- MacOS High Sierra Take pictures (screenshots) of all or part of your screen. If your Mac has a Touch Bar, you can take a screenshot of it, too. Capture the entire screen: Choose Capture Screen.
- Some Extra Points on How to Do a Screenshot on a Mac. These processes are valid for all of Apple operating system versions namely, Leopard, Snow Leopard, Lion, Mountain Lion, Mavericks, Yosemite, El Capitan and macOS High Sierra. Some applications may not let you take screenshots of their windows.
When you take a screenshot on your Mac – using the Shift-Command-3 shortcut to capture the whole screen, or Shift-Command-4 to capture a portion of it – the image files are saved straight to. 10.13 High Sierra and earlier: Use key shortcuts (see below) or Grab.app (see here). 11.14 Mojave and after: Snapshot.app (more info here). Similar to Grab but after you’ve taken the snapshot it allows you to annotate/markup the screenshot, and then you can either copy and paste from there or save as a file. Precise Screenshot can offer a preview of the latest screenshot in a floating palette. Optimized for macOS 10.13 (High Sierra), it is fully sandboxed offering the maximum protection level combined with the maximum flexibility. It's small, fast and full featured, it has all you need for a precise and perfect work Embedded PDF User Guide included.
If you can’t explain something clearly, you can crop a screenshot on Mac instead. A picture is more than a thousand word. For instance, you can send your friend or family of how to use a new software, service or something else on your Mac computer. Sometimes you need to draw on the screenshot to strengthen the key point directly.
There is a built-in snip tool on Mac named Grab. You can use Grab to crop a screenshot of custom screen and window. In macOS Mojave, the Grab app is replaced with Screenshot. As for macOS Catalina, Grab is not included. You need to bring it up with Shift, Command and 5 keys. Or you can crop Mac screenshots via keyboard shortcuts.
Whatever, let’s see how to screenshot on Mac in 3 different ways.
Part 1: How to Crop and Edit a Screenshot on Mac
It is helpful if you add draws on a screenshot. Others can understand what you want to express quickly and directly. To full control Mac screenshots, it is recommended to use Vidmore Screen Recorder. You can use Vidmore Screen Recorder free version to take screenshots with real-time drawing effects on Mac. The program is completely free to crop, edit, share and manage screenshots on Mac. Here’re the main features of the Mac screenshot capture software.
- Crop a screenshot on Mac of the whole screen, a single window or any selected area.
- Edit a screenshot on Mac with text, arrow, line, blur, callout and other shapes in any size and color.
- Save a screenshot on Mac as PNG, JPG, JPEG, BMP, GIF or TIFF.
- Share a screenshot on Mac to Facebook, Twitter, Instagram. Flickr, etc.
- 100% free to take screenshots on Mac. No registration or user account required. No watermark.
- Work with Mac OS X 10.10 or above.
Step 1: Free download, install and launch Vidmore Screen Recorder. Choose Screen Capture in the main interface.
Step 2: You can see the cursor move in the pop up window. If you want to crop a screenshot on Mac of the certain browser, program or entire screen, you can left click the mouse to confirm. Or you can click and drag your mouse to set the certain screenshot capture area.
Step 3: To edit the Mac screenshot, you can choose any drawing tool in the small window. For instance, you can click on the Callout icon to access it. Set the size and color based on your need. Now you can draw on the screenshot image directly.
Step 4: You can erase, undo or redo any change on the Mac screenshot. If you want to copy the Mac screenshot to clipboard, you can click the Copy button directly. It is also supported to pin the screenshot to screen. Or you can click Save to save a screenshot on Mac. In the popping-up Save as window, you can set the destination folder, tags, file name and format. Finally, click Save to export your Mac snapshot.
You may need: How to add watermark to video
Part 2: How to Crop a Screenshot on Mac with Grab
For average Mac users, you can use Grab to screenshot images on Mac. In spite of common Mac screenshots, you can take a time-delayed screenshot on Mac using Grab as well. If you are using macOS Catalina, you need to find it by pressing Command, Shift and 5 key combinations.
Step 1: Open Grab in the Launchpad. Or you can find it in the Applications folder as well.
Step 2: You can see Grab’s menu bar on the Dock.
Step 3: Choose Selection, Window, Screen or Timed Screen to crop an image on Mac with Grab.
Step 4: From the File drop-down list, choose Save to export your Mac screen capture image as JPEG, PNG or TIFF.
Part 3: How to Crop a Screenshot on Mac with Keyboard Commands
If you want to capture any portion of the screen on your Mac computer immediately, you can use the Mac screenshot keyboard commands. The captured screenshot will be saved to desktop automatically. If you want to crop a screenshot to clipboard on Mac, you can press Control with other fixed combinations. After that, you can edit the screenshot thumbnails with other photo editors. (Edit video with video editors)
Crop a screenshot on Mac of full screen:
Step 1: Press Shift, Command and 3.
Step 2: Click the thumbnail to in the corner to edit the screenshot.
Step 3: The Mac screenshot will show on the desktop automatically.
Crop a screenshot on Mac of any portion:
Step 1: Press Shift, Command and 4.
Step 2: Drag the crosshair and set the screen capture area.
