Taking screenshot on Mac or Windows is quite essential for everyone nowadays. Creating manual or tutorial, for example, will be a lot easier to understand if you include some screenshots in the steps.
Or, when you need to take some specific information from a website without losing its authenticity, screenshot can be pretty useful.
Moreover, some apps are able to go beyond, like recording screen. It would me more beneficial for creating a short tutorial video.
But, which screenshot app is the best?
In this post, we will share 10 best apps to screenshot on Mac and Windows.
Plus, you will learn how to take a screenshot on Mac, Windows, and Chromebook.
Let’s dive right in!
Contents
10 Best Apps to Screenshot on Mac and Windows
1. Lightshot
Lightshot is one of the best apps to screenshot on Mac, Windows, and browsers like Chrome and Firefox. It is light, simple, and free.
Here are some things you can do with Lightshot:
- Create custom keys for fast screenshot shortcut.
- Share screenshot easily through the internet.
- Search similar image quickly.
- Edit the screenshot before saving: cropping, drawing arrows, lines, text, rectangle, etc.
- Copy or save the image.
Price: Free
Compatibility: Mac, Windows, extension browsers: Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Microsoft Edge, and Opera
2. Snipping Tool
As a Windows user, you can take a screenshot using Snipping Tool. It’s a default program on Windows 10, 8.1, and 7. It has a quite complete feature that allows you to do simple editing.
Snipping Tool lets you to:
- Take screenshots on your desktop and opened window.
- Annotate your images: adding texts, lines, shapes, etc.
- Share your image with one click.
- Edit your images: cropping, resizing, etc.
- Print your images.
To run Snipping Tool on Windows, do the instructions below:
- Press the Windows button on your keyboard.
- Type Snipping Tool in the Search box.
- Select Snipping Tool from the list of results.
Price: Free
Compatibility: Windows
3. Greenshot
Greenshot is another alternative software for taking screenshots on Windows. It’s free and lightweight like Lightshot.
With Greenshot, you are able to:
- Take quick screenshots of full screen, selected window or area, and a full page from the browser.
- Edit and annotate the screenshot.
- Send and share the screenshot via email, Picasa, Flickr, etc.
- and more
Unfortunately, it only works on Windows computers.
Like Greenshot? Support them here.
Price: Free
Compatibility: Windows
4. Snagit
Another simple and excellent tool to take a screenshot on Mac and Windows is Snagit. It’s not only able to capture your computer screen, but it’s also able to record your screen activities.
With its great ability, you can use it to create a tutorial for your colleagues or students. Or, you can use it to record meetings, webinars, or lectures for future listening. The sound and quality are good though.
Here are what you can do with Snagit:
- Record screen, audio, and webcam.
- Copy the text from the screenshot and paste it into documents.
- Take a panoramic or scrolling screenshot for web pages.
- Create an animated GIF from the short recording.
- Record your iPhone or iPad screen.
- Add texts, lines, shapes using the professional markup tools.
- and more
If you are doing remote work that communicates through email, slack, or other similar platforms, Snagit is a must-have tool.
Price: $54.99
Compatibility: Windows and Mac
5. PicPick
PicPick is another screenshot tool that you need to consider, especially for graphic designers.
What makes PicPick is quite different from other screenshot tools is its support for graphic editing. It has a quite complete feature that will help you edit and custom your screenshot files as you want.
Here are some editing features of PicPick that you can use:
- Color Picker lets you know the code of selected color.
- Color Palette provides a range of colors that you can use.
- Magnifier helps you see the pixels to get the exact color.
- Pixel Ruler allows you to measure the objects.
- CrossHair helps you to get the coordinate.
- Protractor helps you measure the angle of the object.
- WhiteBoard provides a blank space for you to draw or write text on the screen.
Since PicPick is developed by Microsoft, its user interface is similar to MS Words. If you are a Windows user, you might not find difficulties in using this tool.
Plus, it has great support with MS Office. You can easily share and send the screenshot via MS Word, PowerPoint, Excel, e-mail, Skype, and many more.
However, excellent quality comes at a good price. To use PicPick along with its features, you need to purchase $29.99 for individuals, $124.95 for teams of 5 people, and $1,950 for unlimited installation in one site.
Price: $29.99
Compatibility: Windows
6. ShareX
ShareX is a FREE screenshot tool because it’s open source. Even though it’s free, it doesn’t have annoying advertisements.
ShareX is powerful and has quite complete features like PicPick.
Here are what you can do with the ShareX screenshot Windows tool:
- Capture full screen, region, window app or menu, and scrolling screenshot.
- Upload and share images and folders with shorten URL.
- Edit, annotate, and add effects to your images.
- Convert video.
- and more
So, ShareX is the best alternative if you want a screenshot Windows 10/8/7 tool that is as great as PicPick.
Price: Free (Donate here)
Compatibility: Windows
7 TinyTake
TinyTake is a simple screenshot and recording tool that works both on Mac and Windows.
With TinyTake, you are able to take a screenshot or record activities in a full window or selected area only. You can also add voice to the video in case you need to add some explanations. The video can be from 5 to 120 minutes long.
Interestingly, TinyTake provides an online drive for fast and easy sharing as big as 2 GB for free. You can upgrade the storage up to 200GB for $59.95/year.
Since the storage is in the cloud, it means you can access it from any device any time you need to. You should no longer worry about losing your files anymore.
Price: Free
Compatibility: Windows and Mac
8. Nimbus Screenshot & Screen Video Recorder (extension)
If you need to take a screenshot on browsers like Chrome or Firefox, you can rely on Nimbus Screenshot & Screen Video Recorder.
