![\"How](\"https:\/\/www.intego.com\/mac-security-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/snap-screenshots-on-mac.jpg\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Taking screenshots on your Mac, iPhone, or iPad is a great way to save things. Rather than save a link to a web page, you can screenshot a picture of it, so you can see it exactly as it was at the time you visited it.<\/p>\n
You may want take a screenshot when you’ve bought something online, to keep a record of the purchase confirmation. Perhaps you want to remember items you’ve been shopping for on your iPhone or iPad, or to show a friend something you’ve discovered. Or you may take a screenshot of some text to post on social media, or take snapshots of friends in a FaceTime call. You might also need to take screenshots to demonstrate a problem with your device.<\/p>\n
On Mac, iPhone, and iPad, it’s easy to take screenshots, crop them, and annotate them. You can save them to the Finder on your Mac, or to the Photos app on your mobile device, so you can access them quickly. And you can even take screenshots of your Apple Watch or Apple TV.<\/p>\n
Here’s how to take screenshots, or record a video of the screen, on all your Apple devices.<\/p>\n
The Mac has always made it easy to take screenshots. You can use the system-wide keyboard shortcuts to take Mac screenshots.<\/p>\n
On the Mac, Command-Shift-3<\/strong> takes a screenshot of the entire screen. When you press those keys, you\u2019ll hear a camera shutter sound and the screenshot\u00a0will be\u00a0saved\u00a0to your Desktop as a PNG file. The\u00a0document\u2019s filename will\u00a0include\u00a0the date and time the screenshot was taken.<\/p>\n Video content protected with HDCP (High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection)\u2014such as a movie or TV show in the TV app\u2014will be blacked out. But otherwise your image shows everything that was on your screen when you took the screenshot.<\/p>\n But you can do much more than take a screenshot of your Mac’s entire display. There are several types of screenshots you can take, each with its own keyboard shortcut, whether you use an iMac, MacBook, or a Mac mini with an external display.<\/p>\n After pressing Command-Shift-5, you’ll see the sceenshot control bar. If you click the Options menu, you’ll see a number of customizations for your screenshot or screen recording.<\/p>\n Here’s what you can choose in the Options menu:<\/p>\n None of the above options can shoot a lengthy web page that spans several screens; they only take screenshots of what you can see. If you do want a screenshot of an entire web page, you can use the Awesome Screenshot & Recorder extension<\/a> in Safari for that.<\/p>\n By default, when you take screenshots on a Mac, they are saved on your Desktop. Some people are fine with saving them there; others find that it makes too much clutter. If you use screenshots often, you might want to create a Screenshots folder somewhere and change the location where screenshots are stored.<\/p>\n To do this, press Command-Shift-5, click Options, and in the Options menu, you’ll see a number of locations (as in the screenshot above). If you want to save your screenshots to a custom folder, click Other Location and choose a folder, or click New Folder to create one. In my example above, I save my screenshots to a folder named Screenshots in my Documents folder. All future screenshots will be saved to that location, not just those that you initiate using this screenshot tool.<\/p>\n Unless you change the floating thumbnail option mentioned above, your Mac shows your screenshot in a thumbnail in the bottom right corner of your display for a few seconds. If you click that thumbnail, you’ll be able to crop and annotate your screenshot. There are lots of tools at the top of this window: see this Apple support document<\/a> for more details.<\/p>\n If you\u2019ve got multiple Macs, you can capture screenshots via Screen Sharing, which is handy for being able to focus purely on what you\u2019re shooting on one Mac, while doing the actual shooting and saving on another.<\/p>\n You activate Screen Sharing on a Mac by checking the Screen Sharing box in System Preferences > Sharing. In the Finder\u2019s sidebar on your other Mac, select the shared computer, click Share Screen<\/strong>, and type in the username and password you use to access that Mac. The Screen Sharing app will launch, and the shared Mac\u2019s desktop will appear inside a window.<\/p>\n Screenshots can be saved at any point using Connection > Save Screen Capture As\u2026 (to which you can assign a shortcut in the Keyboard pane of System Preferences<\/a>, if you wish).