How to take a Windows screenshot on a MacBook. How to take a screenshot on a Windows Mac

11.12.2021

Many people get confused and don’t know how to take a screenshot on a MacBook because there is no classic Print Screen button. Although in reality everything is very simple.

There are several ways to do this, no matter what you are using: Mac Pro, MacBook or iMac. The main thing is that the device has an original Apple keyboard.

How to take a screenshot of the entire screen on a MacBook?

Before taking a screenshot on a MacBook , you need to find the “Command” key, since all manipulations will go through it. Now hold down the command key, and with it Shift and the number 3.

A characteristic sound signal will sound, after which the screen will be saved on the desktop.

Only one active desktop is recorded.

How to take a screenshot of part of the screen on a MacBook?

You can take a snapshot of not the entire screen, but only part of it. See how to take a screenshot of a separate part of the screen on a MacBook. To do this, you need to hold down the “Command” key, simultaneously with Shift and the number 4. At this moment, instead of the cursor, a cross and coordinates will appear.

Now, using the touchpad or mouse, you need to mark the area that needs to be photographed.

As soon as the mouse button is released, the image will be saved on the desktop.

Screenshot of a specific window

You can take a snapshot of a specific window without necessarily selecting it. To find out how to make a print screen on a MacBook of a specific window, you need to hold down the same key combination as in the previous method, but then press “Space”.

An image of the camera will appear, after which you just need to select the required window and press the left mouse button.

Among other things, you can send a picture not just to the desktop, but to the “Clipboard”; to do this, you need to add the “Control” key to all of the above combinations. This is suitable for both a screenshot of the entire screen and a specific part.

In addition to the methods of how to take a screenshot on a MacBook using the built-in function, this can be done using the Grab Utility program.

In order to take a screenshot, you need to select the “Snapshot” menu, and then click on the required item based on what kind of snapshot you need. After the screen is taken, you will receive a notification, after which you can open it, view it and save it to the desired location.

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Literally, a screenshot is a screenshot. For example, in Windows, for this purpose you need to press the "PrintScreen" key, after which a copy of the contents will be copied to the clipboard; in order to get an image, you need to open an editor (for example, paint) and paste the contents of the buffer and save the image. Since there is no "PrintScreen" button on the Mac, a reasonable question arises - How to take a screenshot/print screen on a Mac? In Mac OS X everything is simpler; a keyboard shortcut is used for this.

For beginners, I’ll tell you a little about how to correctly press a key combination; if several buttons are specified, then the first button is not just pressed, but held, for example, a key combination + , happens as follows - press and hold the key , then press the key . If a key combination uses more than two keys, press and hold all the keys in order except the last one, just press it without holding it down.

So, in order to take a screenshot in Mac OS, use the following keyboard shortcut:

+ + <4> + <Пробел> Take a photo of the active window and save it to your desktop.

+ + <4> select an area and save it to your desktop.

If we add to any of this combination , the image will be saved to the clipboard. This is convenient if you want to take a screenshot and save it in a document or email. To paste it there, use the keyboard shortcut + .

Change the extension/format of screenshots on Mac.

By default, all screenshots will be saved with the extension .PNG, if you want to change the extension to any of these: JPEG, TIFF, PDF GIF, BMP, PNG, you must launch Terminal and execute the commands (note that the terminal is case sensitive, if the command uses a capital letter, then the terminal must also use a capital letter):

defaults write com.apple.screencapture type format<указать расширение PNG, JPEG, TIFF, PDF GIF или BMP>

killall SystemUIServer

For example, below is the command that changes the printscreen extension to JPEG

Change where print screens are saved on Mac.

By default, all screenshots are saved to the desktop, which is not very convenient, since it becomes cluttered. It will be more convenient to specify a different folder to save screenshots. To do this, run the commands in the terminal:

defaults write com.apple.screencapture location<путь к папке>

killall SystemUIServer

For example, in the Documents folder I made a Screeshot folder and executed the commands, after which all print screens are saved to the Screeshot folder in the Documents directory:

defaults write com.apple.screencapture location ~/Documents/Screeshot

killall SystemUIServer

For beginners, I’ll tell you a little about how to correctly press a key combination. If several buttons are specified, then the first button is not just pressed, but held, for example, the key combination + occurs as follows: press and hold the key, then press the key. If a key combination uses more than two keys, press and hold all the keys in order except the last one, just press it without holding it down.

So, in order to take a screenshot in Mac OS, use the following keyboard shortcut:

+ + + Take a photo of the active window and save it to your desktop.

If you add to any of this combination, the image will be saved to the clipboard. This is convenient if you want to take a screenshot and save it in a document or email. To paste it there, use the keyboard shortcut + .

