10 Screenshot Hacks Every Mac User Should Know
While third-party screenshot apps are great for Mac , Apple is constantly improving its standard tools. Today, the built-in Mac screenshot utility is sufficient for most users. While you can certainly use it to take screenshots, you can also do much more with it, such as recording screen video or even creating professional screencasts. If you frequently take screenshots on your Mac, here are the 10 best hacks you need to know.
Remove unnecessary information by saving screenshots to the clipboard.
I’ve found that I only need to save about 10% of the screenshots I take. With default settings, my Mac would save the other 90%, creating an endless mess I’d never get rid of. So, I always save screenshots to my Mac’s clipboard so I can paste them into any app without saving the image at all. Goodbye, mess! On your Mac, you can do this with two keyboard shortcuts. Press Command-Control-Shift-3 to take a screenshot of the entire screen, or Command-Control-Shift-4 to capture a region of the screen. You can then paste these screenshots into any app or social media site.
Not only do I use these keyboard shortcuts exclusively, but I’ve also disabled the screenshot feature on my Mac because I almost never use it. If you want to do the same, click the Apple logo in the upper-left corner of your Mac’s screen and go to System Preferences > Keyboard > Keyboard Shortcuts > Screenshots . Here, disable the “Save screen image as file” and “Save image of selected area as file” options.
Change the default screenshot folder to clean up your desktop.
If you’re going to save screenshots to your Mac, you don’t have to settle for Apple’s default settings. When taking screenshots on a Mac, the default save location is the desktop. This quickly leads to files piling up. To avoid this clutter, press Command-Shift-5 and go to Options > Other Location… . You can choose a folder or create a new one for your screenshots. Once created, you can open Finder and drag it to the Trash in the Dock for quick access.
Remove shadows to take better screenshots in one window.
Your Mac allows you to take screenshots of individual windows. After pressing Command-Shift-4, you can press the spacebar. This will turn your cursor into a camera icon, allowing you to click any open app to take a screenshot of the active window. When viewing the screenshot, you’ll notice that macOS adds a shadow effect on all sides, as well as a transparent border. However, if you want a screenshot with a more solid border, you can remove the shadow using a hidden keyboard shortcut.
To do this, press Command-Shift-4 , then spacebar , and hold down the Option key while clicking on the application window. However, you’ll have to press Option each time you want to remove the shadow. If you want screenshots to be shadow-free by default, run the following command in Terminal:
defaults write com.apple.screencapture disable-shadow -bool true; killall SystemUIServer
To restore the default settings, you can simply replace “true” with “false” in the terminal command and run it again.
Add the Screenshot app to your Dock for easy access.
Keyboard shortcuts are great, but they’re not always easy to remember, especially for the many screenshot features in macOS. Luckily, Apple lets you add the Screenshot utility to your Mac’s Dock. To add it, open Finder on your Mac, go to the Applications folder, then scroll down and open the Utilities folder. Now you can drag the Screenshot tool to the Dock for one-click access.
Use this keyboard shortcut to access all your screenshot tools in one place.
If there’s one screenshot keyboard shortcut worth remembering, it’s Command-Shift-5 . This keyboard shortcut displays all the necessary screenshot options and eliminates any guesswork about what the screenshot tool does. It displays a floating toolbar with screenshot tools, screen recording tools, and a variety of capture and recording options. It’s slower than using various Apple keyboard shortcuts, but I can’t argue with having all the options available in one window, so I always recommend this keyboard shortcut to anyone new to screenshotting on a Mac.
Add a screenshot timer to prepare your screen before capturing the image.
If you’re trying to take a screenshot of something important or quick, it’s easy to miss the moment. Instead of trying to press the button at the perfect moment, you can set a five- to ten-second delay to take a screenshot or record a screen video, avoiding repeated attempts. To do this, press Command-Shift-5 and go to “Options.” Under “Timer,” you can choose the delay time.
Showing mouse clicks in screen recordings lets you see what you’re clicking on.
I usually prefer to hide the mouse pointer in screenshots and screen recordings, but when my parents need help with a Mac-related issue, displaying mouse clicks in the screen recordings is a huge help. This way, they can see my cursor and all my clicks so they can follow the process. To enable this feature, press Command-Shift-5 , select Options , and choose Show Mouse Clicks .
Record audio from your microphone to create high-quality screen recordings.
The Screenshot tool on your Mac lets you record your screen with audio from your microphone and even supports external microphones. Add a five- to ten-second delay before recording, and you can create a screen recording with audio in a single take. To use this feature, press Command-Shift-5 , select any screen recording option, click Options , and select your microphone in the Microphone section.
Use your Mac to record your iPhone screen.
The iPhone has a great screen recording tool, but iOS doesn’t allow you to record everything on your phone. Additionally, some apps block screenshots and screen recordings. If you need to bypass these restrictions, you can try using a Mac to record your iPhone’s screen. The easiest way is to use the iPhone Mirroring app that comes with your Mac. You can connect your iPhone to your Mac wirelessly and use the macOS screenshot tool instead.
QuickTime Player offers another way to do this, but you’ll need to connect your iPhone to your Mac using a USB cable. Open QuickTime Player and go to File > New Video Recording to get started. Click the down arrow next to the Record button and select your iPhone to begin recording.
Save space by changing the default screenshot format to JPG.
By default, your Mac takes high-quality screenshots using the PNG image format. The downside is file size, and especially on newer Macs with high-resolution displays, each screenshot can take up tens of megabytes. If these screenshots are taking up too much space on your Mac, you can use the following command in Terminal to change the default screenshot format to JPG.
defaults write com.apple.screencapture type jpg; killall SystemUIServer
Keep in mind that this will significantly reduce the quality of your screenshots, and text in particular may become unreadable. If this bothers you, you can restore screenshots to PNG format by replacing “jpg” with “png” in the command above.