Nimbus is super useful and contains a lot of features for capturing and recording your activities on your desktop.
With Nimbus, you can:
- Capture full or partial page of a browser.
- Screencast and record video from your screen and webcam.
- Trim and crop the video.
- Annotate and edit the image, even changing the background color.
- Convert video to GIF and MP4 format.
- Easily share the screenshot and video.
Price: Free
Compatibility: Chrome and Firefox
9. Awesome Screenshot and Screen Recorder (extension)
There is no other screen recorder tool that can record videos up to 4K like Awesome Screenshot and Screen Recorder. Plus it’s FREE!
Like its name, Awesome Screenshot and Screen Recorder is the real awesome screenshot tool for Chrome and Firefox. It’s easy to operate and has a lot of features.
What make it more awesome is that you can include your face in your video by embedding the webcam. You can also record you voice by enabling the microphone. This very useful for making a tutorial or lecturing video.
Similar to others, you can take a screenshot of full-page or selected area on Chrome. And you can save it in JPG, PNG, or even PDF formats. Or, you can directly share your screenshot via Jira, Slack, Trello, Asana, and GitHub.
Awesome Screenshot provides an editing tool that allows you to blur sensitive information, crop, highlight important parts, and annotate.
Price: Free
Compatibility: Chrome and Firefox
10 GoFullPage (extension)
GoFullPage allows you to take a quick screenshot on Chrome by pressing Alt + Shift + P together. Then, you can save the image in PNG, JPG, or PDF format.
GoFullPage is free and probably the simplest one among other tools. It only has a job, to turn a full page of a website into an image.
So, if taking a screenshot on Chrome is the only thing you want to do, GoFullPage is all you need.
Price: Free
Compatibility: Chrome
READ ALSO:
- Top 10 Best Gaming Headset in 2021 to Consider Before Buying
- Best 9 Gaming Mouse of 2021 You Should Know
- Krisp App Review: Remove Background Noise during Video Conference
Basically, it’s possible to take a screenshot on Mac, Windows, and Chromebook without third-party software like what you have read above.
Mac, Windows, and Chromebook have provided this function natively. All you need is knowing the combination of keys you need to press.
In the section below, you will learn how to screenshot on Mac, Windows, and Chromebook using the shortcut on the keyboard.
Check them out!
How to Screenshot on Mac
You can simply take screenshots on your Mac by pressing certain keys on your keyboard. There are three ways to do it and each of them has different functions as well as shortcuts.
Here’s how:
1. Full-screen capture
- Hold down Shift + Command + 3 at the same time
- You’ll hear a capturing sound and see a thumbnail in the right corner of your screen.
- You can click it to directly edit or let it to save it to the desktop.
2. Capture selected part of the screen
- Hold down Shift + Command + 4 at the same time.
- The cursor will turn into a crosshair.
- Use the trackpad to move the crosshair to the part you want to screenshot.
- Press and hold the trackpad and select the part you want to screenshot.
- Release the trackpad when it’s finished.
- You’ll hear a capturing sound and see a thumbnail in the right corner of your screen.
- You can click it to directly edit or let it to save it to the desktop.
3. Capture a window
- Hold down Shift + Command + 4 + Space bar together.
- The cursor will turn into a camera icon.
- Select the window you want to screenshot and click the trackpad or mouse.
- You’ll hear a capturing sound and see a thumbnail in the right corner of your screen.
- You can click it to directly edit or let it to save it to the desktop.
Note:
- Press the Esc button to cancel screenshot.
- All screenshot files will go to the desktop.
How to Screenshot on Windows
There is a classic method to take a screenshot on Windows. No app is needed to take a screenshot on Windows. And it works on all Windows versions: Windows 11, 10, 8, 7, Vista, and XP.
Press PrtSc or Print Screen button on the keyboard. It will capture the entire screen and copy it to the clipboard.
Or, hold down PrtSc + Alt together will copy the active window rectangle only.
Then, you can paste the image by pressing Ctrl + V to photo editor apps like Paint or Photoshop to edit it.
How to Screenshot on Chromebook
Taking a screenshot and recording video on Chromebook is easy. You can also edit, delete, and share it afterward.
Do the instructions below:
- Press Shift + Ctrl + Show windows simultaneously.
- Choose Screenshot in the menu.
- Choose how you want to take screenshot:
- Full screenshot: capture entire page.
- Partial screenshot: capture a selected part.
- Window screenshot: capture what appears on the screen.
Another way to take a screenshot on Chromebook is by going to the menu at the bottom right > Time > Screen capture.
How to record your screen on Chromebook
Here’s how:
- Press Shift + Ctrl + Show windows simultaneously.
- Select Screen record in the menu.
- Choose one of the options:
- Record the full screen.
- Record a partial screen.
- Record a window.
- Click Stop recording at the bottom right to stop.
Where do the screenshot and recording files go?
All the screenshot files go to the Images folder and recording files are in the Videos folder.
Conclusions
Those were how you take screenshot on Mac, Windows, and Chromebook.
You can simply press the combination of keys on your keyboard. Or, use a third party software to go more advance.
Some apps like Snagit, PicPick, ShareX, TinyTake are even able to record your screen activity in great quality.
So, which app that you like the most?
Write down the best screenshot app that you use in the comments box below.
I’ve been writing about tech since 2014. I found it fascinating to see the development of technology. My focus mostly is on app reviews, tips & tricks, and troubleshooting.