<\/p>\n If you take screenshots this way, be mindful of two things. First, ramp up quality settings (View > Full Quality<\/strong>), or your screenshots will look like compressed JPEGs. Second, if the shared computer\u2019s display is bigger than the one you\u2019re sharing it with, turn off scaling in the View<\/strong> menu. Otherwise, your screenshots won\u2019t be at native resolution; instead, they\u2019ll scale to the size displayed within the Screen Sharing app.<\/p>\n You can take a full-screen screenshot on an iOS or iPadOS device (an iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch) by pressing a couple of buttons.<\/p>\n If you have a device with Face ID, press the press the volume up button and the power button (i.e. the sleep\/wake button) at the same time. If your device has a Home button on the front (including devices with Touch ID), press the Home button and the power button simultaneously.<\/p>\n When you do this, you’ll see a thumbnail at the bottom left of the screen. If you do nothing, or if you swipe left to remove it, the screenshot gets saved to the Photos app. If you tap the thumbnail, you have access to editing and annotation tools.<\/p>\n You can crop the screenshot or use Markup to annotate the image: you can draw on it, add shapes, add text, and more. See this Apple support document<\/a> for more on Markup.<\/p>\n When you’re finished editing, tap the button that says Done. You can choose to save it to Photos or Files. Or, tap the share button and send it by email, Messages, or perform other actions.<\/p>\n You can, of course, annotate the screenshot later. To do so, open the screenshot from the Photos or Files app. Or, if it’s synced to the Photos app on your Mac, crop it in Photos. You can also drag it to the Finder to save a copy that you can edit with other apps. If you open a screenshot in the Preview app on your Mac, you’ll have access to the tools available in Markup, as well as other tools.<\/p>\n You can record a video of the screen of your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch. To screen record, you first need to enable the Screen Recording icon in Control Center. Go to Settings > Control Center, and tap + next to Screen Recording.<\/p>\n When you’ve done this, you’ll see a new button for this feature (which looks like a circled dot, \u25c9) when you swipe down from the top right of your device’s display. Tap this button, and it counts down from 3, then turns red to indicate that it is recording (\u25c9<\/span>).<\/p>\n You can switch to a different app, and the recording will continue until you stop. To end a screen recording, tap the red button at the top of your screen, then tap Stop. (Note that on some devices, the red button may appear as a red circle to the right of the Dynamic Island; on devices without a Dynamic Island, the button is pill-shaped and surrounds the clock in the top-left corner, as shown below.)<\/p>\n Your device saves this screen recording in the Photos app. You can edit it there; for example, you can trim the beginning and end. You can also edit it later on your Mac, after it syncs via the Photos app.<\/p>\n You may not think of this, but it is possible to take screenshots on an Apple Watch. To be able to do this, you must enable screenshots. Go to the Watch app on your iPhone, then tap General, and scroll down until you see Enable Screenshots; toggle this on.<\/p>\n To take a screenshot on the Apple Watch, press the side button and Digital Crown at the same time. Apple Watch screenshots save to the Photos app on your iPhone.<\/p>\n If you save your screenshots and screen recordings to the Photos app, you’ll find them in Library on all your devices. You can also find them in Albums; note the special albums labeled Screenshots and Screen Recordings.<\/p>\n Remember that, on your Mac, screenshots and screen recordings save to a folder in the Finder. But if you add them to your Photos library, they’ll go into the Screenshots or Screen Recordings albums.<\/p>\n As with the Apple Watch, it’s probably rare to need to take screenshots of your Apple TV. But if you do, you’ll be happy to know that it’s possible. In fact, there are two ways to take screenshots or recordings of the Apple TV.<\/p>\n The first uses the QuickTime Player app in your Mac’s Applications folder. Launch the app, then choose File > New Movie Recording. Click the down-pointing arrow next the red Record button, and choose your device.<\/p>\n Click on the red button to record the device. Then, on the Apple TV, navigate to the screen you want to capture. On the Mac, take a screenshot of the QuickTime Player window.