Screenshots have become so ubiquitous nowadays that we don't give them too much thought anymore. Yet every day we use them to show, explain, and communicate. Like camping mac os. Whether it's sending an image of a software bug to customer support, a quick how-to GIF to a colleague, or a heartfelt joke a loved one, screenshots help us enrich and liven up our daily communication patterns.
Naturally, for creating and editing screenshots, Windows PC has its widely respected Snipping Tool. In fact, if you've recently switched your PC for Mac, at some point you're guaranteed to wonder where and what is Snipping Tool for Mac.
Open that app from your Applications folder to begin installing the operating system. MacOS Sierra 10.12 can upgrade El Capitan, Yosemite, Mavericks, Mountain Lion, or Lion OS X El Capitan 10.11 can upgrade Yosemite, Mavericks, Mountain Lion, Lion, or Snow Leopard. The 'classic' Mac OS is the original Macintosh operating system that was introduced in 1984 alongside the first Macintosh and remained in primary use on Macs until the introduction of Mac OS X in 2001. Apple released the original Macintosh on January 24, 1984; its early system software was partially based on the Lisa OS and the Xerox PARC Alto computer, which former Apple CEO Steve Jobs. Actually I don't know anything about The architecture of Mac OS. My first programs I wrote on it where done in Modula 2, which had its own windowing and event library (to be portable), which was 100 times easier to use than the Pascal version of Mac OS. Later I programmed in Think C, a subset of C. System 7 Today, Advocates of Apple's 'Orphan' Mac OS 7.6.1, Tommy Thomas, Welcome to Macintosh, 2006.10.26. Why Mac OS 7.6.1 is far better for 68040 and PowerPC Macs than System 7.5.x.
Rest assured, you're not left without screenshots forever. A snipping tool for Mac does exist. Moreover, just like on Windows, it's built right into the operating system — which is the answer to the common question of where to download snipping tool for Mac. In addition, there are plenty of third-party snipping tools out there that considerably expand on the functionality of the pre-installed option.
Mac Snipping Tools: get the full pack for free
A superb edition of best apps that take your snipping on Mac to the new level. All in one pack.
What is the best Snipping tool for Mac?
Mac OS snipping tool is so baked into the operating system that it doesn't even have a name. It just … well, works, mirroring the Snipping Tool you've grown accustomed to on Windows almost to a T.
Plus, there's not just one snipping tool on Mac — there are dozens. Below, we'll compare the default screenshot snipping tool Mac offers to its Windows alternative, and introduce third-party tools like CleanShot, Dropshare, and Capto as well.
How to use Snipping tool on macOS
What is the shortcut key for Snipping Tool? The shortest answer to 'How to snip on Mac?' is to press ⇧⌘5. The shortcut calls up a small menu in the lower part of the screen with lots of options to choose from.
This menu is new to Mac, as it first appeared in macOS Mojave in 2018. Before then, Mac users were limited to either using ⇧⌘3 to take a screenshot of the whole screen or ⇧⌘4 to select an area (these shortcuts still work the same). If you're using one of the macOS versions before Mojave, make sure to update to the latest macOS available to make full use of the snipping tool on Mac.
So the menu for the Mac OS snipping tool features the following options:
- Capture Entire Screen,
- Capture Selected Window,
- Caption Selected Portion (area),
- Record Entire Screen,
- and Record Selected Portion (area).
Besides, there is also an Options dropdown, where you can change where to save the resulting image, set a timer, and choose whether to show the mouse pointer.
BTW, did you know that you can use Mac Snipping tool also to taking screenshots of the Touch Bar itself?
- To save a screenshot of Touch Bar as a file on your desktop press ⇧⌘6
- To copy what you see on Touch Bar to your clipboard press ⌃⇧⌘6
You can customize your keyboard shortcuts by going to System Preferences > Keyboard > Shortcuts > Screen Shots
Right away you can see how similar the functionality of a snipping tool on Mac is to its Windows counterpart. Let's compare screenshot capabilities side by side:
- Full screen: Mac and Windows
- Single app window: Mac and Windows
- Area: Mac and Windows
- Freeform: Windows only
- Video: Mac only
- Delay: 5 or 10 seconds on Mac, 1 to 5 seconds on Windows
- Editing: full toolkit on Mac, limited on Windows
Diving into details, you might notice that the snipping tool on Mac doesn't allow for a freeform capture. Likewise, its Windows alternative can't record video and only offers limited annotation options. So naturally, this default screenshot grabber on Mac would be your go-to in most cases. However, if you need to be able to capture screenshots with a freehand selection or you're just eager to use something more powerful, third-party Mac apps have a lot to offer.
