How to take a screenshot on a Mac

macOS puts screenshots on three keyboard shortcuts. Everything saves to the Desktop by default, named with the date and time.

Cmd + Shift + 4 — a selection

Press Command + Shift + 4 and drag over the area you want.

Press Space after the shortcut instead of dragging, and the pointer becomes a camera — click any window to capture just that window, with its shadow.

Cmd + Shift + 3 — the whole screen

Press Command + Shift + 3. On more than one display, you get one file per display.

Cmd + Shift + 5 — the toolbar

Press Command + Shift + 5 for the capture toolbar: whole screen, window or selection, plus screen recording.

Options in that toolbar is where you change where screenshots are saved, add a delay, or turn off the floating thumbnail.

Copy instead of save

Hold Control with any of the above — Cmd + Ctrl + Shift + 4 — to put the capture on the clipboard rather than write a file. Paste it straight into a message with Cmd + V.

Attaching one to an email

Screenshots land on the Desktop unless you have changed it, so they are easy to drag into a BlueMail compose window.