How To Screenshot On All 3 Desktop OS’s

Knowing how to screenshot is one of the corner stones to receiving or providing technical support over the internet. Since it’s so important, I want to share how I screenshot on all 3 desktop OS’s, including: Windows; Linux; and Mac OS.

If people don’t see it, did your system really crash?

Show someone the issue you’re having if so much more effective than trying to explain it. A lot of detail is lost in the words, and how the other person is going to interpret them.

But taking screenshots on different operating systems can often get frustrating. And also lead you down some rabbit holes, especially on Linux and Mac OS.

Before we start, you can also read this on medium.com

Taking screenshots is different on every single operating system, since Microsoft Windows takes up roughly 70% of the desktop market we will cover them first. Then Mac OS and finally Linux. That’s where the fun really begins!

There are a few different ways, so I’ll walk you through the most common ways on how to take a screenshot on Windows.

Perhaps the easiest method is to just open up whatever you want to capture on the computer and use the Print Scrn button. This is often located at the top right of your keyboard just after the F keys.

This will capture everything on your screen, so you better make sure you don’t capture something sensitive or private.

Once you’ve pressed the print screen button, you can now paste it into any program you like.

Alternatively, you can hold the Windows key + print screen key at the same time which will automatically save your screenshot to the Screenshots folder in C:\Users\Your_user\Pictures\Screenshots

I think the most popular method for taking screenshots on Windows is to use Snipping Tool.

You can find this program by directly searching for it in your Windows 11 search bar:

This option offer much more versatility over using the built in print screen key as you can select which region of the screen to capture. Even allowing for different shapes such as rectangle mode, Windows, full screen or free form.

After capturing, you have options to copy the image into your clipboard or save directly to your system.

If you are capturing a popup that requires focus, you can also set a delay of up to 10 seconds. This allows you to get the screen exactly how you want before taking the screenshot.

You can also use Win+Shift+S to bring up the snipping tool selector much faster than manually loading the software. Handle shortcut to know!

You can also search inside Windows for psr.exe, otherwise know as Steps Recorder.

This program is being phased out and doesn’t work very well so I wouldn’t recommend it!

At one time, this allowed for fairly easy steps recording. Handy to send over instructions to someone. However, it really shouldn’t be used today. I’d avoid this one, but it’s tool to know it is available.

Personally, I’d never heard of this tool until now!

Whilst I don’t own a Mac, I still occasionally have to produce screenshots as part of my day to day role. I’ll also stick to methods built into Mac as I think installing outside software is out the scope for this post. Apart from Linux… which you’ll see later on!

The easiest way to capture your full screen on Mac, is to use this key combination:

Shift + Command + 3

This will automatically capture your entire screen in one step.

If you did it right, you should see a thumbnail appear in the corner of the screen. You can either click this thumbnail to edit the screenshot, or wait for the screenshot to be automatically saved to your desktop.

Say you didn’t want to capture absolutely everything that was currently on your screen, well you can use this key combination to only capture a specific section:

Shift + Command + 4

After this, you should see a crosshair appear which allows you to select which parts of the screen you want to capture.

Similar to the previous method, you will also see a thumbnail appear in the corner of your screen. You can either click this thumbnail to edit the screenshot, or wait for the screenshot to be automatically saved to your desktop.

Finally on MacOS, you also have the option to capture a full menu or window. To do this, you can use this keyboard shortcut:

Shift + Command + 4 + Space Bar

I mean I have no idea why Apple makes the keyboard shortcuts this long, hardly a keyboard shortcut if you ask me!

But you should have the option to select a menu or window to easily screenshot on MacOS.

It’s worth mentioning up front that this depends entirely on the distro, or distribution, of your Linux system. Common distros include Ubuntu, Mint and Debian.

And if you are using a terminal version of Linux, or one without a graphical interface, then screenshots aren’t really a thing.

Similar to the Windows operating system, you should be able to use the Print Screen (Print Scrn/PrtSc). This will capture the current state of all your displays. This method allows you to quickly paste the content as well.

Currently, there is no built in way that I know of to save this as a file.

In many versions of Linux, you should be able to search for the word ‘Screenshot‘ and find the built in program.

This program gives you a number of options for taking screenshots on Linux, as you can see below:

Well, that’s all the methods I know about and have used in the past. If you find anything else that you think might be useful, leave a comment and I’ll add it to the post.

Enjoy! 🎉