Snipping tool alternatives
Download apps that allow to customize and enjoy screenshotting on Mac – better than default programs.
Snipping tool to capture your screen without distractions
While Mac's default snipping tool can create basic screenshots, a professional utility like CleanShot seamlessly enhances its functionality. It allows you to hide all desktop icons to capture your screen with no distractions, change the wallpaper, preview screenshots before you save them, copy the resulting image or video into your clipboard, annotate images with ease, and much more.
To give yourself an example of what CleanShot is truly capable of, choose Capture Area within the app (notice how desktop icons disappear), drag your mouse to make a screenshot, and click the pen icon to edit the result before it gets saved.
To be able to always capture your screen without all the desktop icons getting in your way, set and use custom hotkeys in the Preferences menu of the CleanShot app. And if you wonder what's the most effective way to share your screenshot with others, you need to know about one more app.
Extract text from images, presentations, or videos
If you don't want to capture screen but rather text from a specific area of your screen, TextSniper does the job perfectly. This OCR tool allows you to extract text from a YouTube video, someone's online presentation, graphical image, PDF document, you name it.
Here's how to grab text from anywhere with TextSniper:
- Open the app via Setapp — you'll see the icon appear in the menu bar
- Click on the icon > Capture text and select the area from where you want to copy text
- The text is automatically saved to your clipboard.
Share screenshots with others instantly
Unlike the default snipping tool on Mac, we have a tool that approaches the problem of screenshots as a sharing problem first and foremost.
Dropshare is a Mac snipping tool alternative that allows you to choose between capturing a specific area, capturing and editing, and recording an area or full screen. After you done, all URLs would be saved automatically and ready to share with your team. Every time you take a screenshot, Dropshare swiftly uploads it to the cloud and gives you a short link to share with others. It's also robust in its uploading options, offering you a choice between 10 GB of its own storage or any of the cloud providers you already use, such as Dropbox, Google Drive, Rackspace, Amazon S3, etc.
However, if you want to make 100% freehand selections or take webpage screenshots of any length, you need to combine Dropshare with another brilliant utility.
How to capture freehand region on a Mac
Compared to other tools discussed above, Capto is in a league of its own and virtually redefines how to snip on Mac. It lets you capture full screen, circle area, rectangle area, freeform area, single app window, menus, webpages, and more. Besides, it features a robust editor to help you modify the results.
To create screenshots of any type, simply choose Freehand and draw out the shape.
Screenshots have become so ubiquitous nowadays that we don't give them too much thought anymore. Yet every day we use them to show, explain, and communicate. Like camping mac os. Whether it's sending an image of a software bug to customer support, a quick how-to GIF to a colleague, or a heartfelt joke a loved one, screenshots help us enrich and liven up our daily communication patterns.
Naturally, for creating and editing screenshots, Windows PC has its widely respected Snipping Tool. In fact, if you've recently switched your PC for Mac, at some point you're guaranteed to wonder where and what is Snipping Tool for Mac.
Open that app from your Applications folder to begin installing the operating system. MacOS Sierra 10.12 can upgrade El Capitan, Yosemite, Mavericks, Mountain Lion, or Lion OS X El Capitan 10.11 can upgrade Yosemite, Mavericks, Mountain Lion, Lion, or Snow Leopard. The 'classic' Mac OS is the original Macintosh operating system that was introduced in 1984 alongside the first Macintosh and remained in primary use on Macs until the introduction of Mac OS X in 2001. Apple released the original Macintosh on January 24, 1984; its early system software was partially based on the Lisa OS and the Xerox PARC Alto computer, which former Apple CEO Steve Jobs. Actually I don't know anything about The architecture of Mac OS. My first programs I wrote on it where done in Modula 2, which had its own windowing and event library (to be portable), which was 100 times easier to use than the Pascal version of Mac OS. Later I programmed in Think C, a subset of C. System 7 Today, Advocates of Apple's 'Orphan' Mac OS 7.6.1, Tommy Thomas, Welcome to Macintosh, 2006.10.26. Why Mac OS 7.6.1 is far better for 68040 and PowerPC Macs than System 7.5.x.
