Many of the users who join Apple tend to perform the same actions that they did with their computer with Windows. This is a serious mistake since we have to realize that we are in a new operating system, and we should not emulate the processes, but rather adapt.
FOR take a screenshot on mac we have several options. On Windows it would be similar to "Print Screen", where there is also a key dedicated to it. In macOS it is different, we do not have a dedicated key for it, but we do have keyboard shortcuts.
There are several ways to capture the screen, either by selectionBy fullscreen or by open windows. Each of them will come in handy depending on what we want to capture. Here we tell you the different methods to print screen on a mac.
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How to capture the entire screen on a Mac (print screen)
FOR take a full screen capture, we will have to perform a keyboard shortcut, that is, press several keys at the same time:
- Shift – Command (⌘) – 3
If you don't have your Mac on silent, you will hear a sound similar to a camera, which means that the screenshot has been taken successfully.
Now we go to the desktop to verify that our saved image is indeed found. You can select it and press the bar spacer to see a preview of the capture. If you work with several screens, you will see that a screenshot has been generated for each of them.
How to capture only part of the screen on a Mac
There are certain occasions when we just want to perform a screenshot of a specific area, either from our desktop, or from an application or a web page. It is true that we can capture the entire screen and then crop it, but doing the following will save you that step.
Press the following key combination and then select with the mouse (which will turn into a cross) everything you want to capture; once selected, lift your finger from the mouse or trackpad:
- Shift – Command (⌘) – 4
Again you will have heard a sound from a camera, so we will go back to the Mac desktop to check if it is the screen selection that we really want.
A couple of tips about it...
If you wish to cancel a screenshot, you just have to press the key ESC (escape), located at the top left of your keyboard.
If you would like to modify the area in which you have selected a part of the screen, hold down the space bar while holding down the keys Shift – Command (⌘) – 4 and mouse or trackpad.
How to capture a window on a Mac screen
This is one of the best ways to capture a specific area of the Mac. Thanks to this function we can capture a certain window, which saves us the steps of selecting the perfect corners.
It is very simple, you just have to repeat the previous steps, with which you are already quite familiar. Basically it is to press a keyboard shortcut, put the cursor in the desired window, press the space bar and at that moment you will be able to move around the screen releasing the keys.
You will see that the cursor has just become a camera, when you have the window selected simply click with the mouse or with the trackpad. Done, you already have it on your desktop, but let's do it step by step:
- press Shift – Command (⌘) – 4
- Press the space bar
- Now you can release the keys
- Select the window you want to capture
- Click with the mouse or trackpad
Graphically…
Second step – Press the space bar
How to take a screenshot of a menu on a Mac screen
It is also possible to print the image of a macOS menu if, for example, we want to capture the options of an application that we are using. It is true that you can make use of the commands that we indicated a few lines above on how to capture only an area of the screen, but macOS has a function to directly capture the menu, as if it were a window.
To do this, we first have to display the menu with the options that we want to capture. We remind you of the first method:
- press Shift – Command (⌘) – 4
- The pointer now has a crosshair shape, so we select all the option that we want to capture
- Release your finger from the trackpad or mouse and you will have it on the desktop
And now we tell you the trick to select all menu content automatically, and take a screenshot of the:
- We display the menu
- We press the keys Shift – Command (⌘) – 4
- We press the space bar (now we can release all keys)
- Press the trackpad or the mouse button
- The image is already saved on the desktop.
How to take a screenshot of the Touch Bar on the new MacBook Pro
Apple launched a new version of its MacBook Pro at the end of last year 2016. In this version, it incorporated the touch Bar, a small OLED screen located on top of the keyboard, in the place where the multifunction keys used to be.
With the arrival of MacOS Sierra 10.12.2 added the possibility of take a screenshot of the Touch Bar In a very simple way. To do this you just have to press these keys at the same time:
- press Uppercase -Command (⌘) – 6
That's it, now you can check the file containing the screenshot on the desktop of your 2016 MacBook Pro.
In addition, it is also possible to take advantage of the Touch Bar of the new MacBook Pro for these purposes: you can customize its options and program an exclusive button inside it to capture the screen of your Mac.
Where are screenshots taken on a Mac saved?
All screenshots are automatically saved to the desk of macOS, although you can also save it to the clipboard.
If you're curious, images are saved with the extension . PNG, it is simply a type of image, surely you will know the .JPG (the ones of a lifetime), but in macOS they are saved with that extension.
When taking a screenshot it will be assigned a name similar to «Screenshot 2017-02-09 at 18.16.02». As you can see, it tells us what type of file it is, a screenshot, followed by the year and we will announce, month y to date in which it was made, including the time of capture.
And that's all! As you can see, all the methods are very simple, but logically they have to be known. Nobody is born knowing, so these little tricks with the keyboard will save you a lot of time and it will be much more comfortable for you take a screenshot on a Mac, what you used to know as "print Screen".