Screen Capture Mac Os Terminal

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How to launch and use Grab utility on macOS and Mac OS X?

⌘ + Shift + 3 The screen capture shortcut on the Mac is one of the most useful tools I know. It grabs the screen and neatly places a.png file onto your desktop. But is this the highest quality screen capture you can get? Click Command+N to open a new Finder window. Click Command+Shift+N to create a new folder, where your screenshots will go. Keep this window open, and hit Command+1 to make sure it's in Grid.

Many Mac users are already familiar with the Utility folder and the useful tools it contains such as Terminal, Activity Monitor, Disk Utility, Console, Keychain Access, etc. Some of these apps are helpful when seeking solutions to problems you may have encountered.

Among these useful apps is Grab, which is based on capturing a computer screen image. The Mac OS has built-in functions for screen capturing, they are reached through keyboard combinations such as Command, Shift and 3 or 4, however, the Grab app is much more powerful, and includes different image formats, a timer screenshot function, and more. In this article, we will cover all types of screenshots, troubleshooting, and how to set up the Grab app to deliver good quality images.

Table of Contents:

  • Have you ever wanted to take a screenshot of your desktop to use in a presentation or to send to a coworker? In this video tutorial, Mac Genius Joy will show you how to take a picture of all, or part, of your screen with the Mac OS X key commands. For more, and to learn how to take your own screenshots in Mac OS X, watch this video tutorial.
  • To change screenshot location, open up Terminal and enter the following command: defaults write com.apple.screencapture location /Documents/Screenshots. If you don’t want them showing up in.
  • When you take a screenshot on your Mac – using the Shift-Command-3 shortcut to capture the whole screen, or Shift-Command-4 to capture a portion of it – the image files are saved straight to your.

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Capabilities of Grab

As mentioned, the Grab app has higher functionality than Mac's built-in screenshot function - here is a clear view of its potential:

  • Is able to capture just a portion of the screen.
  • Takes an image grab of a selected window.
  • Performs a Timed Screenshot. This function allows you to take a screen grab after 10 seconds.
  • Allows you to select a type of pointer (cursor) and also to show or hide it in screenshots. To set pointer settings, open Grab Preferences and select the type of pointer, or disable it.
  • Takes a picture of the entire screen, including multiple-monitor screens.
  • Saves pictures in various image formats such as JPEG, PNG, and TIFF.
  • Owns a small 'tooltip' displaying the exact coordinate of your pointer, which transforms into the amount of pixels selected when selecting an area.

Use of the Grab utility

This app has a simple interface, however, some steps might be confusing. Here, we walk step-by-step though all Grab functions. There are several ways to launch the app. As mentioned above, the app is within the Utilities folder, so we can use Spotlight, launchpad, or finder to start Grab. In finder, go to Applications, choose Utilities, and select Grab. In launchpad, Grab is within Other.

Take a screenshot of selected area in your screen

When the app is launched, click on Capture on Grab's menu at top of your screen, and then choose Selection or simply press Shift, Command and A together on your keyboard. You will notice Grab's information message. Now select your desired area by dragging with your mouse. When you have finished selecting, the picture will appear in a new window where you can save the image in a specified destination folder with a filename you provide.

Take a picture of desired window

Select Capture from Grab's menu, and then choose Window or simply press the keyboard shortcut Shift, Command and W. In the popped-up window, click Choose Window. Left click to select the window required to capture, and then save it.

Capture your entire screen

Select Capture from Grab's menu, choose Screen or simply press the keyboard combination of Command and Z to start capturing the whole screen. An information message will pop-up stating that the image will be taken when you left-click the screen anywhere (outside the message).

Perform a timed screenshot

To launch a timed screenshot function, go to Capture in Grab's menu and choose Timed Screen or use the keyboard shortcut Shift, Command and Z. The activation window will pop up and leave 10 seconds before capturing from the moment you clicked Start Timer. This function will take a picture of the entire screen - it is very useful when you need to take a screenshot of menus or menu options.

Check the details of taken screenshot

To look up information about the screen capture, click Window and choose Inspector, or simply press Command and 1 together. This information is available before image is saved, so you can check the dimensions and file size with the TIFF format, which is default Grab format for screen captures. You can change this format when you are not saving the screenshot.

Image quality

It is often useful to change the resolution of image. The Grab app usually captures images at high-resolution, however, this is restricted to your display resolution. To achieve a better quality of screenshot, ensure your display is at highest available resolution. To change your device display resolution, open the Mac's System Preferences and choose Displays. Check that the display is set to highest number of pixels available.

