Every Mac Screenshot Shortcut, and How to Change Them
macOS ships with a solid set of screenshot shortcuts, but most people only remember one of them. This guide covers every built-in shortcut, the hidden modifiers that make them more useful, and the settings you can change to make screenshots fit the way you work.
The built-in shortcuts
| Shortcut | What it captures |
|---|---|
| ⌘ ⇧ 3 | The entire screen |
| ⌘ ⇧ 4 | A region you drag to select |
| ⌘ ⇧ 4, then Space | A single window, with its shadow |
| ⌘ ⇧ 5 | The Screenshot toolbar, including screen recording |
If you have more than one display, ⌘ ⇧ 3 saves one file per display.
Copy to the clipboard instead of saving a file
Add Control to any of the shortcuts above and the screenshot goes to the clipboard instead of your Desktop. For example, ⌘ ⌃ ⇧ 4 lets you drag a region and paste it straight into Slack, Mail or a document.
This is the single most useful screenshot habit on a Mac. It keeps your Desktop clean and removes the "find the file, drag it in" step.
Modifiers while selecting a region
After pressing ⌘ ⇧ 4 and starting a drag:
- Hold Shift to lock one edge and resize only horizontally or vertically.
- Hold Option to resize the selection from its center.
- Hold Space to move the whole selection without changing its size.
- Press Esc to cancel.
Change where screenshots are saved
Press ⌘ ⇧ 5, click Options, and pick a folder under Save to. You can also choose Clipboard, Mail, Messages or Preview.
If you prefer Terminal, this does the same thing:
mkdir -p ~/Pictures/Screenshots
defaults write com.apple.screencapture location ~/Pictures/Screenshots
killall SystemUIServer
Change the file format
macOS saves PNG by default. PNG is sharp but large. To switch to JPEG:
defaults write com.apple.screencapture type jpg
killall SystemUIServer
Other accepted values include png, heic, pdf and tiff.
Remove the window shadow
Window captures include a soft shadow and transparent padding. Hold Option when you click the window to skip it for one capture, or turn it off permanently:
defaults write com.apple.screencapture disable-shadow -bool true
killall SystemUIServer
Set your own shortcuts
Open System Settings > Keyboard > Keyboard Shortcuts > Screenshots. Click a shortcut and press the new key combination. You can also uncheck any shortcut you never use so it stops conflicting with other apps.
When the built-in tool is not enough
The macOS screenshot tool is good at capturing. It does nothing with what you captured. If you regularly screenshot something so you can read it, translate it, fix it or explain it, you end up doing the same chain of steps every time: capture, open a chat app, paste, type a prompt, copy the answer, switch back, paste.
ScreenVerb replaces that chain. Press your capture hotkey (Option-Shift-S by default), select a region or window, and press a number key from 1 to 9 to run an AI action such as Extract Text, Translate, Summarize or Explain. The result is pasted back into the app you were typing in, and your previous clipboard is restored.
It also covers the capture basics: custom shortcuts, scrolling capture, and saving as PNG, JPEG, WebP or HEIC to the folder and file name pattern you choose.