Taking a screenshot on a Mac

As a Windows person, I’m used to taking a screenshot by pressing print-screen (or alt + print screen for the current window only). However I had no idea what to do on my Mac when I found I didn’t have a print screen button.

After a quick search, I found the key combination that I wanted was Command-Shift-3. This takes a whole-screen screenshot and saves it to your desktop.

Alternatively, if you want to only take a section of the screen, you can use Command-Shift-4 and then drag an area of the screen. If you press space after the command you can single-click a window to take a screen shot of the window (similar to alt+print screen in Windows). The results are saved to your desktop.

If you want the screenshot on your clipboard (like Windows) instead of a file on your desktop, use the same commands as above, but also hold down Control. E.g.  A whole-screen screenshot becomes Command-Shift-Control-3.

How to take a screenshot on a Mac

There are a few other methods available for doing this, including taking a picture using the terminal. You can see these methods over at MacRumors Guides.

I hope this helps any other Mac convertees out there!