Rest assured, you're not left without screenshots forever. A snipping tool for Mac does exist. Moreover, just like on Windows, it's built right into the operating system — which is the answer to the common question of where to download snipping tool for Mac. In addition, there are plenty of third-party snipping tools out there that considerably expand on the functionality of the pre-installed option.
Mac Snipping Tools: get the full pack for free
A superb edition of best apps that take your snipping on Mac to the new level. All in one pack.
What is the best Snipping tool for Mac?
Mac OS snipping tool is so baked into the operating system that it doesn't even have a name. It just … well, works, mirroring the Snipping Tool you've grown accustomed to on Windows almost to a T.
Plus, there's not just one snipping tool on Mac — there are dozens. Below, we'll compare the default screenshot snipping tool Mac offers to its Windows alternative, and introduce third-party tools like CleanShot, Dropshare, and Capto as well.
How to use Snipping tool on macOS
What is the shortcut key for Snipping Tool? The shortest answer to 'How to snip on Mac?' is to press ⇧⌘5. The shortcut calls up a small menu in the lower part of the screen with lots of options to choose from.
This menu is new to Mac, as it first appeared in macOS Mojave in 2018. Before then, Mac users were limited to either using ⇧⌘3 to take a screenshot of the whole screen or ⇧⌘4 to select an area (these shortcuts still work the same). If you're using one of the macOS versions before Mojave, make sure to update to the latest macOS available to make full use of the snipping tool on Mac.
So the menu for the Mac OS snipping tool features the following options:
- Capture Entire Screen,
- Capture Selected Window,
- Caption Selected Portion (area),
- Record Entire Screen,
- and Record Selected Portion (area).
Besides, there is also an Options dropdown, where you can change where to save the resulting image, set a timer, and choose whether to show the mouse pointer.
BTW, did you know that you can use Mac Snipping tool also to taking screenshots of the Touch Bar itself?
- To save a screenshot of Touch Bar as a file on your desktop press ⇧⌘6
- To copy what you see on Touch Bar to your clipboard press ⌃⇧⌘6
You can customize your keyboard shortcuts by going to System Preferences > Keyboard > Shortcuts > Screen Shots
Right away you can see how similar the functionality of a snipping tool on Mac is to its Windows counterpart. Let's compare screenshot capabilities side by side:
- Full screen: Mac and Windows
- Single app window: Mac and Windows
- Area: Mac and Windows
- Freeform: Windows only
- Video: Mac only
- Delay: 5 or 10 seconds on Mac, 1 to 5 seconds on Windows
- Editing: full toolkit on Mac, limited on Windows
Diving into details, you might notice that the snipping tool on Mac doesn't allow for a freeform capture. Likewise, its Windows alternative can't record video and only offers limited annotation options. So naturally, this default screenshot grabber on Mac would be your go-to in most cases. However, if you need to be able to capture screenshots with a freehand selection or you're just eager to use something more powerful, third-party Mac apps have a lot to offer.
Snipping tool alternatives
Download apps that allow to customize and enjoy screenshotting on Mac – better than default programs.
Snipping tool to capture your screen without distractions
While Mac's default snipping tool can create basic screenshots, a professional utility like CleanShot seamlessly enhances its functionality. It allows you to hide all desktop icons to capture your screen with no distractions, change the wallpaper, preview screenshots before you save them, copy the resulting image or video into your clipboard, annotate images with ease, and much more.
To give yourself an example of what CleanShot is truly capable of, choose Capture Area within the app (notice how desktop icons disappear), drag your mouse to make a screenshot, and click the pen icon to edit the result before it gets saved.
To be able to always capture your screen without all the desktop icons getting in your way, set and use custom hotkeys in the Preferences menu of the CleanShot app. And if you wonder what's the most effective way to share your screenshot with others, you need to know about one more app.
Extract text from images, presentations, or videos
If you don't want to capture screen but rather text from a specific area of your screen, TextSniper does the job perfectly. This OCR tool allows you to extract text from a YouTube video, someone's online presentation, graphical image, PDF document, you name it.
