macOS Screenshot Keyboard Shortcuts

I take a lot of screenshots for my blog, and doing that regularly without remembering the shortcuts is a mistake.

There are basically three different ways to take a screenshot on macOS.

Each one has its own shortcut.

So here are all the shortcuts you need to remember to take screenshots on macOS.

Screenshot App Shortcut

⌘ command + shift + 5

If you don’t want to remember all the individual shortcuts, just remember this one.

You can either open the system Screenshot app manually or press this shortcut. A floating toolbar will appear where you can select the screenshot mode.

It even includes screen recording modes and additional options.

There are three screenshot modes available:

• Capture Entire Screen
• Capture Selected Window
• Capture Selected Portion

There are also equivalent screen recording modes. But I won’t go deeper into screen recording here. Basically, they work the same way as the screenshot modes — except they produce a video instead of an image.

Now let’s go through the dedicated shortcuts for each mode.

Capture Entire Screen Shortcut

⌘ command + shift + 3

This is the fastest screenshot method. Once you press the shortcut, no further action is needed.

It immediately captures the entire screen and saves it to your Desktop.

Here’s an example of full screen screenshot I took:

Capture Selected Portion Shortcut

⌘ command + shift + 4

After pressing this shortcut, your cursor turns into a crosshair.

Click and drag to select a rectangular area of your screen. Release the mouse or trackpad to take the screenshot.

Here’s an example of a portion screenshot:

Capture Selected Window Shortcut

⌘ command + shift + 4, then press space

The shortcut to capture a selected window starts the same as the selected portion shortcut.

After pressing ⌘ + shift + 4, press space to switch to Capture Selected Window mode.

Once activated, hover over the window you want to capture and click.

You don’t need to manually draw a rectangle like in selected portion mode. The result will be a pixel-perfect screenshot of the window, complete with a soft shadow around it.

This is my favorite screenshot mode.

Here’s an example:

By the way, you can switch between Capture Selected Portion and Capture Selected Window by pressing the space key.

Conclusion

I hope this simple guide helps you.

It’s a bit of a hassle to remember all the shortcuts at first, but they’re incredibly useful for daily tasks.

As usual, if you have any questions or a better method, leave a comment below.

Thanks for reading, and see you next time!