To screenshot a window on a Mac without its drop shadow, press ⌘⇧4, then Space (the pointer turns into a camera), then hold ⌥ while you click the window. To turn the shadow off for every window screenshot, run defaults write com.apple.screencapture disable-shadow -bool true in Terminal, followed by killall SystemUIServer. In hypershot, turn off Window shadows in Settings → Captures, and window captures (⌘⇧W) come out without it.

Why the shadow is there

When macOS captures a window, it captures it the way it looks on screen: rounded corners, and the soft shadow that floats it above the desktop. That shadow becomes a wide, partly transparent margin around the image. On a white page it looks nice. Pasted into a slide with a coloured background, a tightly cropped doc, or a bug ticket, it reads as a grey smudge and makes the window look smaller than it is.

The built-in way

For one screenshot:

  1. Open the window you want and make sure nothing important is covering it.
  2. Press ⌘⇧4, then press and release Space. The pointer becomes a camera and the window under it is highlighted.
  3. Hold ⌥ and click the window.

The file lands where your screenshots usually go (the desktop, unless you’ve changed it in the ⌘⇧5 Options menu). Press Esc at any point to cancel.

For every screenshot, from now on:

  1. Open Terminal (Applications → Utilities).

  2. Run:

    defaults write com.apple.screencapture disable-shadow -bool true
    killall SystemUIServer

    The menu bar flickers as SystemUIServer restarts. If shadows still appear, log out and back in.

To bring shadows back:

defaults delete com.apple.screencapture disable-shadow
killall SystemUIServer

The limits. Both work well, and the command has been around for years. Two small catches: it’s a hidden preference with no switch in System Settings, so it’s easy to forget you set it; and the shadow goes all-or-nothing. A white window on a white page has nothing left to mark its edge, and the built-in tools offer no way to swap Apple’s shadow for a lighter one of your own.

With hypershot

hypershot’s window capture works the same way as the built-in one, and the shadow is a setting rather than a held key or a Terminal command.

  1. Open Settings → Captures and turn off Window shadows. It’s on by default, and it’s a Mac-only setting, since the shadow is a macOS thing.
  2. Press ⌘⇧W, hover the window, and click.

You get the whole window, title bar included, without the shadow and without anything behind it. It can capture a window that’s partly behind another one, too, so you don’t have to rearrange your desktop first. More on window capture in How to capture a single window.

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Hover a window and click: you get that window, title bar and all, and nothing behind it.DOCSWindow capture

Want a shadow, but your own? That’s where hypershot goes further than the system tools. Open the capture in the editor, press B for the Artboard tool and turn on a Background (a solid colour, a gradient, or a blurred copy of the capture). Shadow controls appear next to it: Opacity (35% by default), Blur, and an angle dial for direction and distance. You can round the corners too, and the Chrome option adds a macOS- or Windows-style title bar above the screenshot. The result is a window on a background you chose, with a shadow you tuned yourself.

Which to use

  • Now and then: ⌘⇧4, Space, ⌥-click. Nothing to install or remember beyond the extra key.
  • Every time, system-wide: the defaults write command.
  • Every time, plus control over background and shadow afterwards: hypershot with Window shadows off.

Why is there a transparent border around my window screenshot?

That’s the shadow’s space. The area around the window is transparent, and the shadow fades out across it. Take the screenshot again with ⌥ held, or use one of the permanent options above.