How to crop a screenshot on Windows, Mac, iPhone and Android

Crop as you capture

Cropping afterwards works, but capturing the right area in the first place saves a step and keeps unrelated windows, notifications and tabs out of the file.

• Windows 10 and 11: press Windows + Shift + S, choose Rectangle, and drag over the area. The snip goes to the clipboard, and on Windows 11 it is also saved in Pictures, Screenshots.
• Mac: press Cmd + Shift + 4 and drag. Press the Space bar instead of dragging to capture a single window.
• Chrome: DevTools has Capture area screenshot, and a screenshot extension lets you drag a region in one click.

Crop a screenshot on Windows

In the Photos app, open the image, click Edit image (Ctrl + E) and use Crop. In Paint, use Select to draw a box, then Crop. On Windows 10, Snip & Sketch has a crop button in the same place as Snipping Tool on Windows 11.

1. Open the screenshot in Snipping Tool (click the notification after a snip, or open the file from Snipping Tool).
2. