While third-party screenshot apps are excellent on the Mac, Apple has steadily improved its default tools. Today, the Mac’s built-in screenshot utility is good enough for most people. You can, of course, use it to take screenshots, but you can do so much more, such as record a video of your screen, or even create professional screencasts. If you find yourself taking screenshots on your Mac, these are the 10 best hacks you need to know.
Clean up the clutter by saving screenshots to the clipboard
I find I only need to save around 10% of the screenshots I take. Left to its default settings, my Mac would save the other 90%, adding to an endless clutter I’d never take care of. As such, I always save screenshots to my Mac’s clipboard, so I can paste it in the app of my choice without saving the image at all. Goodbye clutter. On your Mac, you can do this by using two keyboard shortcuts. Press Command-Control-Shift-3 for a screenshot of the entire screen, or use Command-Control-Shift-4 to capture an area of your screen. You can then paste these screenshots in any app or social media site.
Not only do I use these shortcuts exclusively, I’ve actually disabled the shortcuts to save screenshots to the Mac because I basically never use them. If you want to do the same, click the Apple logo in the top-left corner of your Mac’s screen, and go to System Settings > Keyboard > Keyboard Shortcuts > Screenshots. Here, disable “Save picture of screen as a file” and “Save picture of selected area as a file.”
Change the default screenshot folder to clean up your desktop
If you are going to save screenshots to your Mac, you don’t have to live with Apple’s defaults. When you take screenshots on the Mac, the default save location is the desktop. This piles up fast. To avoid this mess, press Command-Shift-5, and go to Options > Other Location…. You can choose a folder or create a new one for your screenshots. Once you create this folder, you can open Finder, and drag it to the Trash side of the Dock for quick access.
Remove shadows for cleaner single-window screenshots
Your Mac allows you to capture screenshots of a single window. After you hit Command-Shift-4, you can press the Spacebar key. This will turn your cursor into a camera icon, and you can click any open app to take a screenshot of the active window. When you view the screenshot, you’ll notice that macOS adds a shadow effect on all sides, along with a transparent border. However, if you want a more tightly framed screenshot, you can eliminate the shadow with a hidden shortcut.
To do this, press Command-Shift-4, hit Spacebar, and hold down the Option key while clicking an app window. You’ll have to hit Option every time you want to remove the shadow, however. If you want to make shadow-free screenshots the default, you’ll have to run the following command in Terminal:
defaults write com.apple.screencapture disable-shadow -bool true; killall SystemUIServer
To restore defaults, you can simply replace “true” with “false” in the Terminal command and run it again.
Add the Screenshot app to the dock for easier access
Keyboard shortcuts are great, but they’re not necessarily easy to remember—especially for the many screenshot options on macOS. Fortunately, Apple allows you to 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. You can now drag the Screenshot tool to the Dock for one-click access.
Credit: Pranay Parab
If there’s one screenshot keyboard shortcut to remember, it’s Command-Shift-5. This key combination reveals all the screenshot options you need and doesn’t leave any room for guesswork about what your screenshot tool is actually doing. It shows a floating toolbar with screenshot tools, screen recording tools, and multiple capture and record options. It’s slower than using Apple’s various keyboard shortcuts, but I can’t argue against having all options available in a single window, so I always recommend this keyboard shortcut for those who are new to screenshots on Mac.
Add a screenshot timer to set up the screen before capture
If you’re trying to take a screenshot of something timely or quick, it’s easy to miss the moment. Instead of trying to hit the button at just the right time, you can set a delay of five to 10 seconds to set up a screenshot or a screen recording, and avoid retakes. To set this up, press Command-Shift-5, and go to Options. Under the Timer section, you can choose your delay timing.
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Reveal mouse clicks in screen recordings to show what you’re clicking
I generally like to hide the mouse pointer from screenshots and screen recordings, but when my parents need help with a Mac-related issue, showing mouse clicks in screen recordings helps. That way, they can see my cursor and all of my clicks, so they can follow along. You can enable this by pressing Command-Shift-5, clicking Options, and selecting Show mouse clicks.
Record microphone audio to create polished screencasts
Your Mac’s Screenshot tool lets you record your screen with microphone audio, and even supports external mics. Pair this with a five to 10-second delay in starting the recording, and you can create screencasts with audio in one go. To use this feature, press Command-Shift-5, select any of the screen recording options, click Options, and select your mic from the Microphone section.
Use your Mac to record your iPhone’s screen
Credit: Pranay Parab
The iPhone ships with a great screen recording tool, but iOS doesn’t allow you to record everything on your phone. In addition, 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 method is to use the iPhone Mirroring app that ships with your Mac. You can connect the iPhone wirelessly to your Mac, and use the macOS Screenshot tool instead.
QuickTime Player offers another way to do this, but you’ll need to plug your iPhone into your Mac using a USB cable. Open QuickTime Player, and go to File > New Movie Recording to get started. Click the down-arrow button next to the record button, and select your iPhone to start recording.
Save space by switching your default screenshot format to JPG
Your Mac takes high-quality screenshots by default, and it uses the PNG format for these images. The drawback is file sizes, and especially on newer Macs with high-resolution displays, you can end up with dozens of megabytes per screenshot. If these screenshots are taking up too much space on your Mac, you can use the following Terminal command to switch the default screenshot format to JPG.
defaults write com.apple.screencapture type jpg; killall SystemUIServer
Be aware that this will significantly reduce the quality of your screenshots, and in particular, it may make text illegible in these images. If that’s bothering you, then you can restore PNG screenshots by replacing “jpg” with “png” in the command mentioned above.