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Home → Wiki → Mac → Screen Shot in Mac
32.2. Screen Shot in Mac
Keyboard Shortcut Method
1. Hold down the APPLE [Command] and SHIFT keys
2. Press 3 for a screen shot of the entire screen
3. Press 4 to get a "Crosshairs" so you can select just a section of the screen you want a screenshot for!
4. Press the space bar after you press 4 if you want it to automatically size the screenshot so that it perfectly matches the window it's over. After you press the space bar, a camera icon should come up.
5. Know that the resulting file will be placed on your desktop, named Picture X.pdf for versions of 10.3 or earlier and Picture X.png for 10.4 and later (could also end in .jpg).
* Press Esc to cancel.
Complete List of Keyboard Shortcuts
Images Saved as Files to Desktop
* Command-Shift-Option-3: Screenshot of full screen placed as file on desktop. Saves it to the desktop
* Command-Shift-Space Bar-4, then drag and drop mouse over selected area: Screenshot of selected area as file on desktop.
* Command-Shift-4, then space, then click a window: Screenshot of selected window placed as file on desktop.
Altering the default location of the saved files
By default the files are placed from the Screencapture tool to the desktop as PNG files. This is not the best method and fills your desktop if not managed. The easiest way to solve this is to make a location folder. For this example we will use a screenshots folder on the desktop.
First create a folder called screenshots.
Next open a terminal screen and copy the following:
defaults write com.apple.screencapture location /Users/myname/Desktop/screenshots REPLACE the /myname/ with the your user.
If you are unsure simply copy: defaults write com.apple.screencapture location into the terminal then drag the new screenshots folder into the terminal and the path will automatically be written.[1]
Images Placed into the Clipboard
* Command-Control-Shift-3: Screenshot of full screen placed in clipboard.
* Command-Control-Shift-4, then drag and drop mouse over selected area: Screenshot of selected area placed in clipboard.
* Command-Control-Shift-4, then space, then click a window: Screenshot of selected window placed in clipboard