Take a screenshot on your Mac
You can capture the entire screen, a window or just a portion of the screen.
How to take a screenshot on your Mac
To take a screenshot, press and hold these three keys together: Shift, Command and 3.
If you see a thumbnail in the corner of your screen, click it to edit the screenshot. Or wait for the screenshot to be saved to your desktop.
How to capture a portion of the screen
Press and hold these three keys together: Shift, Command and 4.
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.
To take the screenshot, release your mouse or trackpad button.
If you see a thumbnail in the corner of your screen, click it to edit the screenshot. Or wait for the screenshot to be saved to your desktop.
How to capture a window or menu
Open the window or menu you want to capture.
Press and hold these keys together: Shift, Command, 4 and Space bar. The pointer will change to a camera icon
. To cancel taking the screenshot, press the Esc (Escape) key. 
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.
If you see a thumbnail in the corner of your screen, click it to edit the screenshot. Or wait for the screenshot to be saved to your desktop.
Where to find screenshots
By default, screenshots will be saved 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.
Learn more
In macOS Mojave or later, you can also set a timer and choose where screenshots are saved with the Screenshot app. To open the app, press and hold these three keys together: Shift, Command and 5. Find out more about the Screenshot app.
Some apps, such as the Apple TV app, may not let you take screenshots of their windows.
To copy a screenshot to the Clipboard, press and hold the Control key while taking the screenshot. You can then paste the screenshot somewhere else. Or use Universal Clipboard to paste it on another Apple device.
