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How do you take a screenshot on a Mac laptop?

To take a screenshot on a Mac laptop, you can use several different methods depending on what you need to capture:

Capturing the Entire Screen

To take a screenshot of the entire screen, press and release the following keys together:

Shift
Command (⌘)
3

This will capture the entire screen and save the screenshot as a file on your desktop, named something like "Screen Shot [date] at [time].png"1 3 5.

Capturing a Portion of the Screen

To capture just a portion of the screen, press and release the following keys together:

Shift
Command (⌘)
4

This will turn your pointer into a crosshair. Click and drag the crosshair to select the area of the screen you want to capture. Release the mouse or trackpad button to take the screenshot. You can press the Esc (Escape) key to cancel the screenshot if needed1 3 5.

Capturing a Window or Menu

To capture a specific window or menu, press and release the following keys together:

Shift
Command (⌘)
4
Then press the Space bar

This will change the pointer to a camera. Move the camera over the window or menu you want to capture, and click to take the screenshot. To exclude the window's shadow, press and hold the Option key while clicking1 2 3.

Using the Screenshot App

For more options, you can use the built-in Screenshot app. To open it, press and release the following keys together:

Shift
Command (⌘)
5

This app allows you to capture the entire screen, a selected portion, or a specific window. It also provides options to set a screenshot timer and choose where the screenshots are saved1 2 3.

Additional Options

To copy the screenshot to the Clipboard instead of saving it as a file, hold down the Control key along with the other keys used for taking the screenshot.
To take a screenshot of the Touch Bar on a MacBook Pro, press and release Shift, Command (⌘), and 63.