How to Crop a Screenshot on Mac

Need to preserve what you’re seeing on your Mac’s screen? You can do that easily by taking a screenshot. However, you may still need to cut out some parts of the screenshot to hide some sensitive information or keep only what you need.

If you’re not sure where to find the cropping tool or how to crop a screenshot on a Mac, you can try different methods including using the Preview app, third-party tools, and online services.

How to Crop a Screenshot on Mac Using the Cropping Tool

Normally, when you want to take a screenshot on your Mac, you’d use hotkeys or keyboard shortcuts such as:

• Command + Shift + 3 to capture a full screenshot
• Command + Shift + 4 to capture a portion of your screen

1. Once you’ve taken your screenshot, you can tap on the thumbnail that appears on the bottom right side of your screen to edit the image.

2. Next, select the Crop tool.

3. Drag the crop handles of the screenshot to create a selection of the area you want to keep.

4. Select Done to save the cropped screenshot.

5. Alternatively, you can wait for the screenshot to appear on your desktop, open it and then drag the cursor to select the area you want to keep.

6. Next, select Tools > Crop.

7. Select File > Save to save the screenshot.

How to Use Preview to Crop a Screenshot on Mac

You can use the Preview app for simple viewing of image files like JPG and PNG, various documents, and editing PDFs. The app has several editing and markup features, including a cropping tool.

If you’ve taken a screenshot or you received one that you can’t open in a photo editing app, you can use Preview to crop the image.

1. Open the screenshot you want to crop in Preview and then select Show Markup Toolbar button. (On a Mac running Big Sur, it’s the button with the pencil tip icon while on other macOS versions, it’s the button with the toolbox icon).

2. Click and drag on the screenshot to create a selection and drag the blue dots to resize it if you want.

3. Next, select Tools > Crop to crop the screenshot.

How to Use Photos App to Crop a Screenshot on Mac

The Photos app on your Mac helps you find and organize all your photos, but it also has intuitive, built-in editing tools you can use to resize, crop, zoom, GIF, warp and even collage your photos. 

1. Right-click the screenshot and select Open with.

2. Next, select Photos. If you don’t see Photos among the list of apps in the context menu, select Open with > Other and find Photos from the Applications list.

3. Your screenshot will be imported into the Photos app.

4. Select Edit at the top right corner of the Photos app.

5. Next, select the Crop tab.

6. Drag the sides and crop handles of the image to crop it.

7. If there are any changes you’d like to undo, select Revert to Original on the top left side.

8. Select Done to save the cropped screenshot.

How to Crop a Screenshot on Mac Using Third-Party Tools

You can also use third-party tools to crop screenshots on a Mac. We recommend Snagit, which is one of the best snipping tools for Mac and Adobe Photoshop.

How to Use Online Tools to Crop a Screenshot on Mac

If you prefer not to download a third-party app, you can use online tools like IMG2Go, Picresize, ResizeImage, or Cropp.me to crop your screenshot. For this guide, we’ll show you how to crop a screenshot on a Mac using IMG2Go.

IMG2Go is a free online tool that lets you crop, edit and convert images in several different formats securely.

1. Go to the IMG2Go website, and select Choose File to upload your screenshot from your hard drive. You can also upload the image file from cloud storage or via a URL.

2. Select the cropping options from the top navigation.

3. Next, select Apply to apply the changes to the preview.

4. Select the arrow under Save as to choose the format, filename and quality you’d like to save the cropped file in.

5. Select Save.

6. Wait for the tool to complete cropping your image and then click Download to download the converted image.

Focus on What Matters

Cropping screenshots helps you cut down to a more favorable size and focus on the details that matter. Whichever method or tool you choose, you should be able to customize your images and strengthen the key points directly.

Do you have a favorite way of cropping your screenshots on Mac? Share it with us in the comments.