To follow the previous tips on controlling how macOS takes screenshots, as described in “How to take better screenshot selections in macOS”, you can also choose to include or exclude a border and a drop shadow when you just want to grab a window.
A thin border is complemented in these screenshots by a drop shadow which offers a contrast on a background. It is a false-real or skeuomorphic effect, as if a window floated and cast a diffuse shadow, but it made the window stand out more effectively when included in documentation or an email.
macOS places these items by default when you use the Command-Shift-4 keyboard shortcut, then press the space bar while hovering over a window or menu to select it, then click or click on your mouse or touchpad. pressing Enter or Return.
You can remove the border and drop shadow by holding down the Option key while clicking. This allows you to keep it whenever you want and disable it otherwise.
The default macOS screenshot of a window includes a border and a drop shadow (top), but you can easily modify it for each capture or permanently (bottom). A thin gray border has been added in both cases to show the extent of the image.
If you never want a border and drop shadow, you can use the terminal to make this change permanent. Open Applications> Utilities> Terminal then copy and paste each of these lines in turn:
defaults write com.apple.screencapture disable-shadow true
killall System UIServer
You can reverse this by swapping true for false in the line above and paste in that line and the next one again.
The downside to this change is that you can’t keep the border while removing the drop shadow, which is useful for light-colored windows or those with white edges. If you place the image in other software, you can usually set a border for it, like in Pages. Or, you can get an inexpensive photo editor, like Pixelmator or GraphicConverter, which makes it easier to add a bitmap border around the edge of an image.
IDGIf you want to add a border, it’s easy in software like GraphicConverter.
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