toolbar)

This opens the full screenshot toolbar with all options in one place:

1. Press Cmd (⌘) + Shift + 5
2. A toolbar appears at the bottom of your screen with these options:
   • Capture Entire Screen
   • Capture Selected Window
   • Capture Selected Portion
   • Record Entire Screen
   • Record Selected Portion
3. Click Options to change:
   • Save location (Desktop, Documents, Clipboard, Mail, Messages, Preview)
   • Timer (None, 5 seconds, 10 seconds)
   • Show/hide the floating thumbnail
   • Show/hide the mouse pointer in the capture
   • Remember last selection
   • Capture format — on supported Macs running macOS Tahoe 26 or later, choose SDR (PNG, most compatible) or HDR (HEIF)
4. Click Capture or press Return

This is the best method when you want full control over your screenshot settings.

Method 5: Cmd + Shift + 6 (Touch Bar Screenshot)

If you have a MacBook Pro with a Touch Bar (2016–2019 models):

1. Press Cmd (⌘) + Shift + 6
2. This captures the entire Touch Bar display
3. Saves to your Desktop like other screenshots

How To Screenshot on a MacBook Air

There is nothing Air-specific to learn. A MacBook Air uses the same macOS screenshot system as every other Mac, so all four main shortcuts behave identically:

• Cmd (⌘) + Shift + 3 — the whole screen
• Cmd (⌘) + Shift + 4 — drag to select an area
• Cmd (⌘) + Shift + 4, then Spacebar — a single window
• Cmd (⌘) + Shift + 5 — the Screenshot toolbar, with the timer and save-location options

Two things worth knowing if you’re on an Air specifically:

• Cmd + Shift + 6 does nothing on any MacBook Air. That shortcut exists only to capture a Touch Bar, and no Air has ever shipped with one. Your top row is physical function keys.
• There is no Print Screen key. If you’ve moved over from a Windows laptop, the closest equivalent to PrtScn is Cmd + Shift + 3, and the closest equivalent to Windows’ Snipping Tool is Cmd + Shift + 4.

This applies to every MacBook Air — Intel, M1, M2, M3, M4 and later, in both the 13-inch and 15-inch sizes.

How To Screenshot on a MacBook Pro

The main shortcuts are the same as on any other Mac. The only genuine difference between MacBook Pro models is whether Cmd + Shift + 6 does anything, and you can settle that by looking at your keyboard rather than hunting for your model year:

• A thin touchscreen strip along the top row — you have a Touch Bar. Cmd + Shift + 6 captures it as its own image.
• Physical F1–F12 keys along the top row — no Touch Bar. Cmd + Shift + 6 does nothing on your machine, and that is normal, not a fault.

For context: Touch Bars shipped on various MacBook Pro models from 2016 onwards, and the last one was the 13-inch M2 MacBook Pro, discontinued in October 2023. The 14-inch and 16-inch Pros released from 2021 onwards brought back a physical function row, so any MacBook Pro bought new since late 2023 has no Touch Bar to screenshot.

How To Screenshot a Dropdown Menu

Menus are the one case where people assume the window shortcut can’t work, because clicking anywhere normally dismisses the menu. It works anyway:

1. Open the menu you want to capture and leave it open
2. Press Cmd (⌘) + Shift + 4, then press Spacebar
3. Move the camera icon over the open menu — it highlights
4. Click to capture the menu on its own

Hold Option (⌥) while clicking to capture the menu without its drop shadow.

Skip the Desktop: Drag the Thumbnail Straight Into an App

After every screenshot, a thumbnail appears in the bottom-right corner. Most people either ignore it or click it to annotate. It does two more useful things:

• Drag it straight into a chat message, an email, a document or a folder. The screenshot goes there and never lands on your Desktop at all.
• Control-click it and choose Save to Clipboard — the same result as the Ctrl shortcuts further down this page, but decided after you’ve taken the shot rather than before.

Hover the pointer over the thumbnail and it stays onscreen until you deal with it, instead of disappearing after a few seconds.

How To Snip on Mac

The “snipping” equivalent on Mac is Cmd + Shift + 4 (drag to select an area). For a more Snipping Tool-like experience:

1. Press Cmd + Shift + 5 to open the Screenshot toolbar
2. Select “Capture Selected Portion”
3. Drag the selection box to your desired area
4. Click Capture

You can also open the Screenshot app from Applications → Utilities → Screenshot, or search for it with Spotlight (Cmd + Space).

Where Do Mac Screenshots Go?

By default, all screenshots save to your Desktop as PNG files named “Screenshot November 1, 2026 at [time].png”.

Change the Screenshot Save Location:

1. Press Cmd + Shift + 5
2. Click Options
3. Under “Save to,” choose: Desktop, Documents, Clipboard, Mail, Messages, Preview, or Other Location

Change Via Terminal:

To save screenshots to a custom folder (e.g., a Screenshots folder):

defaults write com.apple.screencapture location ~/Pictures/Screenshots
killall SystemUIServer

How To Copy Screenshot to Clipboard (Instead of Saving)

Add Control to any screenshot shortcut to copy to clipboard instead of saving:

• Ctrl + Cmd + Shift + 3 — full screen to clipboard
• Ctrl + Cmd + Shift + 4 — selected area to clipboard
• Ctrl + Cmd + Shift + 4, Spacebar — window to clipboard

Then paste with Cmd + V in any application.

How To Change Screenshot File Format

By default, Mac screenshots are PNG. To change to JPG (smaller files):

Open Terminal and run:

defaults write com.apple.screencapture type jpg
killall SystemUIServer

Supported formats: png, jpg, gif, pdf, tiff.

Mac Screenshot Keyboard Shortcuts Summary

Troubleshooting: Mac Screenshots Not Working

If screenshots aren’t working:

• Check keyboard shortcuts: Go to System Settings → Keyboard → Keyboard Shortcuts → Screenshots — make sure they’re enabled
• Check disk space: Screenshots can’t save if your disk is full
• Try a different method: If Cmd + Shift + 3 doesn’t work, try Cmd + Shift + 5
• Reset NVRAM: Shut down, then hold Option + Cmd + P + R for 20 seconds while restarting
• Check for conflicting apps: Some third-party screenshot apps (like CleanShot) may intercept the default shortcuts
• The app itself may be blocking it: a few apps refuse to be captured for copyright reasons — the Apple TV app is the usual example. The shortcut fires, but the window comes out black or blank. There is no setting that overrides this.
• Cmd + Shift + 6 is the exception: if only that shortcut does nothing, your Mac almost certainly has no Touch Bar. See the MacBook Air and MacBook Pro sections above.

Originally tested on macOS Sequoia 15.3, macOS Sonoma 14 and macOS Ventura 13 on MacBook Air M3, MacBook Pro M3 Pro, iMac M4 and Mac Mini M4. Reviewed and updated October 2026: every shortcut on this page was re-checked against Apple’s current documentation for macOS 27 Golden Gate and macOS Tahoe 26, and all of them still apply unchanged. Maintained by the DevX editorial team — our Mac specialists have covered Apple products for over a decade.

More How-To Guides From DevX

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• How To Screenshot on iPhone
• How To Screen Record on iPhone
• How To Factory Reset MacBook
• How To AirDrop
• How To Screenshot On Chromebook
• How To Screen Record On Windows

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Editorial Staff