Here's how to grab text from anywhere with TextSniper:
- Open the app via Setapp — you'll see the icon appear in the menu bar
- Click on the icon > Capture text and select the area from where you want to copy text
- The text is automatically saved to your clipboard.
Share screenshots with others instantly
Unlike the default snipping tool on Mac, we have a tool that approaches the problem of screenshots as a sharing problem first and foremost.
Dropshare is a Mac snipping tool alternative that allows you to choose between capturing a specific area, capturing and editing, and recording an area or full screen. After you done, all URLs would be saved automatically and ready to share with your team. Every time you take a screenshot, Dropshare swiftly uploads it to the cloud and gives you a short link to share with others. It's also robust in its uploading options, offering you a choice between 10 GB of its own storage or any of the cloud providers you already use, such as Dropbox, Google Drive, Rackspace, Amazon S3, etc.
However, if you want to make 100% freehand selections or take webpage screenshots of any length, you need to combine Dropshare with another brilliant utility.
How to capture freehand region on a Mac
Compared to other tools discussed above, Capto is in a league of its own and virtually redefines how to snip on Mac. It lets you capture full screen, circle area, rectangle area, freeform area, single app window, menus, webpages, and more. Besides, it features a robust editor to help you modify the results.
To create screenshots of any type, simply choose Freehand and draw out the shape.
Similarly, the options for instantly taking seamless screenshots of long webpages are available under the Web tab, where you can choose to use a built-in browser to search for the website or open the current URL.
This feature completely eliminates the need for the old-school way of taking screenshots as long as your display allows and then somehow stitching them all together by hand.
Does Mac have a snipping tool for me?
Yes, and lots! As you can see, your Mac has a wide array of snipping tools to cover every need possible. And hopefully, by reading this far, you've come a long way from wondering whether 'Mac has snipping tools at all' to 'how to use snipping tool for Mac' to 'omg, which snipping tool do I choose.'
Your choice in using a specific snipping tool should correlate to your needs. It's probably a good idea to disregard the default Mac OS snipping tool and instead use CleanShot right away, as it features more functionality and much cleaner experience. But if communication is key, turn to Dropshare, which enables you to stay in the loop in a super-productive and visual way. TextSniper will work great for your OCR tasks — saving text from graphics, video, etc. And finally, no screenshot functionality is too complicated for Capto, which brings all custom screenshot needs under one roof.
Best of all, you can try and download all these apps, and decide which one you like the most for free because all of them are available through Setapp, a platform for over 200 best-in-class Mac apps for any job. Taking screenshots with unique apps from Setapp will bring you the most beautiful results of the highest quality in no time. Screenshot away!
Mac OS X in particular is the product that saved Apple: it prevented Apple's whole Ponzi scheme from collapsing.
Yeah. Put a few drinks into even the most ardent Apple supporter and he'll admit that he promoted the virtues of the Power Macintosh 8110AV with the same desperate, hollow vim as that uncle of yours with a garage full of water filters. Apple had become a pyramid scam. We'd sunk so much of our enthusiasm and hopes into the Mac OS and gotten so little return from it that the only way to keep ourselves afloat was to do whatever we had to in order to bring in another wave of suckers.
Yeah Just An Idea. Mac Os Download
Grand designs
'Aha, but what about the iMac?' you protest. 'That was Steve Jobs' first personal product after he came back to Apple. That was released in 1998!'
Oh, you poor, poor bastard. The original iMac was a water filter in a fresh, new Bondi Blue housing. Nothing had really changed. The awesome cosmetic redesign re-energized us all and allowed Apple to stall for time. They'd given us enough renewed hope that we didn't make that phone call to the Better Business Bureau, like we promised our spouses we were going to.
(Honestly. Even today, I can't imagine how Apple managed to successfully market a water filter that lacked a floppy drive.)
No, as a big a seller as the iMac was, it didn't save Apple. Mac OS X did that. By the late 1990s, Mac OS Classic had become a boat anchor. It was prettier than Windows, but it crashed. A lot. If there's any gin left in that bottle you opened to get our stereotypical Mac fan to cop to that Ponzi Scheme thing, pour him another few until he breaks down and admits that Windows had narrowed the usability gap to an almost nitpicky-thin margin, too.
