Why can't I take a screenshot on my second monitor on my Mac?

Whenever I attempt to take a screenshot on the second monitor, it fails silently. Is this possible, or do I have to move whatever I want to take a picture of onto the first monitor?

Using Snow Leopard

Casebash

Posted 2010-01-13T02:46:27.563

Reputation: 5 677

Answers

You can do this easily with the grab utility found under Applications -> Utilities.

There are 4 capture modes: Selection, Window, Screen, Timed Screen. If you select the Screen mode, grab will tell you to select the screen you wish to capture.

John T

Posted 2010-01-13T02:46:27.563

Reputation: 149 037

I just had the same issue (a macbook pro and an additional 24" monitor) and was able to use the Cmd+Shift+4 then Space to select which monitor I wanted my screenshot from. Once hitting that keystroke combo, the cursor turns into a camera icon, and creates a light blue overlay on whichever screen you want to select. You just click on that screen and that's the screen grab you get. – Joel Glovier – 2010-11-10T14:52:30.217

1You could also just use Cmd+Ctrl+Shift+4 and select the entire screen area with the crosshairs. – Joel Glovier – 2010-11-10T14:53:15.680

That isn't working for me either – Casebash – 2010-01-13T02:54:58.357

1What about Command-Shift-4 then Space. It will allow you to select a window on any screen. Does that work? – John T – 2010-01-13T02:56:17.807

I can select the window and it works on my main monitor, but not my secondary – Casebash – 2010-01-13T03:14:00.567

What about screencapture -i from the Terminal? I've never seen this behavior before. – John T – 2010-01-13T03:31:55.117

Doesn't work on the second monitor either :-( – Casebash – 2010-01-13T04:23:53.013

Below are the key combinations for screen captures, copied from http://www.pointlessart.com/education/Screen-CaptureKeystrokes.htm

In my experience the most general purpose is cmd-shift-3, which makes multiple files on your desktop if you have multiple screens.

Press Cmd-Shift-3 to create a picture file on your hard drive, in the PICT graphics format, that depicts the entire screen image. A satisfying camera-shutter sound tells you that you were successful. (The file is called Picture 1. Each time you press Cmd-Shift-3, you get another file, called Picture 2, Picture 3, and so on.) You can open this file into SimpleText, Photoshop, AppleWorks, or another graphics program, in readiness for editing or printing.

Press Cmd-Shift-4 to turn your cursor into a tiny + symbol. Now drag diagonally across the screen to capture only a square chunk of it. When you release the mouse, you hear the camera-click sound, and a Picture 1 file appears on your hard drive.

Add Caps Lock to the Cmd-Shift-4 keystroke to turn your cursor into a bullseye symbol. Now you can capture only one window or dialog box - after you click inside it. This trick saves you the trouble of cropping out unnecessary background details in your graphics program

Add Control to either of those keystrokes if you want the resulting image to be copied onto your Clipboard, ready for pasting into (for example) Photoshop or AppleWorks, instead of creating a PICT file on your hard drive.

Nick

Posted 2010-01-13T02:46:27.563

Reputation: 59

Cmd-Shift-3 is still only showing one monitor – Casebash – 2010-01-13T04:20:33.130

Note that on Snow Leopard, names of screenshots will be formatted like: "Screen shot {date} at {time}" which is really nice because then you can easily tell when the screenshot was taken. – Kevin Yap – 2010-01-13T05:32:01.893

1Those guidelines, while still somewhat accurate, date from the pre-Mac OS X days. Note that screenshots are now saved in the PNG format, with a different naming scheme (files still are saved to the Desktop, but the exact file name depends on the version of OS X). Also, you don't use Caps Lock to capture specific screen elements, you hit Space Bar after hitting Cmd-Shift-4. – mipadi – 2010-01-13T06:17:36.200

This stopped working when OSX added that feature where the Doc jumps from monitor to monitor. Whatever they did messes up the ability to take screen shots after you move your laptop between single/multi-monitor setups.

TommyWillB

Posted 2010-01-13T02:46:27.563

Reputation: 11