<\/p>\n Another alternative is to download and install Xcode, Apple’s software development environment; Xcode is free on the Mac App Store<\/a>, but it’s quite large: it’s a multi-gigabyte download, and it also downloads and installs some additional software when you first run it.<\/p>\n To set up your Apple\u00a0TV\u00a04K in Xcode, your Mac and Apple\u00a0TV must be on the same Wi-Fi network. Xcode will find your Apple TV, but you’ll need to pair it.<\/p>\n On the Apple TV, go to Settings > Remote Apps & Devices. On Xcode, in the Window menu, choose Devices & Simulators. You should see your Apple TV.<\/p>\n Click the Pair with button; your Apple TV will display a six-digit verification code. Enter that in Xcode. Xcode will then display the Apple TV like this:<\/p>\n Set up what you want to capture on your Apple TV, then click Take Screenshot. The Apple TV’s screenshots save to the Desktop. Note that\u2014as on the Mac, iPhone, or iPad\u2014it will black our any protected content.<\/p>\n If you have an older Apple TV model, you can physically connect the device to your Mac; this will also enable you to take screenshots in Xcode. Older Apple TV devices have either a micro USB port or a USB-C port<\/a>. After you connect your Apple TV to your Mac, follow the same instructions as above to take screenshots.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Screenshots can be a useful way to show others what’s on your device, or to preserve memories. They’re easy to take, and you only need to remember a few keypresses to take them.<\/p>\n We talked about screenshots and more in episode 196<\/a> of the Intego Mac Podcast.<\/p>\nA plethora of screenshot and screen recording commands<\/strong><\/h4>\n
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Additional options when you press Command-Shift-5<\/strong><\/h4>\n
![\"Methods](\"https:\/\/www.intego.com\/mac-security-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/sreenshot-bar.png\")
<\/p>\n![\"Additional](\"https:\/\/www.intego.com\/mac-security-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/screenshot-options.png\")
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Take a screenshot of an entire web page in Safari<\/h3>\n
Where screenshots get saved on Mac<\/h3>\n
Crop and annotate screenshots<\/h3>\n
![\"How](\"https:\/\/www.intego.com\/mac-security-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/cropping.png\")
<\/p>\nTake Mac screenshots using Screen Sharing<\/h3>\n
![\"How](\"https:\/\/www.intego.com\/mac-security-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/share-screenshot.png\")
<\/p>\nCapture screenshots on iPhone and iPad<\/h3>\n
![\"How](\"https:\/\/www.intego.com\/mac-security-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/iphone-screenshot.png\")
<\/p>\nRecord the screen of your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch<\/h3>\n
![\"How](\"https:\/\/www.intego.com\/mac-security-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/iphone-recording-button.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.intego.com\/mac-security-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/iphone-recording-stop.jpeg\")
<\/p>\nTake screenshots on an Apple Watch<\/h3>\n
Finding screenshots and screen recordings in the Photos app<\/h3>\n
![\"How](\"https:\/\/www.intego.com\/mac-security-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/photos-albums.jpeg\")
<\/p>\nTake screenshots on an Apple TV<\/h3>\n
How to record your Apple TV from your Mac using QuickTime Player<\/strong><\/h4>\n
![\"How](\"https:\/\/www.intego.com\/mac-security-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/quick-time-record.png\")
<\/p>\nHow to screenshot your Apple TV from your Mac using Xcode<\/strong><\/h4>\n
![\"How](\"https:\/\/www.intego.com\/mac-security-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/apple-tv-setup.png\")
<\/p>\n![\"An](\"https:\/\/www.intego.com\/mac-security-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/apple-tv-info.png\")
<\/p>\nHow can I learn more?<\/h3>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.intego.com\/mac-security-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/intego-podcast-artwork-400.jpg\")
<\/a>Each week on the Intego Mac Podcast<\/strong><\/a>, Intego’s Mac security experts discuss the latest Apple news, including security and privacy stories, and offer practical advice on getting the most out of your Apple devices. Be sure to follow the podcast<\/strong><\/a> to make sure you don\u2019t miss any episodes.<\/p>\n