#utilty

I take a lot of screenshots for my work and I was initially taken aback when I wanted to take a screenshot on my Mac and then realised that I can’t simply hit the PrntScn (Print Screen) key to do it.

There are actually a few ways to take screenshots on the Mac but I’ll only cover the two ways that I consider the most painless.

Keyboard shortcuts

The most straight-forward way to take screenshots is to simply use the default keyboard shortcuts for the Mac.

They are:

Command + Shift + 3: Save picture of screen as a file on the desktop

Command + Control + Shift + 3: Copy picture of screen to the clipboard

Command + Shift + 4: Save picture of selected area as a file on the desktop

Command + Shift + 4 then hit the Space key: Save picture of selected window as a file on the desktop

Command + Control + Shift + 4: Copy picture of selected area to the clipboard

Command + Control + Shift + 4 then hit the Space key: Copy picture of selected window to the clipboard

If you are not happy with these particular keyboard shortcuts, you can change them by going to System Preferences > Keyboard > Shortcuts > Screen Shots.

Third-party application

My preferred way of taking a screenshot is through a use of a free third-party app called Monosnap.

I have it set to launch when I log on to my Mac. Now I don’t have to remember any keyboard shortcut. And when I do take a screenshot, the picture opens in the Monosnap image editor which allows me to make some last minute tweaks to the screenshot before saving it to a folder on my hard disk.

This app has other features such as recording video and making selfies easily but I have only ever used it to take screenshots.

I’ve also use another free third-party app called Skitch from Evernote. It can take pictures of the whole screen or areas of the screen then save the picture straight to your Evernote account for easy sharing.

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