Today, everybody wearing white earbuds knows the iOS success story. As with Mac OS X, it was the result of the courage to do new things and a determination to not add a new feature until it worked well, added true functionality, and made sense for the product.
iOS has been such a success that I've heard some people speculate that Mac OS X's days are numbered. This is the point where I remind everyone that while alcohol greases the gears of Difficult Truths, you should cut someone off before the result is a damned-fool utterance like that one, or an unplanned pregnancy.
Egl_03a mac os. Nope, an iOS takeover will never happen. iOS is fundamentally designed for mobile devices. Making it live up to all of the expectations of a desktop OS would be like adapting a car to suit the physiology, cognitive capacity, and daily commuter needs of a squirrel. Even the simplest part of the problem ('Should we even bother installing a CD player, or will a jack for the squirrel's iPod be enough?') convinces you that it's a pointless exercise.
Yeah Just An Idea. Mac Os X
But Apple's a company that learns from its failures and its successes. It's also bold enough to try something new and incompatible.
What about a notebook that runs a new, third OS… called iX? What could Apple build out of best parts of iOS and Mac OS X?
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I love the iPad's extreme portability. I love the simplicity of the user experience, too. 'The Power To Be Your Best' is a fine idea in principle, but in the category of keeping my working environment clean and uncluttered, 'my best' is, well, crap.
Solid performer
Which leads to the third thing: reliability. My iPad is the only machine in my office that I know will always work.
With the iPad, there's also an implication that you don't necessarily need to keep syncing files between the device and another computer. If my data is on Dropbox or my iDisk or Google Docs, I'm fine. I can grab my iPad and take off. I don't need to think about what's on the device or what I'll want to accomplish during an afternoon at The Bagel Place With The Wi-Fi.
I love my MacBook because it runs a 'real' desktop OS. When I had an 11' MacBook Air for a couple of months, I was running the same apps and working the exact same projects that I had on my desktop Mac, despite the fact that the Air was barely more trouble to carry around than my iPad.
I like the fact that it has standard ports and an open file system. If a file is on a flash drive, the medium presents a solution and not a problem.
So let's consider an iPad built along the lines of the Air. It'd be a superslim and lightweight design, built as a clamshell notebook with a full keyboard. It'd feature an iPad-like 10 hour battery, minimum. One USB port, so I can connect to printers and data devices, and load up content on my iPhone when I travel.
The iX OS would run the same apps as Mac OS X Lion. But with a twist: an iX notebook would only run apps in their fullscreen modes. This limitation would firmly define iX as a 'bridge' OS. It'd maintain and impose a simpler and stabler experience that limits distractions and potential problems. Even the Finder would be implemented as a fullscreen app that focused on useful tasks instead of infinite possibilities.
Unlike a Google Chrome notebook, an Apple iX wouldn't be just a dumb client for remote apps. But it would have an instinctive and intimate relationship with your apps and files elsewhere on the network. Screen Sharing would be fundamentally woven into the OS. If you're on the Internet, your Apple iX could 'find' your Mac OS 10.7 desktop, run the fullscreen code from its installed apps, and relate to its files just as naturally as anything you had on your local device.
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Yeah, the Apple iX is pretty out there. Let's not even log any of that in as Speculation. It's just an interesting idea to play with. I've no idea how, for example, Apple could even market such a thing. They'd need to make it clear that it's meant to be 'the power of the desktop with the simplicity the iPad.' Many observers would instinctively think of the Apple iX as 'way more complicated and expensive than an iPad, while deleting away all of the useful features that make a ‘real' notebook so attractive.'
(The solution? Underscore the fact that 'Apple iX' translates to 'Apple 9.' Even the snarkiest columnist, analyst, or message-board wag would be enamored by a computer that's seven steps more awesome than the Apple //e that they pounded on all during school. They should paint the Apple iX a creamy tan, with chocolate-colored keycaps, just for good measure.)
If the Apple iX is a weird idea, the basic premise is sound. If Apple were to crossbreed their two most important products of the past ten years, the offspring couldn't help but be interesting. Go to your local zoo and check out the long, long lines to see the Tigraffe if you doubt it.
[Macworld senior contributor Andy Ihnatko is also a technology columnist for the Chicago Sun-Times.]