Snipping Tool for Mac: the built-in equivalent

If you’ve moved to a Mac from Windows, your fingers probably still reach for Windows + Shift + S. There’s no app called Snipping Tool on a Mac, but there doesn’t need to be: macOS has its own screenshot app, a set of shortcuts and a markup editor that between them cover nearly everything Snipping Tool does.

The Mac’s Snipping Tool: the Screenshot app

Press ⇧⌘5, or open Screenshot from Applications → Utilities. A toolbar appears near the bottom of the screen with buttons to capture the whole screen, a window or a selected portion, buttons to record the screen, and an Options menu. It plays the same role as Snipping Tool’s capture bar.

Here’s how the features you know map across:

Using a Windows keyboard with your Mac? Apple’s rule is Alt for Option and the Windows logo key (or Ctrl) for Command, so ⇧⌘4 becomes Shift + Windows logo key + 4.

Rectangle, window and full-screen snips

The biggest difference is what happens after the capture. On Windows 11, Microsoft says snips are saved to your Screenshots folder automatically, on top of being ready to paste. A Mac does one or the other:

• Save a file: ⇧⌘4 (area), ⇧⌘3 (whole screen). The PNG lands on the desktop.
• Copy to the clipboard: add ⌃ to either shortcut. Nothing is saved; paste with ⌘V.

For a window, press ⇧⌘4 and then Space. The pointer becomes a camera and highlights the window under it; click to capture it with its shadow, or hold ⌥ as you click to leave the shadow off. The toolbar’s Capture Selected Window does the same with the mouse.

Delayed snips

Snipping Tool’s delay is for menus and hover effects that vanish when you press a key. On a Mac:

1. Press ⇧⌘5.
2. Click Options and choose a Timer: 5 or 10 seconds.
3. Choose a capture mode and click Capture.
4. Open the menu or hover over the element before the countdown ends.

For an open menu, you often don’t need a timer at all. Open the menu, press ⇧⌘4, and drag over it.

Annotate with Markup

After each capture, a thumbnail sits in the bottom-right corner for a few seconds. Click it to open the Markup window, the Mac’s counterpart to Snipping Tool’s editing view. It has tools to sketch and draw, add shapes and arrows, type text, add a signature, crop and rotate. Click Done to save the result, or the share button to send it straight to Messages, Mail or AirDrop.

Missed the thumbnail? Open the screenshot in Preview and click the Markup button in the toolbar to get the same tools. For more on arrows, boxes and callouts, see our guide to annotating screenshots.

Text actions on a Mac

Snipping Tool’s Text actions button recognises the text in a snip so you can copy it. The Mac equivalent is Live Text, which works on images in Quick Look, Preview and Photos:

1. Take a screenshot with ⇧⌘4 so it’s saved as a file.
2. Select the file in Finder and press Space to open Quick Look.
3. Drag across the words you want and press ⌘C.

If dragging doesn’t select anything, check that Live Text is on in System Settings → General → Language & Region. Our Live Text guide covers where else it works.

In Unpixel

In 2025, Microsoft began adding a Text Extractor button to Snipping Tool’s capture bar, which copies text without saving a snip first. That’s the gap Unpixel fills on a Mac. Press ⇧⌘2, drag over the text, and let go: the recognised words are on your clipboard, read on your Mac by Apple’s Vision framework. It also copies the contents of QR codes and barcodes, and pastes tables into Numbers or Excel as real cells.

Where snips are saved

Mac screenshots go to the desktop as PNG files named “Screenshot” plus the date and time. To change that, press ⇧⌘5, click Options and choose under Save to: Desktop, Documents, Clipboard, Mail, Messages, Preview or Other Location….

Want the habit you had before? Create a folder called Screenshots inside Pictures, then pick it with Other Location…. Your Mac screenshots will collect there, just as snips did on your old PC.