How to take screenshot of your Windows laptop or a MacBook: Steps to follow
Last Updated: 2026-04-20 15:51:03
Taking screenshots of the laptop screen can prove useful in several scenarios. For example, it is an instant way to save the information on the screen: you can take screenshots of receipts, documents, and other digital content for reference or troubleshooting.
Screenshots can also serve as evidence in cases of online abuse or cyberbullying. You can take screenshots on Windows PCs and MacBooks using a few quick keyboard shortcuts. Here is how to do it.
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How to take a screenshot on a Windows laptop
To take a full screenshot of the entire screen of your Windows laptop, just press the Windows and Print Screen (PrtScn) keys together. When you press them simultaneously, the laptop screen will dim for a second. This means the screenshot has been taken. It will get saved to your Screenshots subfolder in the Pictures folder.
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If you wish to capture a certain area of the screen in your screenshot, use the Snipping Tool. Press Windows Key + Shift + S, then use the mouse cursor to select the shape of the screenshot.
You can select from these options: Rectangle, Window, Full Screen and Freeform. Now, click and drag the cursor over the area you wish to capture, then release. The screenshot will get copied to the clipboard and saved in the Screenshots folder.
How to take a screenshot on a Mac
To capture the entire screen of a MacBook, press the Shift, Command and 3 keys together and release. If a thumbnail appears in the corner of the Mac screen, you can click it to edit the screenshot. If you wait, the screenshot will automatically get saved on the Mac.
To capture a portion of the screen of a MacBook, press the Shift, Command and 4 keys together and release. Pressing this key combination turns the pointer into a crosshair. Now, to select the desired portion of the screen, click the mouse or trackpad button and drag the crosshair while holding it.
There are three actions you can take now. To capture the screenshot of the portion, release the mouse or trackpad button. If you want to move the portion you selected without changing its size, you need to press and hold the Space bar while dragging. To cancel the screenshot, just press the Esc (Escape) key.
To capture a window or menu, open it first. Now, press the Shift, Command and 4 keys together and release. Then press and release the Space bar. This combined action turns the pointer into a camera icon.
Now, to take the screenshot of the window/menu, click the window or menu. To remove the window’s shadow from the screengrab, you need to press and hold the Option key while you click. To cancel the screenshot, you can just press the Esc (Escape) key.
Apple has also included a Screenshot app in macOS Mojave 10.14 or later versions of the OS. To open the Screenshot app directly, press Shift, Command and 5 together. Or, you can open the Screenshot app after locating it in the Utilities folder of the Applications folder.
The Screenshot app will have an Options menu that allows you to pick from various operations like setting a timer for the screenshot, choosing where to save the screenshots, choosing whether to show the mouse pointer in the screenshot, etc.
On your MacBook, the screenshots will get saved with the name ”Screen Shot [date] at [time]”. This is the default save location. If you want to change the save location of the screenshots, you can do so via the Screenshot app.