Change the extension/format of screenshots on Mac.

defaults write com.apple.screencapture type format

killall SystemUIServer

For example, below is the command that changes the printscreen extension to JPEG

Change where print screens are saved on Mac.

defaults write com.apple.screencapture location

killall SystemUIServer

For example, in the Documents folder I made a Screeshot folder and executed the commands, after which all print screens are saved to the Screeshot folder in the Documents directory:

defaults write com.apple.screencapture location ~/Documents/Screeshot

killall SystemUIServer

If you want to return everything to default, run the commands:

defaults write com.apple.screencapture location ~/Desktop

killall SystemUIServer

Disable shadows on screenshots.

By default, when creating a screenshot of a separate window, there will be a shadow around it along the entire outline; to disable this shadow when creating a print screen, use the commands:

defaults write com.apple.screencapture disable-shadow -bool true
killall SystemUIServer

Comparison of screenshots with and without shadow.

To return the shadow, run the commands:

defaults delete com.apple.screencapture disable-shadow
killall SystemUIServer

Sometimes computer owners need to take a screenshot, which is otherwise called a screenshot or photograph. Let's look at how to do this if you own a Mac computer.

How to take a screenshot on Mac using keyboard shortcuts

All operating systems, be it Windows, Linux or MacOS, are equipped with standard means of taking a screenshot. Using regular keyboard shortcuts, you can not only save the information you need as an image, but also do it very quickly, in a matter of seconds. There are several keyboard shortcuts for MacOS, but it will be enough to remember even one that is most convenient for you to speed up your work on the computer.

All keyboard shortcuts used for taking screenshots are described in the settings of your Mac, in the System Preferences/Keyboard&Mouse/Keyboard Shortcuts section.

It is worth noting that these combinations are suitable for any version of your Mac OS and any variety of it, be it a MacBook, MacBook Air or iMac. However, these steps can only be performed on native Apple keyboards.

Let's take a closer look at the possibilities of each combination.

Full screenshot

Only part of the screen

In this way, you can also take a snapshot of the program menu. It must first be opened.

A snapshot of a separate program window

To save the image not to a file on the Desktop, but to copy it to the clipboard, additionally press the Control key. For example, to capture part of the screen and save the image to the buffer, press Command + Shift + Control + 4.

At first, it seems difficult to remember such a variety of keyboard shortcuts for different cases with different additional conditions. However, after a few practices, your fingers will remember what to do.

How to take a screenshot on Mac: video instructions

Watch the video to clearly understand how to quickly take screenshots on MacOS. In the video, you'll learn how to take pictures using keyboard shortcuts and how to optimize the resulting images so that they take up less space.

Screenshot a screen on a Mac using special programs

In addition to standard keyboard shortcuts, you can take a screenshot for a Mac, MacBook or MacBook Air using special programs included with your Mac or downloaded separately.

Grab Utility

This is a built-in utility program with simple functionality for creating screenshots. You can open it through the Programs/Utilities menu or through the Spotlight search.

Launch the program, then select Snapshot from the menu and then the option you need. There are four options available: Selected, Window, Screen, Delayed Screen.
Click on the option you want, then you will see a notification that you need to click anywhere outside of this message to take a screenshot. Click on the location you want, then select a folder to save the image.

As we can see, the program is very simple, its functions are almost similar to the keyboard shortcuts discussed above.

Program features:

you can choose a location to save each screenshot after receiving it;
you can add a cursor image to the snapshot (by default, the cursor is overwritten on screenshots). Adding such an option is done through the program settings menu.

Joxi program

This program is installed separately and has a wider range of features that may be of interest to Mac users in different situations. You can download the program from the official website Joxi.ru.

As you can see, the program’s functions are very diverse, but to take simple screenshots without additional processing, regular keyboard shortcuts are sufficient.

other methods

Another simple way to take a screen image and save it without using the keyboard and additional utility programs is as follows:

From time to time, when working at a computer, we need to take a screenshot. This could be some information about work, correspondence with a friend, or a funny shot from a game. Explaining to another person how to work with a particular program is also much more convenient with the help of screenshots than solely in words. IN operating system Windows has several ways to save an image of the screen or part of it.

But if for some reason you switched from this system to another, then the usual key combinations there are unlikely to have the desired effect. Here we will talk about the popular Mac OS X, which will be further referred to simply as “Mac”. Many users who have recently changed their operating system or are working in it for the first time encounter certain problems. For example, not everyone knows how to take a screenshot on a Mac.

This task is not difficult and has several ways to solve it. As many probably remember, in good old Windows you had to use a special key to capture an image, then open graphics editor, paste a picture from the clipboard there and then save it. On the Mac operating system, the process is very similar, although there are some differences. There are two easy ways to take a screenshot on a Mac.

The first uses a built-in utility by default, which is designed specifically for capturing images from the screen. The second method is carried out using a key combination.

