How to Take a Screenshot on a Mac

Steps

Portion of Your Screen

1. 1
   Press Command+Shift+4. You will be presented with a cross-hair.

1. • This method will save your screenshot to the desktop. If you want to save it to your clipboard, press Command+Control+Shift+4. Your screenshot image can then be pasted straight into any compatible application with the usual paste command (CMD+V). When you do this, OS X Lion does not create a file on the desktop.
2. 2
   Click and drag the mouse to highlight the area you'd like to take a picture of.

1.  Highlight the portion of the screen you wish to capture
2. 3
   Let go of the mouse. Your picture will be saved to either your clipboard or desktop (depending on the shortcut you used). Depending on your operating system, it will either be saved as "Picture # " (with # representing a number—for example, if it's the 5th screenshot on your desktop it will be labeled "Picture 5") or as "screenshot" labeled with the date and time.

1. 4
   Use the screenshot. Once you have taken your screenshot(s) they are ready to be used as you need. You can attach them to an email, upload them to the Web, or even drag them straight into an application such as a word processor.

1.  A screenshot dragged into an email

Full Screen

1. 1
   Make sure your screen displays exactly what you want to show in your screenshot image. Ensure all the relevant windows are visible.
2. 2
   Press Command+Shift+3. Depending on your operating system, it will either be saved as "Picture # " (with # representing a number—for example, if it's the 5th screenshot on your desktop it will be labeled "Picture 5") or as "screenshot" labeled with the date and time.

1. • This method will save your screenshot to the desktop. If you want to save it to your clipboard, press Command+Control+Shift+3. Your screenshot image can then be pasted straight into any compatible application with the usual paste command (CMD+V). When you do this, OS X Lion does not create a file on the desktop.

Screenshot of an Open Window

1. 1
   Press Command+Shift+4 and hit Spacebar. The cross-hair will turn into a camera.

1. 2
   Roll over the window you want to capture and click the mouse down.

1. 3
   Let go of the mouse. The picture of the window you clicked on will be saved to the desktop by default.

Grab Utility Method

1. 1
   Go to Dock > Utilities > Grab. This opens the Grab application. You will see the menus shown in the upper left of your screen, but no windows will open.

1. 2
   Choose how much of your screen you'd like to capture.
• To take a picture of your entire screen, click on Capture > Screen (or just use the keyboard command Apple Key + Z). A window will pop up telling you where to click and letting you know that the window will not appear in the shot.

• To take a picture of a portion of your screen, click on Capture > Selection. A window will pop up instructing you to drag your mouse over the portion of your screen you'd like to capture.

• To take a picture of a specific window, go to Capture > Window. Then, click on the window you'd like to take a picture of.

1. 3
   When the new window opens, choose Save. You can also choose Save As to give it a different name and/or move it to a more appropriate location, but note that it can only be saved as a .tiff file. Note that the file is not automatically saved.

Altering the Default Location of the Saved Files

1. 1
   Create a new folder. Do so by going to File > New Folder.

1. 2
   Name the folder. Do so by clicking once on "untitled folder." Enter your desired name into the box. For this tutorial, we will use the name "screenshot".

1. 3
   Open a terminal screen. This can be found in the finder, under utilities.

1. 4
   In the command line, copy defaults write com.apple.screencapture location , making sure to include a space after location. Don’t click Return.

1. 5
   Drag the folder you want into the terminal window. This will add the new screenshot destination to the command line.

1. 6
   Click Return. A new command line will appear.

1. 7
   Copy killall SystemUIServer into the command line and hit Return. This resets the terminal, allowing the changes to take immediate effect.