You can capture the entire screen, a window, or just a portion of the screen.

How to take a screenshot on your Mac

  1. To take a screenshot, press and hold these three keys together: Shift, Command, and 3. 
  2. If you see a thumbnail in the corner of your screen, click it to edit the screenshot. Or wait for the screenshot to save to your desktop.

How to capture a portion of the screen

  1. Press and hold these three keys together: Shift, Command, and 4.
  2. Drag the crosshair  to select the area of the screen to capture. To move the selection, press and hold Space bar while dragging. To cancel taking the screenshot, press the Esc (Escape) key.
  3. To take the screenshot, release your mouse or trackpad button. 
  4. If you see a thumbnail in the corner of your screen, click it to edit the screenshot. Or wait for the screenshot to save to your desktop.

How to capture a window or menu

  1. Open the window or menu that you want to capture.
  2. Press and hold these keys together: Shift, Command, 4, and Space bar. The pointer changes to a camera icon . To cancel taking the screenshot, press the Esc (Escape) key.
  3. Click the window or menu to capture it. To exclude the window’s shadow from the screenshot, press and hold the Option key while you click.
  4. If you see a thumbnail in the corner of your screen, click it to edit the screenshot. Or wait for the screenshot to save to your desktop.

Where to find screenshots

By default, screenshots save to your desktop with the name ”Screen Shot [date] at [time].png.”

In macOS Mojave or later, you can change the default location of saved screenshots from the Options menu in the Screenshot app. You can also drag the thumbnail to a folder or document.