That wasn’t too hard in Mojave or 10.15 Catalina because they were rectangular. There’s no benefit in showing the Software Update preference pane behind the dialog, so we’ve been cropping such screenshots to focus only on the dialogs and bordering them separately. At other times, it’s just unnecessary or even awkward.įor instance, look at the dialog that appears when you click the Advanced button in the Software Update preference pane below from macOS 10.14 Mojave (it looks odd because it was captured without the drop shadow that’s necessary to set it off from the Advanced dialog). When the context of the overall window is informative, getting both is fine. The built-in macOS screenshot capability can see the window, but it can’t grab the attached dialog as an independent interface element. Option-click to take the screenshot sans drop shadow.įor the last few versions of macOS, we’ve had a problem with dialogs that are attached to a window, technically called “document-modal dialogs” or “sheets,” although Apple prefers they just be called “dialogs” in user-facing text.Move the pointer over the desired interface element, which turns blue.For that, we rely heavily on this technique to take a screenshot of a particular user interface element without its drop shadow: The goal is always to end up with a screenshot that illustrates something we’re discussing in the text without adding confusion with extraneous information or messing up the article layout with unnecessary drop shadows or white space. Here at TidBITS, we spend a lot of time on screenshots: composing them, taking them, editing them, bordering them, and more. The Hidden Trick for Capturing Document-Modal Dialogs in Mac Screenshots

#1645: AirPlay iPhone to Mac for remote video, Siri learns to restart iPhones, Apple's Q1 2023 financials.1646: Security-focused OS updates, Photos Workbench review, Mastodon client wishlist, Apple-related conferences.1647: Focus-caused notification issues, site-specific browser examples, virtualizing Windows on M-series Macs.#1648: iPhone passcode thefts, Center Cam improves webcam eye contact, APFS Uncertainty Principle.#1649: More LastPass breach details and 1Password switch, macOS screen saver problem, tvOS 16.3.3 fixes Siri Remote bug.

How to take a screenshot on mac