How to Take a Screenshot on Windows & Mac

Taking a screenshot is one of those things that’s quick and easy once you know the right keys — and surprisingly fiddly when you don’t. Whether you want to capture your whole screen, a single window, or just a slice of what’s on display, this guide covers every built-in way to do it on Windows and Mac, where the images end up, and how to mark them up afterward.

Screenshots on Windows

Windows has several built-in shortcuts, and they each behave a little differently. Some copy the image to your clipboard (so you have to paste it somewhere), while others save a file for you automatically. Here’s what each one does:

Shortcut	What it captures	Where it goes
Print Screen	The entire screen	Copied to the clipboard
Alt + Print Screen	Just the active window	Copied to the clipboard
Windows + Shift + S	A region you draw, a window, or the full screen	Copied to the clipboard (with a Save option)
Windows + Print Screen	The entire screen	Saved as a file automatically

A few notes on each:

• Print Screen (often labeled PrtScn) grabs everything on screen and places it on the clipboard. Nothing visibly happens — you then open an app like Paint, Word, or an email and press Ctrl + V to paste it in.
• Alt + Print Screen captures only the window you’re currently using, not the whole desktop. It also goes to the clipboard, ready to paste.
• Windows + Shift + S is the one most people will want. It dims the screen and opens the Snip & Sketch toolbar at the top, letting you drag a box around any area, grab a single window, or take the full screen. The result is copied to your clipboard, and a small notification appears in the corner — click it to annotate and save the image. This is the most flexible everyday option, so it’s the one to memorize.
• Windows + Print Screen captures the whole screen and saves it straight to a file, with no pasting required. The screen briefly dims to confirm it worked.

The Snipping Tool app

If you’d rather click than memorize shortcuts, open the Snipping Tool app (search for it from the Start menu). It does everything Windows + Shift + S does, plus a couple of extras:

• Choose the snip shape: rectangle, freeform, window, or full screen.
• Set a delay (a few seconds before the capture fires) — handy for grabbing menus or tooltips that vanish when you click away.
• Mark up the result with a pen and highlighter, then save or copy it.

On Windows 11 the Snipping Tool also records short screen videos, and it’s where the Windows + Shift + S shortcut sends its captures for editing.

Screenshots on Mac

macOS uses the Cmd + Shift combination for all of its screenshot shortcuts. Unlike Windows, these save a file to your desktop by default rather than copying to the clipboard.

Shortcut	What it captures
Cmd + Shift + 3	The entire screen
Cmd + Shift + 4	An area you drag to select
Cmd + Shift + 4 then Space	A specific window or menu
Cmd + Shift + 5	The screenshot toolbar (capture + screen recording)

How each one works:

• Cmd + Shift + 3 instantly captures everything on your screen and saves it to the desktop.
• Cmd + Shift + 4 turns the pointer into a crosshair. Click and drag to draw a box around the area you want, then release to capture it. Press Esc before releasing to cancel.
• Cmd + Shift + 4, then tap Space: after pressing Cmd + Shift + 4, hit the Space bar and the crosshair becomes a camera icon. Move it over any window or menu to highlight it, then click to capture just that window — complete with a clean drop shadow.
• Cmd + Shift + 5 opens the full screenshot toolbar along the bottom of the screen. From here you can capture the whole screen, a window, or a selection, record a video of your screen, set a timer, and choose where files are saved — all from one place.

After any Mac screenshot, a small thumbnail appears in the bottom-right corner for a few seconds. Click it to crop, annotate, or share the image right away; ignore it and the file simply saves on its own. To copy to the clipboard instead of saving a file, add the Control key — for example Cmd + Shift + Control + 4.

Where screenshots are saved

This is the part that trips people up most, because the two systems behave differently.

On Windows:

• Print Screen and Alt + Print Screen copy the image to the clipboard only — there’s no file until you paste it into an app and save it yourself.
• Windows + Print Screen saves a PNG file to Pictures \ Screenshots (inside your user folder), naming them “Screenshot (1)”, “Screenshot (2)”, and so on.
• Windows + Shift + S and the Snipping Tool copy to the clipboard, but the notification that pops up lets you save the file wherever you like.

On Mac:

• By default, screenshots are saved to the desktop as PNG files named with the date and time, like “Screenshot 2026-06-02 at 10.45.12 AM.png”.
• To change the location, press Cmd + Shift + 5, click Options, and pick a new folder (Documents, a custom folder, the clipboard, and so on). Whatever you choose becomes the new default for every screenshot.

Tips

A few habits make screenshots faster and tidier:

• Annotate before you share. On Windows, click the Windows + Shift + S notification (or use the Snipping Tool) to add arrows, highlights, and text. On Mac, click the corner thumbnail to open Markup with the same tools.
• Copy straight to the clipboard when you only need to paste an image into a chat or document — no stray files left on your desktop. Windows does this by default with Print Screen and Windows + Shift + S; on Mac, add Control to the shortcut (e.g. Cmd + Shift + Control + 3).
• Pick a region tool and learn it. For most quick captures, Windows + Shift + S on Windows and Cmd + Shift + 4 on Mac are all you really need — they let you grab exactly the part of the screen you want without trimming a full-screen shot afterward.
• Use the delay or timer (in the Windows Snipping Tool, or via Cmd + Shift + 5 Options on Mac) to capture menus, tooltips, and other elements that disappear the moment you click elsewhere.