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How to Crop a Screenshot on Mac

The Snapix editor in crop mode on a photo of a whiteboard covered in sticky notes: a frame with thick white corner handles and a thirds grid around most of the board, the rest of it dimmed, the size 1958 × 1028 px shown large under the top bar, Cancel and Crop in the bottom bar, and a large K key beside the window

To crop a screenshot on a Mac, click the thumbnail that appears right after you take it, click the Crop tool and drag the handles in. For a screenshot you’ve already saved, open it in Preview, select the part you want to keep and press ⌘K. In Snapix, press K in the editor, pull the frame in and press Return. It can make the picture smaller in the same step.

How to crop a screenshot on Mac

  1. Take the screenshot. Press ⇧⌘3 for the whole screen or ⇧⌘4 to drag over part of it. A thumbnail appears in the bottom-right corner of the screen.
  2. Click the thumbnail before it slides away. It stays for a few seconds, and for as long as you hold the pointer over it. A window opens with the Markup tools. If you let it go, the full screenshot is saved as it is.
  3. Click the Crop tool. A frame with handles appears around the picture.
  4. Drag the corner handles in. Stop when just the part you want is inside the frame. Drag the frame itself to move it.
  5. Click Crop again, then Done. The cropped screenshot is saved where your screenshots go, the desktop by default.
Before: a full-screen Mac screenshot, 3024 × 1964 pixels, with a crop frame around a photo of a harbor at dusk open in a window and the rest of the screen dimmed. After: the cropped screenshot, just the photo, 1875 × 1437 pixels
Cropping keeps what's inside the frame and drops the rest. Here a full-screen capture becomes just the photo.

Tip: You can often skip cropping. Press ⇧⌘4 and drag over only the part you want, and the screenshot comes out the right size. There’s more in how to screenshot part of the screen.

How to crop a saved screenshot in Preview

  1. Control-click the screenshot in Finder and choose Open With ▸ Preview.
  2. Choose Tools ▸ Rectangular Selection.
  3. Drag over the part you want to keep. Drag the handles to adjust it.
  4. Press ⌘K, or choose Tools ▸ Crop.

If you cut too much, Edit ▸ Undo Crop puts it back right away. Later on, File ▸ Revert To ▸ Browse All Versions… lets you go back to an earlier version of the file.

If the screenshot is in Photos, double-click it, click Edit, then click Crop in the toolbar. Drag the frame around the part you want and click Done.

How to crop a screenshot with Snapix

With Snapix running, ⇧⌘3, ⇧⌘4 and ⇧⌘5 take Snapix screenshots by default, and a Snapix preview appears in the corner instead of the macOS thumbnail. Its editor crops and resizes in one go, and you can try Snapix free.

  1. Open the screenshot in the editor. Click the picture in the preview, or hover it and press ⌘E. For a file that’s already on your Mac, Control-click it in Finder and choose Open With ▸ Snapix.
  2. Press K. Or click the crop button in the editor’s bottom bar (its tooltip reads Crop & resize). The whole picture is selected, and the top bar shows its size in pixels.
  3. Set the frame. Drag a corner, or the short bar in the middle of an edge, until the frame holds just the part you want. Drag inside the frame to move it, or outside it to draw a new one. Hold Space while you drag a handle to move the whole frame instead.
  4. Press Return. Or click Crop in the bottom bar, or double-click inside the frame. Esc or Cancel leaves without cutting anything.
  5. Click Done. The cropped picture goes on your clipboard, and the preview and Recent Captures show the cropped version. Click Save as… if you’d rather have a file.

Note: For an image you opened from Finder, Done and Save as… both write the crop back into that file, and Snapix keeps no backup. Work on a copy if you want to keep the original. There’s more on editing files in how to annotate an image on Mac.

Make the screenshot smaller while you crop

The size in the middle of the top bar is a menu. Click it to choose the size of the result:

  • Actual size, 75%, 50% or 25%. Each row shows the size in pixels and the file size it makes.
  • Custom, to type a width and height in pixels. The lock between them keeps the proportions.

The picture shows your pick right away, and the bottom of the menu shows how the file size changes. Click Apply to crop and resize at once. Leave the whole picture selected and it only resizes, which is handy for a Retina screenshot that has twice the pixels you need. In Preview, choose Tools ▸ Adjust Size… to resize.

The Snapix editor in crop mode with the size menu open below the top bar, which reads 1512 × 766 → 756 × 383 px, 50%. The menu lists Actual size, 75%, 50% (checked, marked Current) and 25% with their pixel and file sizes, then Custom with width and height fields and a lock, then 9.1 MB → 520 KB, −94%, PNG, and the Cancel and Apply buttons
The size menu in crop mode. Each row shows the pixels and the file size you'd get.

Get back what you cut off

If you cropped too tight, press ⌘Z to undo the crop. Or press K again: the part you cut off shows dimmed around the picture, and the top bar reads Drag the edges — the dimmed part comes back. Drag the frame back out over it and press Return.

This works until you close the editor, as long as you haven’t resized the picture. While the frame reaches into the dimmed part, the size menu is off (its tooltip says Pull the frame back inside to resize), so get the crop right first and resize after.

How to rotate a screenshot on Mac

  • In Snapix: press ⌘R, or click the rotate button in the editor’s bottom bar (Rotate 90°), to turn the picture clockwise. ⌘L turns it the other way. It works while you crop too, and the frame turns with the picture. When the editor isn’t open, you can also right-click the Snapix preview and choose Rotate Left or Rotate Right.
  • In Preview: choose Tools ▸ Rotate Left (⌘L) or Tools ▸ Rotate Right (⌘R).
  • In the Markup window: click the Rotate Left tool. Hold Option as you click to turn right instead.

For arrows, text, blurring private details and the rest of the editor, see how to edit a screenshot on Mac. On a Mac where you can’t install apps, our free Annotate Screenshot tool crops right in your browser.

Frequently asked questions

Why can't I crop a screenshot on my Mac?

Usually the thumbnail slid away before you clicked it, or Show Floating Thumbnail is turned off (open the Screenshot app and check Options). Crop the saved file in Preview instead. Preview's Crop needs a selection first: drag over the part to keep, then press ⌘K. If Snapix is running, ⇧⌘4 takes a Snapix screenshot by default, so no macOS thumbnail appears. Click the Snapix preview to open the editor and press K.

What is the shortcut to crop a screenshot on a Mac?

In Preview it's ⌘K (Tools ▸ Crop), which crops to the area you've selected. In the Snapix editor, K starts Crop and Return applies it. To skip cropping altogether, press ⇧⌘4 and drag over only what you need.

How do I crop a screenshot after saving it?

Control-click the file, choose Open With ▸ Preview, drag over the part you want and press ⌘K. Edit ▸ Undo Crop puts it back if you cut too much. With Snapix, choose Open With ▸ Snapix, press K, set the frame and press Return, then click Done. Done saves the crop into that same file and Snapix keeps no backup, so work on a copy if you need the original.

How do I make a screenshot smaller on a Mac?

Crop away what you don't need, or scale the whole picture down. In Preview, choose Tools ▸ Adjust Size… and enter a new width and height, or a percentage. In Snapix, press K, click the size in the top bar, pick 75%, 50% or 25% and click Apply. To shrink the file instead, see how to change the screenshot format.

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