How to Take a Screenshot on Mac: Every Method, Shortcut, and Tool

In a hurry? On a Mac, ⌘⇧3 captures the whole screen, ⌘⇧4 lets you select an area (press Space for a window), and ⌘⇧5 opens the toolbar that also records your screen. Details and the beyond-built-in stuff below.

Taking a screenshot on a Mac is one of those things people assume is obvious — then discover there are a half-dozen ways to do it, each for a different job. The good news: macOS ships with the shortcuts that cover most cases for free, no app needed. The catch: the moment you need to annotate, pull text out of an image, capture a whole scrolling page, or record your screen with audio, the built-in tools run out. This guide walks the built-in methods first, then shows where a dedicated tool like iShot picks up.

The built-in Mac screenshot shortcuts

All screenshots on modern macOS are taken with three keyboard shortcuts, plus a fourth that opens a full toolbar:

1. ⌘⇧3 — capture the entire screen.
2. ⌘⇧4 — drag to capture a selected area. Press Space to capture a whole window instead.
3. ⌘⇧5 — open the screenshot toolbar with every option, plus screen recording controls.
4. ⌃⌘⇧3 / ⌃⌘⇧4 — same as above, but copy to the clipboard instead of saving a file.

By default, ⌘⇧3 and ⌘⇧4 save a PNG to your Desktop — or to wherever you set it. To change the destination, hit ⌘⇧5, click Options, and pick a folder under Save to.

One nicety since macOS Mojave: right after a capture a thumbnail pops up in the corner of the screen. Click it to jump straight into markup, or drag it into a document, or let it save itself in a few seconds.

Annotate a screenshot: arrows, boxes, blur, and text

The built-in markup tools live behind that thumbnail (or in Preview and Photos, for a saved file). You get a pen, shapes, text, highlight, and color. They do the job for a quick circle-around-the-bug, but they’re bare-bones: the text tool is a simple label, and there’s no way to redact or blur sensitive info, no callout arrows, no way to build a cleaner share-ready graphic without opening another app.

If you mark up screenshots more than a couple of times a week, that’s the gap a tool like iShot fills — a proper annotation toolbar with arrows, numbered steps, shapes, text, and a blur tool for hiding emails and card numbers before you share. It works right on the capture, no second window. See the fastest way to annotate a screenshot on Mac.

Copy text out of a screenshot (OCR)

Since macOS Monterey, Live Text lets you select and copy text that appears inside an image — in Photos, in Preview, or straight off a screenshot. Open the shot and drag across the text like it were a document. That handles printed and clean on-screen text well.

Where it thins out: handwriting, low-contrast text, awkward angles, and text that needs translating before you can use it. For those, dedicated OCR tools read the text and copy it to your clipboard in one step — and iShot folds OCR, translation, and QR reading right into the capture flow. Want the deep dive? How to copy text from a screenshot on Mac and how to translate text in a screenshot.

Take a screenshot of a whole page (scroll capture)

None of the built-in shortcuts can capture a page longer than your screen. If you need a full webpage, a long article, or an entire chat thread as one tall image, you’re out of luck with ⌘⇧3 alone.

For webpages specifically, a browser can do it without any app: in Chrome, open DevTools (⌘⌥I), press ⌘⇧P, type “screenshot” and choose Capture full size screenshot. In Firefox, right-click and pick Take Screenshot. These only reach what the browser renders, though — not a Slack thread, a Figma frame, or a settings window. A scroll-capture tool grabs those by recording the screen as you scroll and stitching the frames into one seamless shot. That’s exactly what iShot’s scroll capture does.

How to record your screen on Mac

Press ⌘⇧5 and the toolbar switches between screenshots and two recording buttons: record the whole screen, or record a selected portion. It writes a .mov file to your chosen location. It’s fine for quick clips.

The built-in recorder leaves out two things most tutorials need: system audio and a webcam overlay. Recording your own narration via the mic works, but capturing the audio a video actually plays requires extra system work, and there’s no option to drop your camera in the corner of the frame. Tools that go further record screen plus microphone, and let you float a camera bubble over the video. Details here: how to record your Mac screen with a camera bubble.

Which approach should you use?

• Quick full-screen or a window: ⌘⇧3 / ⌘⇧4, done in a second.
• Capture and share right away with arrows or blur: a dedicated annotating tool beats the built-in markup.
• Pull text out of an image: Live Text first, OCR tool when it struggles.
• Whole page or long thread: scroll capture — built-in shortcuts can’t.
• Tutorial with voice and camera: a screen recorder that captures mic and webcam.

The built-in shortcuts handle maybe 80% of everyday captures. The last 20% — blurring an email address in two clicks, pulling and translating text off a screen, capturing a whole scrolling thread, recording with audio and a camera bubble — is where iShot earns its place. Want to compare it against the other popular capture apps? The six-way comparison shows what each one actually supports.

Frequently asked questions

Why are my screenshots not on the Desktop?

The save location was changed at some point, likely via ⌘⇧5 → Options. Open the toolbar, check the Save to setting, and set it back to Desktop if that’s what you want.

How do I screenshot just one window?

Press ⌘⇧4, then press Space. The crosshair becomes a camera icon; click a window to capture it with its drop shadow.

How do I copy a screenshot to the clipboard without saving a file?

Hold Control while taking it (⌃⌘⇧3 for the full screen, ⌃⌘⇧4 for a selection). The image goes straight to your clipboard to paste.

Can macOS capture a full-page screenshot natively?

No. The built-in shortcuts only capture what’s on screen. For a full page, use Chrome/Firefox for webpages, or a scroll-capture tool for everything else.

Do I need an app to record my screen with sound?

The built-in ⌘⇧5 recorder captures video and your mic, but not system audio by default. To record what a video or game plays, you need extra steps or a tool like iShot.