How to Take a Screenshot on Any Device (2026 Guide)

Every way to take a screenshot in 2026: keyboard shortcuts for Mac, Windows, Chromebook and Linux, phone buttons for iPhone and Android. Updated for 2026.

Taking a screenshot is a two-second job once you know the shortcut for your device. This guide covers every platform people actually use in 2026, the difference between full-screen, window and region captures, how to grab a whole scrolling page, and what to do with the image afterwards so the person receiving it understands it at a glance.

If you only need one answer: on a Mac press Shift + Command + 4, on Windows press Windows + Shift + S, on a Chromebook press Ctrl + Shift + Show windows, and on a phone press the power button together with a volume button. Everything else below is detail.

The three kinds of screenshot

Full screen. Everything on the display, including menus and the dock or taskbar. Good for bug reports, bad for sharing because it is cluttered.
Window. One application window, usually with a clean drop shadow. This is the one you want for documentation.
Region. A rectangle you draw yourself. Fastest when you want one button, one error message or one chart.

Most operating systems give you a separate shortcut for each, and all of them can send the result either to a file or to the clipboard.

How to take a screenshot on a Mac

macOS has the most complete built-in tools of any desktop.

Shift + Command + 3 captures the whole screen to a file on the Desktop.
Shift + Command + 4 turns the cursor into a crosshair. Drag a region, release, and the file lands on the Desktop. Hold Space before you click to capture one window with its shadow.
Shift + Command + 5 opens the screenshot toolbar with options for screen, window, region and screen recording, plus a timer and a choice of where to save.
Add Control to any of these to copy to the clipboard instead of saving a file.

A small thumbnail appears bottom-right for a few seconds. Click it to crop, mark up or trash the capture before it is saved. Screenshots are PNG files named "Screenshot 2026-10-29 at 09.41.12".

How to take a screenshot on Windows 11 and 10

Windows + Shift + S opens Snipping Tool's overlay: choose rectangle, freeform, window or full screen. The capture goes to the clipboard and a notification lets you open it in Snipping Tool to annotate and save.
Windows + Print Screen saves the full screen directly to Pictures → Screenshots.
Print Screen alone copies the full screen to the clipboard; Alt + Print Screen copies the active window.
On many laptops you need Fn together with Print Screen.

Windows 11's Snipping Tool also records video and can extract text from a capture, which is handy for copying an error message.

How to take a screenshot on a Chromebook

Ctrl + Show windows (the key with a rectangle and two lines, in the F5 position) captures the full screen.
Ctrl + Shift + Show windows opens the capture bar where you can choose full screen, partial or window, and switch between screenshot and screen recording.
Files are saved to Downloads and copied to the clipboard; a preview appears in the bottom-right corner.

On tablets and convertibles, Power + Volume down works as well.

How to take a screenshot on Linux

GNOME (Ubuntu, Fedora): press Print Screen for the interactive capture tool with screen, window and region options; Shift + Print Screen for a region directly.
KDE Plasma: Spectacle opens with Print Screen; Meta + Shift + Print Screen captures a region.
Any desktop: install Flameshot for a cross-distribution tool with built-in arrows and blur.

How to take a screenshot on iPhone and iPad

Face ID devices: press the Side button and Volume up at the same time, then release.
Devices with a Home button: press Home and the Side (or Top) button together.
A thumbnail appears bottom-left. Tap it to mark up, crop, or switch to the Full Page tab to save a whole web page as a PDF from Safari.

Screenshots are saved to Photos → Screenshots.

How to take a screenshot on Android

Most phones use Power + Volume down, pressed together for half a second. Samsung phones also support a palm swipe across the screen, and Pixel phones add a Capture more button on the preview for scrolling screenshots. You can also open Recents and tap Screenshot under the app card. Images land in Photos → Screenshots or Gallery.

How to take a full-page screenshot in Chrome

A region capture stops at the edge of the window. For a whole scrolling page you have three options:

DevTools: press F12 (or Option + Command + I on a Mac), then Command/Ctrl + Shift + P, type full size, and choose Capture full size screenshot. Chrome stitches the page and downloads a PNG.
An extension: a screenshot extension can scroll and stitch for you in one click. The takeascreen.com Chrome extension does this with a "Full page" checkbox and opens the result in an editor.
Online tools: take a screenshot online by sharing a tab; you get a PNG without installing anything, and you can annotate it before downloading.

Sticky headers repeat on stitched pages, so crop them out or hide them before capturing.

Screenshot shortcuts at a glance

Device	Full screen	Region or window	Where it goes
Mac	Shift + Cmd + 3	Shift + Cmd + 4 (Space for a window)	Desktop (PNG)
Windows	Win + Print Screen	Win + Shift + S	Pictures/Screenshots, clipboard
Chromebook	Ctrl + Show windows	Ctrl + Shift + Show windows	Downloads, clipboard
Linux (GNOME)	Print Screen	Shift + Print Screen	Pictures/Screenshots
iPhone	Side + Volume up	Crop after capture	Photos/Screenshots
Android	Power + Volume down	Crop after capture	Photos or Gallery

What to do after you take a screenshot

A raw screenshot rarely explains itself. Before you send it:

Crop to the part that matters. A 4K capture of a 300-pixel dialog is hard to read.
Point with an arrow or box at the thing you are talking about.
Number the steps if the reader has to click several things in order.
Blur email addresses, names, API keys and anything private.
Add a frame (a browser window or phone bezel) and a background when the image goes in a doc, a changelog or social media. It looks finished and the edges stop blending into the page.

Our guide on how to annotate a screenshot walks through each of these with examples. If you would rather not do it by hand, takeascreen.com can take the screenshot for you from a sentence: describe the page and what to highlight, and the agent opens the site, captures it, draws the callouts and sends you a share link.

Frequently asked questions

Where do screenshots go on a Mac?

By default on the Desktop as PNG files. Open the toolbar with Shift + Command + 5 and use Options → Save to to change the folder, or add Control to the shortcut to copy to the clipboard instead.

Why does Print Screen do nothing on my laptop?

Many laptops put Print Screen on a function layer. Hold Fn while pressing it, or use Windows + Shift + S, which never needs Fn.

How do I take a screenshot of a whole web page?

Use Chrome's Capture full size screenshot command in DevTools, a scrolling-capture extension, or Safari's Full Page option on iPhone. See the full-page section above.

Can I take a screenshot without the keyboard?

Yes. On a Mac, open the Screenshot app from Launchpad. On Windows, open Snipping Tool from the Start menu. On a phone, use the assistant ("take a screenshot") or the Screenshot button in Recents.

Related reading: how to record your screen when a still image is not enough, and how to take a full page screenshot of a whole web page in any browser.