How to Print Screen on Mac [Video]

These are the instructions on how to print screen on Mac. Unlike most Windows PCs, Mac computers don't have a dedicated print screen button but taking a screenshot on your Mac is easy thanks to various keyboard shortcuts.

Entire Screen Capture

To take a screenshot of your entire display press Command, Shift, and 3 at the same time. This keyboard shortcut functions just like the printscreen button.



You'll notice a preview of the screenshot appear at the bottom right corner of your screen. You can click the preview to edit the screenshot or wait for it to save to your desktop.

Partial Screen Capture

To capture just a portion of the screen, press Command, Shift and 4 then drag the crosshair to select an 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.

Screenshot a Window or Menu

To easily capture a window or menu, press Command, Shift, and 4, then press Space Bar. Your cursor will become a camera icon.


Click the window or menu to capture it. To exclude the window's shadow from the screen shot, press and hold the Option key while you click the mouse button.

Display a Mouse Pointer in Your Mac Screenshots

Apple's screenshot tool can optionally display a mouse pointer in your screenshots and screen recordings. To enable this feature, press Command, Shift, and 5. Then, click the Options button and enable the Show Mouse Pointer option from the menu that appears.

The Options menu also lets you enable or disable the floating thumbnail option, remember your last selection, and set a timer that runs down before taking a screenshot or screen recording.

Save Screenshots to a Different Location

When taking screenshots, Apple saves the screenshot to the desktop by default. It's possible to change this location to your documents folder or another location of your choosing. You can find instructions on how to do this here:
● How to Change Save Location of Screenshot on Mac