If you’re using your MacBook to work on a computer, you probably have the Touch Bar at the top of the screen. This is a small area at the bottom of your MacBook that has a few buttons and a touchpad. The Touch Bar lets you take screenshots and other types of photos with your MacBook. To take a screenshot of your Touch Bar, follow these steps:
- Open up Finder and click on the Go button.
- Type “screenshot” into the search bar and hit enter.
- When Finder finds the screenshot file, it will open up in an editor like Photoshop or GIMP. You can change some settings if you want, but most importantly, just hit save to take your screenshot!
You know how to take screenshots on a Mac, but not how to take screenshots of the second display on your new MacBook Pro: the Touch Bar. What if you want to share how you’ve customized the Touch Bar, or the dumb Touch Bar apps you’ve found?
RELATED: How to Screenshot on a Mac
It turns out the keyboard shortcut for taking a screenshot of the Touch Bar is related to the other keyboard shortcuts for taking a screenshot: Command+Shift+6. Press these keys and a screenshot of your Touch Bar will appear on your desktop (or somewhere else, if you’ve changed where your Mac saves screenshots.)
The screenshot itself is going to be unwieldy: the Touch Bar’s resolution is 2170 by 60 pixels, meaning the results are going to be quite wide. You’ll have to crop it using Preview, or whatever image editor you prefer.
If you’d rather have the screenshot copied to your clipboard, you can do that with Control+Command+Shift+6.
Now you can paste your screenshot into the image editor or word processor of your choice.
These keyboard shortcuts are somewhat clumsy, but you can customize your macOS keyboard shortcuts by heading to System Preferences > Keyboard > Shortcuts, then clicking the “Screen Shots” category.
From here you can set whatever keyboard shortcut you want for taking screenshots of your Touch Bar.
RELATED: Try a Software Version of the Touch Bar on Any Mac with Touché
If none of these methods appeal to you, or you simply don’t have a Touch Bar to take screenshots of, you can try a software version of the Touch Bar on any Mac.
With this window open you can take screenshots of the Touch Bar using the cross hairs offered by Command+Shift+4, just like you would with any other application. It’s an option worth considering if you want to quickly screenshot a particular region of the Touch Bar without having to crop later.
