7 Best Snipping Tools for Mac [2025]

• There’s no shortage of ways to snip on a Mac, from the built-in shortcuts to full-featured platforms like Movavi Screen Recorder to pretty decent and capable CleanShot X and Capto.
• Each snipping tool for Mac walks a fine line between simplicity and creative control: LightShot wins on speed, TextSniper on OCR precision, Movavi on versatility.
• Price, editing options, and workflow integration largely determine the best pick.
• Want sharper results? Learn how to use the snipping tool on Mac with keyboard shortcuts and annotation tools – they’ll save time and polish every grab.

Need a snipping tool for Mac? Look no further! In this article, we’ll discuss the different options available to you. Some of the tools we’ll be describing also serve as Mac screen recorders.

Movavi Screen Recorder lets you quickly take a snapshot of your screen using a hotkey. You can capture your entire screen, adjust the capture frame to snip the exact portion of the screen, or you can take a scrolling screenshot if the capture area is too long.The app also lets you edit your screenshot – add text and shapes, use a highlighter, draw lines and arrows. In addition to snipping, the program also has a screen-recording feature.

Yesterday, I was scrambling to prepare a quick visual guide for my team and needed to grab just a sliver of my MacBook screen without fumbling around. I hit ⌘ + Shift + 4, dragged over the area I wanted, and just like that: a crisp snip appeared on my desktop, ready to toss into Slack or a doc. The best part? I can tap the spacebar mid-drag to lock onto a window, move it around if I mess up the selection, and it still snaps perfectly, no extra installations, no-brainer. Sometimes I even end up grabbing a few extra snippets just to highlight tiny details or overlay arrows and text in Preview.

Honestly, this Mac snipping tool shortcut has become my go-to for anything visual. Super quick, intuitive, and just slick enough to make my workflow feel effortless. It’s wild how such a small built-in tool can save a ton of time when you’re juggling deadlines and team updates. So, does Mac have a snipping tool? Yes, and it’s already inborn in your Macintosh!

Use this combination to take a screenshot of your entire screen. Click the image in the right lower corner of your screen to edit the screenshot you just took. You can also wait for the screenshot to save to the desktop and then edit it in Preview or any other app of your choice.

Use this combination and select a snippet of your screen with the cursor. Release the button of your mouse to take the shot. While using this combination, you can also do the following:

• Press and release the spacebar, then use the camera cursor to click on the window you want to take a screenshot of.

• Press and hold the spacebar before releasing the mouse button to reposition the selected area on the screen.

This combination of keys calls up a panel with options for screen capture. Three options are available:

• Capture everything on your screen

• Capture a clipping of your screen

• Capture a window

The Options menu allows you to change location for storing screenshots and screencasts.

Now you know how to get a shot of your screen in three ways using the pre-installed iMac/MacBook snipping tool. But is there an equivalent with more options? Read on to discover more apps that allow you to snip on your Mac.

If the built-in app is not enough, you can download a snipping tool for Mac. Below is our selection of apps, in no particular order, with prices, features, pros, and cons. We’ll also provide links to reviews on trustworthy platforms.

You already know how to take screenshots, but where is exactly the folder containing all the images? In fact, screenshots are saved to your desktop by default. If there’s nothing on your desktop, you can try searching for your screenshots by going to Finder > Go > Home > Pictures > Screenshots. If you're using macOS Catalina, then you'll need to go to Finder > Go > Home > Library > Pictures > Screenshots. That's all there is to it!

In macOS Mojave or later, you can change the default directory of saved screenshots in the Options menu (the available options are Desktop, Documents, Clipboard, Mail, Messages, Preview or Other Location). You can also drag the thumbnail to a folder or document.

So, how to take a snip on a Mac? Choosing a snipping tool for Mac isn’t about checking boxes. It’s about what you actually do with those pixels. For lightning-fast grabs, the built-in Mac snipping tool does the trick: ⌘ + Shift + 4, drag, done.

But when your workflow starts to demand more (stuff like annotations, arrows, trimming, layering), Movavi Screen Recorder, as the ultimate snipping tool for Mac, steps up. The software lets you sculpt your screenshots and screen captures exactly how you want. Designers juggling UI mocks, educators crafting visual guides, or anyone who wants snips that can carry context, comments, and clarity all in one go will find Movavi impossible to beat.

Lighter tasks? CleanShot and Zight handle the basics. So does Capto. LightShot may also deserve your attention, but it is not as modern as the other products on my list.

Use TextSniper if your main goal is to grab text from images or PDFs, it’s quick, precise, and surprisingly slick for extracting words without screwing your brains out.

Although macOS devices already have a versatile inbuilt screenshotting and screen recording tool, users who need more from software like this might want additional features like taking scrolling screenshots, making annotations, and more. With Movavi Screen Recorder this can be easily done in no time. Try it out for free now!