Do you want to snip and paste on your Mac? You have come to the right place because here we will give you the best snipping tools for Mac OS.

Jing is a free tool for both the Mac and PC. Brian Williams (shares how he uses this tool every day in his.

It’s no wonder that you want to snip on a Mac. Many people want to take screenshots of their desktop. Here are some reasons you may need snipping tools for your Mac:

1. You need to make tutorial videos for students
2. You want to share your screen with friends
3. Your work requires you to take a screenshot and send it to someone
4. Snipping tools for Mac can help you keep records of important documents that you can’t download

Bloggers and computer users rely on snipping tools for their everyday life. Below, you will find the best apps to help you capture your screen.

Our topics

• 3 External/installable snipping tools for Mac
• 4 Conclusion

Are all snipping tools the same?

Before you go ahead and download a tool for your needs, it’s important to know that snipping tools for Mac aren’t all the same.

Some tools allow you to take a screenshot of your full desktop, while others allow you to capture selected areas on your desktop.

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Similarly, some tools let you zoom into the area you want to capture, as well as add graphics and text to the screenshots.

Take a screenshot using Mac’s built-in tool

If you need to take screenshots on your Mac, the first thing to try is the native screen capture tool (Grab) that comes pre-installed on your computer. Here is how to use this tool:

1. Press Command + Shift + 3 together to take a screenshot of your desktop at any time
2. You can also take a screenshot of a boxed area using Command + Shift + 4
3. To take a screenshot of a particular window on your desktop, press Command + Shift + 4 + Space keys when the particular window is active

Once you have taken a screenshot, simply press Command + Shift + 3 + Control to copy it to the clipboard.

External/installable snipping tools for Mac

If for any reason, you want to extend the functionality of your built-in screenshot tool, you will need to try a third-party app. These apps come with many additional features that make them better than Mac’s built-in tool.

Here are some of the best snipping tools for Mac. Pick the one that gives you the features you want.

1. Snagit

Snagit lets you capture your Mac desktop with ease. This tool not only gives you basic image capturing but it also allows you to record the screen, as well.

Snagit is a powerful tool with plenty of advanced features to impress users.

Features

1. Capture desktop
2. Easily take a screenshot of scrolling screens
3. Capture video stills
4. Create animated gifs from captured screens
5. Easy image editing
6. Add text, stamps, shapes, and emoticons
7. Capture the full desktop or a particular window
8. Users can also capture a particular selected area using this tool

2. Jing

Jing is easily one of the best snipping tools for Mac. It’s visually pleasing and offers many premium features.

This tool is easy to use. You simply use the drag-and-select feature to indicate the area you want to capture and then take the screenshot with a single click.

Features

1. Capture active windows
2. Take screenshots of scrolling text
3. Capture full desktop, active window, or only the selected area
4. Record video of your desktop activity
5. Screenshots are easy to share with your friends and can be sent via email
6. Tons of visual elements to add to your captured images, such as annotations, highlights, captions, and so on
7. Hundreds of effects and text tools to help you create powerful screenshots

3. Lightshot

When it comes to snipping tools for Mac, you can’t ignore Lightshot. Like other top tools, it offers you plenty of features to make your experience worthwhile.

Lightshot is a fast tool that incorporates many social elements. It enhances your images and allows you to go beyond Mac’s default tool.

Features

1. Capture screens using drag-and-select
2. Find similar images after you capture a screenshot
3. Use various image enhancing tools to enhance your images
4. Easily share your images with your friends on social media
5. Simply and intuitive user interface
6. Available for Mac, Windows, and Chrome OS

4. Nimbus Screenshot and Screencast

Nimbus is a browser-based screen capture tool. You don’t have to install it on your system like other snipping tools for Mac.

Nimbus is great for capturing browser windows. You can capture an area and then use the cropping feature to fix your image dimensions.

Features

1. Robust screenshot app for your browser
2. Great editor interface for easy customization
3. Edit screens after capturing the image
4. Add objects to your images
5. Capture images using the browser address bar, context menu, or set up a hotkey to be used with Nimbus
6. Easily create a freehand drawing on the image
7. Record videos with this app
8. Option to save images in various formats

5. ScreenCloud

ScreenCloud is among the top snipping tools for Mac. It allows you to capture and share your screen with your friends.

ScreenCloud is a unique snipping tool for Mac since it comes with a cloud sharing website. You can upload images to the cloud and share the URL with your friends.

Features

1. Snip and share your screen with ScreenCloud
2. No installation required, as the tool works as a browser extension
3. Upload images to ScreenCloud website for quick sharing
4. Share your screenshots on popular image sharing websites, such as Imgur and Dropbox
5. Use drag-and-select feature to capture exactly the area of your desktop you need
6. Use a hotkey or simply click on the screenshot button in your browser
7. Easy to save images on your desktop

6. Apowersoft Mac Screenshot

Apowersoft Mac Screenshot is a powerful screen capturing tool for Mac. Just like other snipping tools for Mac in this list, this app also surpasses the built-in Mac tool for capturing your desktop.