Change default screenshot format

The default format when saving captures is generally PNG and can be changed easily using terminal and a few simple commands. Mac supports PNG, JPG, TIFF, GIF, and PDF formats, so you can choose any of these. Launch terminal, which is under the Utilities folder or use spotlight.

Terminal
  • To set JPEG format as the default, type the terminal command: defaults write com.apple.screencapture type jpg
  • To set TIFF, type: defaults write com.apple.screencapture type tiff
  • To set GIF, type: defaults write com.apple.screencapture type gif
  • Set PDF, type: defaults write com.apple.screencapture type pdf
  • If you wish to return the format to PNG, type: defaults write com.apple.screencapture type png

The changes will not take effect until you restart the Mac. Alternatively, you can use the additional terminal command: killall SystemUIServer. The Mac will then be forced to reboot and the system will use the new settings.

Grab utility stopped working after macOS update

Occassionally, the app might fail to work after a system update. This issue can be due to a corrupted Grab preference file. To see if this is the case on your system, open Finder, choose Go from the Finder's menu at top of your screen, select Go to Folder, and type the following path: ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.grab.plist and press return. Move the selected file to Trash or your Desktop and restart the Mac. Once the computer has completely rebooted, attempt to launch Grab again. If this step helped, delete the old preference file. Otherwise, try reinstalling the Grab app using macOS Recovery. Finally, if none of these solutions fixes the problem, you could reinstall macOS.

Detailed steps on how to reinstall macOS.

An alternative method to take a screenshot on the Mac is to use built-in screenshot function.

Video Showing how to use Grab utility on macOS and Mac OS X

As you must have noticed, the screenshots that you take on Mac are saved to the desktop. A good way to avoid the possibility of your desktop being cluttered with screenshots is to change default screenshot location on Mac.

Default Screenshot Location on Mac

Whenever you take a screenshot on Mac using Command + Shift + 3 or Command + Shift + 4 keys, the screenshots end up getting saved on the desktop of your Mac.

Keeping the desktop as the default Screenshot Location on Mac makes it easy for you to find the screenshot, in case you just took a screenshot.

However, this default setup has the potential to clutter up the desktop and it can also make it difficult to find the right screenshot, in case the desktop of your Mac is already filled with previously taken screenshots.

Hence, we are providing below the steps to Change Screenshot Location on Mac to a dedicated Folder on your Mac or any other location of your choice.

Change Default Screenshot Location on Mac to a Dedicated Folder

Follow the steps below to change default screenshot location on Mac to a dedicated folder on your Mac.

1. First create a folder on the desktop of your Mac to store screenshots. In this case we have created a folder called “Screenshots” and placed it on the desktop of our Mac.

Terminal

2. Click on the Finder Icon located in the Task-bar of your Mac (See image below).

3. In the Finder Window, first click on Applications in the side-menu and then scroll down and click on the Utilities Folder (See image below)

4. In the Utilities Folder, click on Terminal.app (See image below).

5. Once the Terminal Window is open, type defaults write com.apple.screencapture location and do not press the enter key yet.

Screen Capture Mac Os Terminal Download

6. Next, enter a space after “location” and then drag the Screenshots Folder into the Terminal window. This will automatically enter the file path of the folder (See image below)

If you are unable to drag the folder into the Terminal window, simply enter the File path of the Screenshots Folder. Since, the Screenshots Folder is on the desktop, its File path would be Users/Username/Desktop/Screenshots. Once the File Path is enterred, hit the Enter key on the keyboard of your Mac.

7. Next, type the command: killall SystemUIServer and hit the Enter key once again.

Screen Capture Mac Os Terminals

This will change the default screenshot location on Mac to Screenshots Folder, located on the desktop of your Mac.

Get Back to Default Screenshot Location on Mac

Mac Os Screen Capture

At anytime you can get back to the default screenshot location (Desktop) setup by following the steps below.

1. Click on the Finder Icon located in the Task-bar of your Mac (See image below).

2. In the Finder Window, first click on Applications in the side-menu and then scroll down and click on the Utilities Folder (See image below)

3. In the Utilities Folder, click on Terminal.app (See image below).

4. On the terminal window, type defaults write com.apple.screencapture location /Users/Your-Username/Desktop/ and hit the enter key

Note: In the place of “Your-Username” type in the actual username of your user account on Mac.

5. Next, type killall SystemUIServer and hit the Enter key on the keyboard of your Mac

Screen Capture On Mac

This will get you back to the default setup on Mac for screenshots. All the screenshots that you take on Mac will be saved to the Desktop.