This tip has proved to be a really popular one around here—I mean, how many times do you just want to take a snapshot of what’s on your screen in the moment without much fuss?
This excerpt was originally featured in Kibbles & Bytes issue #569 by Ed!
- To take a screenshot of your Mac’s entire desktop, hold down Command-Shift-3 all at the same time. This records the entire desktop at full resolution.
- To capture only a part of your desktop, hold down Command-Shift-4. The cursor will turn into a trigger. Drag the trigger across the part of the screen you want to record and then release the mouse. If your Mac’s sound is on, you will hear a snapshot sound.
- To take a screenshot of an individual application window (say an individual Safari window, or a single email, or single Preview image), hold down Command-Shift-4-spacebar. A camera icon will suddenly appear. You can rotate through application windows with this camera, until you land on the application window you wish to record.
- To take a timed screenshot, browse to your Applications folder, then browse to the Utilities folder contained within. Open the Grab application, then click “Capture” in the menu bar. At the bottom of the list is the option for “Timed Screen.” The Timed Screen grab gives you a 10 second count-down to taking a screenshot.
Extra credit: Instead of saving files to your desktop, you can save a screenshot to your Mac’s clipboard, to be pasted into an application such as Photoshop, Word, or an email. To do this, hold down Command-Control-Shift-3 to take a screenshot of the screen and save it to the clipboard. Hold down Command-Control-Shift-4, then select an area, to take a screenshot of that area and save it to the clipboard. Hold down Command-Control-Shift-4, then space, then click a window to take a screenshot of a specific window and save it to the clipboard.