So, how to take a screenshot on a MacBook

Let's start with a description of the second method, which is more familiar to former Windows owners. He talks about using a Mac as quickly and simply as possible. For a standard snapshot of the entire screen area, you can use a combination of so-called “hot keys”. In this case, it is Command simultaneously with Shift and the number 4. They should be used if you do not need the entire screen, but only a certain part of it. The principle of operation is as follows: first select the required area with the mouse, after which you need to press the specified combination on the keyboard.

If you replace the number in a key combination with 3, then this combination automatically creates a screenshot of the entire screen. One way or another, selecting the desired area to capture is not enough for the photo to appear. Now all that remains is to do it. By adding to our Command Shift 4 pressing the space bar, you can take a photo of a specific selected element. This could be a window, a menu, or even an icon, depending on the need. If the cursor changes to a small camera, then everything is done correctly. After left-clicking, the photo will be saved directly to the desktop.

Alternative option

The second way to take a screenshot on a Mac involves using a standard built-in utility. For users who speak English, it has a self-explanatory name - Grab.app. The functionality of the utility is small, but you don’t need much to create pictures. To open it, go to “Programs”, where the desired application is located in the “System Utilities” section. Let's launch it.

In fact, the main menu needed in this program is called “Snapshot”, it is the fourth in a row. There you can choose what we will photograph: a specific window, the entire screen or only a small part of it. For the latter there is a “Selected” function. Clicking on it allows you to independently select the desired area. The main advantage of this method is the ability to take a screenshot with a delay.

Also to the right of each option are hotkeys that speed up work with Grab.app. A few settings in the utility allow you, for example, to turn off the shutter click sound or make the cursor displayed on the photo. In general, its use is not much different in complexity from a key combination.

Recently, more and more new users give their preference to Mac OS X and at first it seems not entirely obvious to them how to organize the work of “photographing” a screen image on a Mac, that is, taking a screenshot. In Windows, this operation is carried out by pressing the PrintScreen button; as a result of this action, a copy of the screen is loaded into the clipboard, which later allows you to use this “snapshot” in various graphic editors.

But the lack of obviousness of how to take a screenshot on Mac OS X is a misconception!
In fact, nothing complicated, everything is logical and understandable.

How to take a screenshot on macbook?

There are two simple ways to take a screenshot on a MacBook, and we will talk about them.

For the vast majority of actions in Mac OS, the system provides so-called hot keys and you just need to know their combinations in order to perform the action you need. Knowing the combinations for common actions at work will significantly increase the productivity of your work on a Mac.

Let's take a screenshot on a Mac!

For example, you need to take a screenshot of everything that is shown on the display, to do this press shift + command + 3, but if you need to copy only part of the screen image, press shift + command + 4. In both the first and second cases, the copied image will be displayed on the desktop table (png format). Agree, it’s very fast, without opening any editor, without separately adjusting the image size, you get a ready-made saved file after just pressing a given key combination.

How to take a screenshot of a selected area on a Mac?

If you need to record a copy of the image not as a file, but save it to the clipboard for later use, then in this case appropriate combinations are provided. By pressing the keys shift + control + command +3 you will receive a screenshot of everything that is shown on the screen and automatically load it into the clipboard without saving it to a file, but if you need to save not the entire screen image to the clipboard, but only part of it, select the combination shift + control + command + 4. After that, using any graphic editor, as well as Pages or Word and pressing command + v, you can paste the image from the buffer wherever necessary. The same result can be obtained using the menu - edit -> paste.

But, if you are used to doing everything with the mouse and do not want to press hot keys, then a standard Mac OS X utility, Grad, has been developed especially for you. You can launch it using spotlight (Mac search function). To do this, write “grab” there or use the folder with system utilities:

Having good functionality, the Grab program is quite simple and understandable. Take a look at the main menu of the program:

It’s really nothing complicated. Each of the four “image shooting” modes has its own hotkey combinations:

Selection (selected area)- shift + command + a - used to create a snapshot of the selected part of the image

Window (active window)- shift + command + w - used to create a snapshot of any of the windows present on the screen

Screen- command + z - used to take a screenshot

Timed Screen (screenshot by timer)- shift + command + z - allows you to take a screenshot of the image on the screen with a time delay. By pressing the timer start button, a delay of 10 seconds begins to count down, during which you can set up the screen for shooting.

At the end of the “photographing” process, the resulting image will be displayed in the grab window and you can easily save it in the location you need.

It should be noted that grab allows you to process multiple images simultaneously. You can take several different screenshots and compare them to choose the most outstanding one. Using grab, you can also copy pictures to the clipboard using the command + c combination.

We continue to write new useful tips for new Mac OS X users.

Write to us questions that you would like to see answered on our website, and we will try to talk in detail about the topic that interests you in the next article.

