How To Take Mac Screenshots the Normie Way

Taking screenshots on Mac has been an ever-lasting pain for everyone of us. So, today we are exploring some in-built features for taking screenshots on your Mac. And yes! you heard right,'It's for Normies.'

All of you are familiar with the basic screenshots key-combo on your Mac(Well, some are not). But, what if you wanted to explore some of the best in-built screenshot functions on your Mac? Your answer will be "Why not?" So, stick onto this article to know more.

Formatting Options:

As for the formatting options, you can capture your entire Mac screen, a window/menu or just a portion of the screen.

Capturing screenshot for the entire screen:

When taking a screenshot, press Shift + Command + 3 keys together to capture it.
When you start to see a thumbnail at the corner of your screen, you can click it to edit the screenshot or wait for the screenshot to save to your desktop.

Capturing screenshot of a portion of the screen:

To capture a portion of the screen, first press Shift + Command + 4 together.
You will see that the mouse or track-pad cursor has changed into a crosshair. Use that crosshair to select the portion of the screen that you want to select.
To move the selected portion, press and hold space-bar while dragging.
To cancel taking the screenshot, press Esc (Esacape) key.
After taking the screenshot, if you see a thumbnail at the corner of your screen, select it to edit the screenshot or wait for the screenshot to save to your desktop.

Capturing screenshot of a window/menu:

This is a special feature in Mac computers where you can also select a menu or window to be taken as a screenshot.

The steps are listed below:

Open the Window or Menu that you want to be taken as a screenshot.
Press and hold Shift + Command + 4 + Space-bar together.
You will notice that the mouse or track-pad cursor has changed into a camera icon. To cancel taking the screenshot, you can press the Esc (Escape) key.
Click on the desired window or menu to capture it.
If you don't want the shadow from the menu, press and hold the 'Option' key while you click.
After capturing it, if you see a thumbnail at the corner of your screen, select it to edit the screenshot or wait for the screenshot to save to your desktop.

Pro Tip :

What if you wanted to copy the screenshot to your Mac's clipboard? Follow this step to copy it to your clipboard.

Press and hold the control key while taking any screenshot to copy it to your clipboard. Simple, isn't it?

Default location of your screenshots:

Normally, your screenshots are saved by default on your desktop. The format in which the files are saved is 'ScreenShot[date]at[time].png'

In some later versions of MacOS, like the versions available after MacOS Mojave, you can change the default location where your screenshots will be saved.

Bonus :

If you want to know about some of the best external tools to capture screenshots on your MacOS, you can certainly head on to one of the tools mentioned below.