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Apple has launched several series of MacBooks with various new features, but taking screenshots remains the same. Macs have changed over the years and new users might find their features difficult to understand. However, once learned, it becomes easy and efficient to use. Screenshots are another beneficial feature of MacBook. Screenshots are important because they help document messages or problems, share content, capture text, and more.
With screenshots, it will be easy to address issues with proof, attach them to emails or tickets, and keep a digital copy of online recipes or confirmation pages. Indeed, they serve many purposes for work and personal life, but some may find it difficult to take a screenshot on MacBook. This article shall explain simple ways to take screenshots and where to find them. So, keep reading.
Screenshot on Mac: try these simple ways
Method 1
You can snap a screenshot on your Mac by pressing and holding the Shift, Command, and 3 buttons simultaneously. This keyboard shortcut captures the entire screen. It is as simple as simple as that, but wait for the screenshot to save to your desktop. To edit the screenshot, you can click on the thumbnail towards the corner of the screen. Also, Shift Command 3 is the most commonly used option.
Method 2
The second method is to press and hold the three keys together: Shift, Command, and 4. This turns the cursor into a cross-hair, which leads you to select the area of the screen you want to capture. Simply click and drag the crosshair to the desired dimensions and once you release the mouse or trackpad, the Mac will instantly take a screenshot.
There are several other options once you hit Command Shift 4. If you press and hold the spacebar after dragging the cursor and before releasing the mouse or trackpad, it locks in the shape and size of the selected area and lets you reposition it on the screen. This option is ideal if the selected area is off by a few pixels because if you hold down the spacebar, it lets you reposition it before taking a screenshot.
Also, you can try holding down the shift key after dragging to highlight an area, before releasing the mouse or trackpad, to lock in each side of the selected area made with crosshairs save the bottom edge. This option lets you move the mouse up and down to position the bottom edge, and without releasing the mouse, release the Shift Key and press it again to reposition the selected right area. To cancel taking a screenshot, all you have to do is press the Esc (Escape) key.
Method 3
Another recommended shortcut to take screenshots on a MacBook is to press Command, Shift, and 5. This is a shortcut command introduced back in 2018 on MacOS Mojave. Once you press Command Shift 5, a small screen-capture window will pop up. It is a screenshot app and there will be three screenshot buttons that let you either capture the entire screen, capture a portion of the screen, capture a single window, record the entire screen, or record a portion of the screen.
The video-recording button helps record the entire screen or a selected area effortlessly. To close the screenshot panel, press the X button on the left or hit the Escape key. You can also customize the screenshot options by selecting Show Floating Thumbnail for a thumbnail to appear on the bottom-right corner of the screen for a few seconds. To have the last selection saved and automatically set up for the next screenshot, select Remember Last Selection.
Also, you can select the Show Mouse Pointer to include the mouse pointer in the screenshot. MacBook comes with a built-in screenshot tool, but there are several other tools for taking screenshots, such as Lightshot, Snagit, Monosnap, Skitch, CleanShot X, Droplr, and Greenshot. These tools allow you to take screenshots, edit them, and upload them to a server.
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Where to find screenshots on MacBook?
Screenshots get saved to the desktop by default with the name “Screen Shot ( date ) at ( time ).png.” You can later change the default location of the saved screenshots from the Options menu in the Screenshot app in macOS Mojave. To open the screenshot app, press and hold Shift, Command, and 5. Copying a screenshot to the clipboard is easy as all you need to do is press and hold the Control key while taking a screenshot. You can then paste the screenshot anywhere needed or use Universal Clipboard to paste it on another Apple device.
You can edit the screenshot to add context and clarity. A preview will pop up at the bottom right corner of the screen once you take a screenshot. Click on that icon to open Apple Preview where you will find the screenshot. The expandable toolbar will allow you to edit the screenshots, you can add shapes, incorporate text, change color or composition, or draw on the screen. Once you are done editing, save the screenshot by clicking the “Save as” button and filling it in the appropriate folder.
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Conclusion
Apple has come with plenty of features but the way of taking screenshots remains the same. Screenshots have several purposes, both in work and personal life. MacBooks come with an in-built screenshot tool, and it is important as it helps document or capture messages, contents, memories, texts, or problems. It can help keep a digital copy of data. Taking screenshots is easy, however, some might be clueless about it.
The simple and most common option to take screenshots is with the keyboard shortcuts. You can either press three keys together: Shift, Command, and 3, which shall capture the entire screen, or press and hold Shift, Command, and 4, which turns the cursor into a cross-hair, helping you to select the area of the screen you want to capture. There are several other options once you hit Command Shift 4.
You can also take screenshots by pressing Command, Shift, and 5, which pops up a small screen-capture window. It is a screenshot app that lets you capture or record a single window or entire screen easily. To cancel taking a screenshot, simply press the Esc (Escape) key. The screenshots will be saved to the desktop by default. Also, you can edit the screenshot if you wish to add more context or clarity.