Every PC user sooner or later faces a computer task such as taking a screenshot. On the keyboards of computers and laptops running the Windows operating system, there is a special “Print Screen” key, which is responsible for taking a screenshot of a separate fragment or web page. There is no such key on Apple computers. A reasonable question arises, how to take a screenshot on a mac. There are several ways to do this.

Keyboard shortcut

Solve the problem of, how to take a screenshot on a mac special keyboard commands will help.

To take a full screenshot you need to:

To create a screenshot of the selected fragment you need:

To create a screenshot of a separate window you need to:

Screenshot program (Grap.app)

A novice user often faces the question: how to take a screenshot on a mac. You can use the standard Screenshot utility. To do this you will need:

Changing the default settings for created screenshots:

All settings of the created pictures or screenshots (location, format, name), set by default, can be changed using the Terminal utility. To do this you need:

Paparazzi program

Solve the problem of, how to take a screenshot on a mac, or rather, the Paparazzi utility will help you take a snapshot of the entire web page. To do this you need:

If you wish, you can also use others designed for creating screenshots on a Mac (Skitch, Monosnap, Share Bucket, Jing, etc.).

Comments

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Hello!

Please tell me how I can contact you about cooperation with Surfingbird?

Thank you!

Thanks for the information, I didn’t even realize that there were so many different possibilities. I personally use the SSmaker program.

One of the advantages of MacOS over Windows is the presence of a large number of hot commands (keyboard shortcuts). Today we’ll talk about how to take a screenshot on a MacBook.

Types of skinshots

MacOS has a very convenient built-in service for taking screenshots. Using key combinations you can make a screenshot:

How to do

Let's move on to the process of creating a screen capture. In Apple's operating system, interacting with this function is much easier than in Windows.

Whole screen

A screenshot of the entire screen is made using the hot command “⌘ (Command) + ⇧ (Shift) + 3”.

Separate window

You can take a screenshot of a specific application window using the combination “⌘ (Command) + ⇧ (Shift) + 4 + Space”.

Screen fragment

The creation process is no different in complexity from the previous one. To save a separate piece, use the hot command “⌘ (Command) + ⇧ (Shift) + 4”.

Keyboard shortcuts

Below is a table with hotkeys for creating screenshots.

A screenshot on a MacBook is called a “Screenshot” and the principle of taking it is slightly different from the one used in Windows. There are also hotkeys here, but you can’t save it in RAM, but also immediately into a ready-made graphic file on the MacOS desktop. At the same time, you have the choice of creating a screenshot of the entire faucet, a separate part of it, or a specific program window. This is true for both the most popular MacBook Air ( Macbook Air), and for the Pro version (MacBook Pro).

Screenshot of the entire screen on a MacBook

The easiest way to take a screenshot of your entire Macbook screen is to press Command + Shift + 3 at the same time.

You will hear the characteristic click of the camera shutter, and a new image called “Date and Time Screenshot” will appear on the MacOS desktop. The file format is PNG.

Now you can open it in a graphic editor and change it at your discretion

Screenshot of the selected part of the screen

If you don’t need to shoot the entire screen, just some part of it, then there is another key combination for this - “Command + Shift + 4”

The cursor will change to a cross, with which we select the desired area of the screen

To center, you can also press the “Option” button during the selection process.

Immediately after this, the sound will be heard again and a snapshot of this part will be saved as a file on the desktop.

Screenshot of a separate window

When creating some kind of manual for working in a particular program, it is more advisable to take a screenshot of only its active window. This function is also a separate option in MacBooks and is called by the same key combination “Command+Shift+4”, but after it you don’t need to immediately start selecting, but press “Space”

The cursor will change its appearance to the camera image - now you just need to point it at the desired window and click on the touchpad or left mouse button.

We look for the finished image in the same place as usual

How to copy a MacBook screenshot to the clipboard?

There are also situations in which saving a screenshot directly to a file is inconvenient - for example, if you are still going to edit the image later in Photoshop. In this case, it is logical to use the function of copying the image to the clipboard, and then pasting it directly into the editor. To do this, use the keys “Command + Shift + Control + 3”

As in the first considered option, the entire screen will be copied to RAM. After this, using the “Command + V” keys, you can import it into a graphic editor and continue working with it.

Screenshot in MacOS Mojave

With the release of the next release of macOS Mojave, the principle of calling functions for creating screenshots on a MacBook has changed slightly in the direction of improving usability. There are no longer multiple shortcuts for different options - they are all called up using "Shift + Command + 5".

A graphical menu for selecting the type of screenshot appears:

Screenshot
Window shot
Selected area

Numbers 4 and 5 are menu items for recording video from the entire screen or from a separate window, respectively. You can read more about all the innovations in