Mac Screenshot Shortcuts: Every Key Combo and Hidden Trick

You want a picture of your screen, and you want it fast. macOS has a handful of screenshot shortcuts, and a few extra keys you can hold while capturing that most people never find. Here are all the Mac screenshot shortcuts in one place, plus how to change where screenshots save, what format they use and how to drop the window shadow.

Mac screenshot shortcuts at a glance

Shortcut	What it captures	Saved to
⌘ Command + ⇧ Shift + 3	Entire screen	Desktop (default)
⌘⇧4, then drag	Selected area	Desktop (default)
⌘⇧4, then Space, then click	One window or the menu bar	Desktop (default)
⌘⇧5	Opens the Screenshot toolbar with all capture and recording options	Your chosen location
⌘⇧6	The Touch Bar (MacBook Pro models with a Touch Bar)	Desktop (default)
⌃ Control + any shortcut above	Same capture	Clipboard, no file
Esc	Cancels a screenshot in progress	—

Screenshots are saved as PNG files named “Screenshot” plus the date and time.

Capture the entire screen: ⌘⇧3

Press ⌘⇧3 and macOS captures everything on screen immediately. If you have more than one display, you get one file per display.

Capture part of the screen: ⌘⇧4

1. Press ⌘⇧4. The pointer turns into a crosshair.
2. Drag to select the area you want.
3. Release the mouse button or trackpad to take the screenshot.

To cancel before you release, press Esc.

Keys you can hold while dragging

These modifiers work after you’ve started dragging with ⌘⇧4. They make precise selections much easier.

Hold while dragging	What it does
⇧	Locks one edge so the selection only grows horizontally or vertically
⌥ Option	Resizes the selection from its center instead of from a corner
Space	Moves the whole selection without changing its size
Esc	Cancels the screenshot

You can combine them. For example, drag out a box, hold Space to slide it into position, let go of Space to keep resizing, then release to capture.

Capture a window or menu: ⌘⇧4, then Space

1. Press ⌘⇧4.
2. Press Space. The pointer turns into a camera.
3. Move the pointer over a window. It’s highlighted.
4. Click to capture it.

Window screenshots include the window’s drop shadow on a transparent background. To leave the shadow out, hold ⌥ while you click.

The same trick captures the menu bar or the Dock. To capture an open menu, click the menu to open it, press ⌘⇧4, then either drag over the menu or press Space and click the menu.

Press Space again to switch back to the crosshair.

Note: Some apps don’t allow window captures. Apple lists DVD Player as one example, and protected video often appears black.

Open the Screenshot toolbar: ⌘⇧5

⌘⇧5 opens a toolbar at the bottom of the screen with buttons for every capture type:

• Capture Entire Screen
• Capture Selected Window
• Capture Selected Portion
• Screen recording buttons for the entire screen, a selected window (macOS Tahoe 26 and later) or a selected portion
• Options, for the save location, timer and more

The toolbar is the only built-in way to set a Timer (5 or 10 seconds), which is useful for capturing hover states, tooltips or menus that close when you press keys. It’s also how you record video; see our guide on how to screen record on a Mac.

Capture the Touch Bar: ⌘⇧6

On MacBook Pro models that have a Touch Bar, ⌘⇧6 saves an image of whatever the Touch Bar is showing. Add ⌃ to copy it instead. On Macs without a Touch Bar, this shortcut does nothing.

Copy a screenshot to the clipboard

Add ⌃ to any shortcut and the screenshot goes to the clipboard instead of a file:

Shortcut	Copies
⌃⌘⇧3	Entire screen
⌃⌘⇧4	Selected area
⌃⌘⇧4, then Space	A window

Then press ⌘ + V to paste into Messages, Mail, Slack, a document or anywhere else. The clipboard only holds one item at a time, so if you capture several screenshots in a row, a clipboard manager for Mac keeps the earlier ones.

The floating thumbnail

After a screenshot, a thumbnail appears in the bottom-right corner for a few seconds. You can:

• Click it to open Markup, where you can crop, draw, add text or shapes, then click Done.
• Swipe it right to save immediately and dismiss it.
• Drag it straight into a document, email, note or Finder window.
• Control-click it to choose a save location or open it in another app.

The file isn’t saved until the thumbnail goes away. If that delay bothers you, or you take lots of screenshots in a row, turn it off:

1. Press ⌘⇧5.
2. Click Options.
3. Deselect Show Floating Thumbnail.

Change where screenshots are saved

Screenshots pile up on the desktop fast. To send them somewhere else:

1. Press ⌘⇧5.
2. Click Options.
3. Under Save to, choose Documents, Clipboard or another listed option, or choose Other Location and select a folder.

The new location applies to the keyboard shortcuts too. A folder like Pictures › Screenshots is a good choice, and makes it easy to clear old captures when you free up space on your Mac.

If you prefer Terminal, this does the same thing (create the folder first):

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

Change the screenshot file format

macOS saves screenshots as PNG, which keeps text sharp but makes larger files. There’s no menu option to change it, but Terminal can switch to JPG:

1. Open Terminal from Applications › Utilities.
2. Run:

defaults write com.apple.screencapture type jpg
killall SystemUIServer

Other values include pdf and tiff. To go back to the default, run the same command with png.

Remove the window shadow permanently

Holding ⌥ when you click removes the shadow from one window screenshot. To turn shadows off for every window screenshot, run this in Terminal:

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

To bring shadows back, run the same command with false.

Tip: If a Terminal change doesn’t seem to apply, log out and back in.

Customize the screenshot shortcuts

If a shortcut clashes with another app, or you want screenshots on a simpler key:

1. Choose Apple menu › System Settings.
2. Click Keyboard.
3. Click Keyboard Shortcuts.
4. Select Screenshots in the sidebar.
5. Double-click a shortcut and press the new key combination, or turn off the checkbox to disable it.

Note: On macOS Monterey and earlier, go to System Preferences › Keyboard › Shortcuts › Screenshots.

Screenshot shortcuts not working?

• Check the shortcuts are on in System Settings › Keyboard › Keyboard Shortcuts › Screenshots.
• Look for a conflict. Third-party screenshot apps and some utilities take over ⌘⇧4 or ⌘⇧5. Quit them and try again.
• Check the save location. If Save to is set to Clipboard, shortcuts won’t create files.
• Using a Windows keyboard? The Windows key acts as ⌘, so press Windows + Shift + 3 or 4.

Apple’s reference is Take a screenshot on Mac. For more time-savers beyond screenshots, browse our list of Mac keyboard shortcuts.