Step 3: Release the mouse or trackpad to crop a screenshot on Mac.
Step 4: The screenshot will be saved to Mac desktop.
Crop a screenshot on Mac of a window or menu:
Step 1: Press Shift, Command, 4 and Space bar.
Step 2: Hover your mouse over the window or menu you want to capture.
Step 3: Click to crop a screenshot on macOS Catalina.
Step 4: You can press Option to exclude window shadow from the screenshot image.
Step 5: The Mac screenshot picture will show on the desktop quickly.
Part 4: FAQs of Cropping a Screenshot on Mac
Why Screenshot on Mac not working?
If you crop a screenshot on Apple TV and other related Apple programs, you are not allowed to use the built-in screenshot shortcuts and programs. The Chrome Incognito mode will stop you from cropping screenshots on Mac as well. During this time, you can run Vidmore Screen Recorder to crop a photo on Mac instead.
What to do when Screenshot on Mac not responding?
You can restart Mac or use alternative screen capture software to solve the problem.
Unable to delete screenshots on Mac?
Screen Capture On Mac High Sierra
Dragging and dropping to the Trash is the common solution to delete Mac screenshots. If the screenshot image is stuck, you can press Option, Command and Escape to force quit it first.
That’s all to crop a screenshot on Mac of all versions. Can you screenshot on your Mac computer successfully? If you have any question or suggestion about Mac screenshot, you can feel free to contact us.
If you take a lot of screenshots on a Mac, you might end up with a cluttered desktop. This is because Macs automatically save your screenshots on the desktop. They are also saved as PNG files instead of the more widely used JPEG format. If you want to know how to change where screenshots are saved on a Mac, and the format they are saved in, just follow the steps below:
Where Do Screenshots Go on a Mac?
Screen Capture On Mac High Sierra
When you use keyboard shortcuts like Command + Shift + 3, your screenshots are automatically saved to the desktop. You can also right-click the floating thumbnail, which lets you save the screenshot to Documents or Clipboard.
Video Screen Capture Mac High Sierra
How to Change Where Screenshots are Saved on a Mac
There are two ways to change the defaultscreenshot save directory on a Mac, depending on your operating system. Theeasier way is through the Screenshot app in macOS Mojave. For mac OS HighSierra or earlier, you have to use Terminal, an app for entering commandprompts to control your Mac. Below are the steps for each operating system.
How To Screen Capture On Mac High Sierra
How to Change Where Screenshots are Saved in macOS Mojave or Later
- Go to the Utilities folder and open the Screenshot app. You can also open the Screenshot app by pressing Command + Shift + 5.
- Click Options. The top tile of the menu will show your Save to options:
- Desktop – This is the default setting which saves the screenshot with the following time format: Screen Shot [date] at [time].
- Documents – This will save the screenshot to your Documents folder with the time and date as the file name.
- Clipboard – This will allow you to paste the screenshot to another app which can edit or view images.
- Mail – This lets you compose a new email in the Mail app with the screenshot attached.
- Messages – This will attach the screenshot to a message which you can send to a contact.
- Preview – This will launch Preview, a photo editing app. Your Mac will temporarily name the image file as Untitled until you change it to a different file name.
- Other Location – This will allow you to navigate outside of the locations previously listed to a folder of your choice. You can save to an existing folder or create a new one.
- Choose a Save To option. Your Mac will remember the last one you have selected and will apply this to subsequent screenshots.
How to Change the Default Screenshot Save Location in macOS High Sierra or Earlier
How To Screen Capture On Mac High Sierra
- Open Terminal. You can find the Terminal app in the Utilities folder.
- Type the following command, followed by a space:
Note: Make sure to put a space after the word location, otherwise the command won’t work.
- Drag the folder you want to save to into the Terminal command box. You will see that the file path will now be inserted as another command line in Terminal.
- Press Enter on your keyboard.
- Then type the following command:
- Press Enter or Return. The next time you take a screenshot, it will be saved to the new folder you have created instead of the desktop.
How to Change a Screenshot to JPG and Other File Formats
By default, Macs save screenshots as PNG files, which are usually larger than JPG files. Both can be used for social media, but JPGs are more universally accepted. To save a screenshot as a JPG, use the Terminal to override the default format setting.
- Open Terminal.
- Type the following command, followed by a space: You can also choose to save your screenshots as other formats by default. You can save them as PDF files if you want to edit or open the image in Adobe. You can save them as TIFF files if you want to retain their original image data even after manipulating the image. Or you can save them as GIF files if you want the image to load quickly on the web. Just choose any of the following commands, followed by a space:
Note: Make sure to put a space after the file type, otherwise the command won’t work.
- Hit Enter. The command will be saved to Terminal.
- Test to see if the default option has been changed. Take a screenshot then right-click on the image. Choose Get Info from the contextual menu, then check what is written under “Kind” in the General section.
Once you know how to change the default screenshot settings on your Mac, you’ll be able to customize and improve the way you work with screenshots. Taking a screenshot on a Mac also takes some getting used to, especially for Windows users who are used to hitting the Print Screen key. If you need to improve your screenshot skills, check out our article about how to take a screenshot on a Mac.