Mac OS X: Command Line for Taking Screenshot

Command line for taking screenshots in Mac OS X. It even allows you to take DVD screenshot.

Open the Terminal and use the “screencapture” command.

The screencapture manual (man screencapture):
SCREENCAPTURE(1)          BSD General Commands Manual         SCREENCAPTURE(1)

NAME
screencapture — capture and manipulate clipboard contents

SYNOPSIS
screencapture [-SWcimswx] file

DESCRIPTION
The screencapture utility is not very well documented to date.  A list of
options follows.

-S      In window capture mode, capture the screen instead of the window.

-W      Start interaction in window selection mode.

-c      Force screen capture to go to the clipboard.

-i      Capture screen interactively, by selection or window.  The con-
trol key will cause the screen shot to go to the clipboard.  The
space key will toggle between mouse selection and window selec-
tion modes.  The escape key will cancel the interactive screen
shot.

-m      Only capture the main monitor, undefined if -i is set.

-s      Only allow mouse selection mode.

-w      Only allow window selection mode.

-x      Do not play sounds.

-C      Capture the cursor as well as the screen.  Only allowed in non-
interactive modes.

-t      <format> Image format to create, default is png.

file    where to save the screen capture

BUGS
Better documentation is needed for this utility.

HISTORY
A screencapture utility first appeared in Darwin 6.0.

Darwin                           June 16, 2004                          Darwin