How to Take a Screenshot and Record Your Screen (Video) on Macbook

 

To capture your screen on a Mac, you can use built-in keyboard shortcuts or the native Screenshot app.

Here is the quick guide to doing both:

1. How to Take a Screenshot

• Entire Screen: Press Command (⌘) + Shift + 3. A thumbnail will appear in the corner of your screen; clicking it allows you to edit it, or you can wait for it to save automatically to your desktop.

• Selected Portion: Press Command (⌘) + Shift + 4. Your cursor will turn into a crosshair. Click and drag over the area you want to capture, then release the mouse button.

• Specific Window or Menu: Press Command (⌘) + Shift + 4, then immediately press the Spacebar. Your cursor will turn into a camera icon. Click on the window or menu you want to capture.

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2. How to Record Your Screen (Video)

To record a video of your screen, you can bring up the built-in screen capture menu:

1. Press Command (⌘) + Shift + 5.

2. A control bar will appear at the bottom of your screen.

3. Choose your recording option:

   • Record Entire Screen: Click the icon that looks like a full screen with a solid circle.

   • Record Selected Portion: Click the icon that looks like a dashed box with a solid circle, then drag the frame to adjust the recording area.

4. (Optional) Click Options in the control bar to select a microphone if you want to record audio, set a timer, or choose where to save the video.

5. Click Record.

6. To Stop recording, click the small Stop button (a circle with a square inside) in the menu bar at the top right of your Mac screen, or press Command (⌘) + Control + Esc.

By default, both screenshots and screen recordings are automatically saved to your Desktop.

No, the built-in macOS screen recording tool (Command + Shift + 5) does not give you a direct option to select video quality (like choosing 1080p, 720p, or 4K) before you record.

Instead, it automatically records at your screen's native resolution. For example, if you have a Retina display, it will record a very high-quality, high-resolution video by default.

How to manage quality and file size:

If you want to change the quality or scale down the file size, you have a couple of options:

• Change screen resolution before recording: You can go to System Settings > Displays and lower your Mac's resolution before you start recording. The tool will then record at that lower resolution.

• Downscale after recording: Once the video is saved, you can open it in QuickTime Player, go to File > Export As, and choose a lower resolution like 1080p or 720p to reduce the file size.

• Use a third-party app: If you need precise control over frame rates, bitrates, and exact resolutions while recording, you will need to use a dedicated app like OBS Studio or Capto.

Taking a screenshot on a Mac

 Taking a screenshot on a Mac is quick and uses simple keyboard shortcuts. Here are the three ways to do it, depending on what you want to capture:

1. Capture the Entire Screen

Press Command ($\mathbf{\mathscr{A}}$) + Shift + 3 simultaneously.

• A thumbnail will briefly appear in the bottom-right corner of your screen.

• The image will automatically save to your Desktop as a .png file.

2. Capture a Selected Portion of the Screen

Press Command ($\mathbf{\mathscr{A}}$) + Shift + 4.

• Your mouse cursor will change into a crosshair.

• Click and drag the crosshair over the exact area you want to capture, then release the mouse button.

• Tip: If you want to move the selected box before capturing, hold down the Spacebar while dragging.

3. Capture a Specific Window or Menu

Press Command ($\mathbf{\mathscr{A}}$) + Shift + 4, and then immediately press the Spacebar.

• Your cursor will change into a camera icon.

• Hover over the open window, browser tab, or menu you want to capture (it will highlight in blue) and click. This creates a clean screenshot of just that window with a nice drop-shadow effect.

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Pro-Tips:

• Copy to Clipboard instead of saving: If you just want to paste the screenshot into a chat or document without saving it to your desktop, add the Control key to any of the shortcuts above (e.g., Command + Control + Shift + 4).

• Open the Screen Capture Menu: Press Command ($\mathbf{\mathscr{A}}$) + Shift + 5 to pull up an on-screen toolbar. This gives you advanced options, including a timer, changing where screenshots are saved, or recording your screen as a video.