Features

1. Take a screenshot of your entire desktop or capture a selected area
2. You can save the image in a format of your choice
3. The tool offers plenty of editing options to get the desired result
4. Upload or share your screens with a single click
5. Zoom in on your screen before capturing for clearer text

Conclusion

Many users want to install a third-party snipping tool on their Mac since the built-in tool only offers basic functionality.

The tools we discussed above offer many extended features that will help you make the most of your screenshots. You can annotate, add text, and use various graphic elements to improve your images.

Petr is a serial tech entrepreneur and the CEO of Apro Software, a machine learning company. Whenever he’s not blogging about technology for itechgyan.com or softwarebattle.com, Petr enjoys playing sports and going to the movies. He’s also deeply interested about mediation, Buddhism and biohacking.

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OS X already offers a means of capturing screenshots with a few keyboard shortcuts, but if you want to do a little more you have to grab a third-party tool. Of the many available, Skitch is our favorite for its many annotation tools and instant-sharing options.

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Snippet Tool For Mac

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Skitch

Platform: OS X, Windows, iOS, Android
Price: Free (or $10 for Pro)
Download Page

Features

• Take screenshots of specific areas or the entire screen.
• Annotate your screenshots/images.
• Draw on your screenshots/images.
• Resize, crop, flip, and rotate screenshots/images.
• Automatic archival of your screenshots/images for later use.
• Take photos with your built-in webcam.
• Open and save images in many different formats.
• Easily share screenshots/images to Facebook and Twitter.
• Automatically upload your screenshots to the skitch.com web site or to a location of your choice (e.g. Flickr, an FTP server, etc.).

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Jing Download

Where It Excels

Skitch is pretty great. We take a lot of screenshots at Lifehacker, so a good screen capture tool can be invaluable to us. To others it might be less relevant, but seeing as Skitch is free it's a good app to have around even if you only share what's on your screen from time to time. If you need to show tech support a problem on your screen, or your mother where to look for a certain feature in an app, you can take a quick screenshot with Skitch, annotate if necessary, have it automatically upload that screenshot, and leave you with a URL in your clipboard. It's also really handy for designers, because you can make quick notes on images without actually making any destructive edits to that image. You can also use Skitch to mock up changes to live web sites. There are plenty of great uses for the app, and seeing as it costs you nothing it's worth having around even if it is only a semi-regular convenience.

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Where It Falls Short

Skitch initially had issues with a somewhat confusing interface due to the many tools it offered, but recent updates have mostly solved that problem. Sharing tools have improved as well. While we appreciate the changes, some users do not. Reviews on the Mac App Store criticize Skitch for becoming too bloated like it's big brother Evernote. Because Evernote owns Skitch, the it favors the notebook app over everything else. While you can export your creations, Skitch makes it easier to work with the Evernote and that can be a little annoying if you don't want to use them together.

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The Competition

Grab, the built-in Mac OS X service that captures screenshots, might be sufficient for most people. If you're looking to pair an upload service to it, you can just add the great and free Cloud App. It can automatically upload your screenshots after you taking them. You won't get to annotate, draw on, or do anything fancy to them, but you it's a quick and easy way to share everything on your screen without any features you (potentially) don't need.

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Captur (Free) isn't really a full-fledge screenshot tool but adds some extra functionality to the one built-in to Mac OS X. Instead of relying on keyboard shortcuts, you can use Captur to initiate common screenshot tasks from the menubar.

Snagit ($50) was initially only for Windows, and a Lifehacker reader favorite, but now it is available for Mac. It offers a lot of the same functionality as Skitch, yet it costs $50. Why would you pay $50 when you've got an app that does the same thing for free? I don't know.

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Jing (Free) comes from the same people who make Snagit. It's similar, but with fewer features, and focuses on the online and social aspects of sharing your screen. One big advantage it offers is video capture. If you want images and video and don't want to pay for them, plus some pretty good online sharing options, you'll want to give Jing a look.

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LittleSnapper ($40) is a favorite among some, but I've never been able to see how anyone can justify paying $40 for a screenshot tool. To Little Snapper's advantage, it offers a very nice image management tool and integrated web site clipping option. It used to include use of the web app Ember, allowing you to upload anything you snapped or stored in LittleSnapper, but the developers sold Ember to the developers of Cloud App in early 2011. What LittleSnapper offers is, essentially, a pretty good app for organization. Why you'd want to pay $40 to better-organize your screenshots, however, is something I don't entirely understand. (And I say this having used the app for about a month.) Nonetheless, some people do and some people love it. It is a good app, and definitely more attractive. Skitch is just better at the important stuff.

Lifehacker's App Directory is a new and growing directory of recommendations for the best applications and tools in a number of given categories.

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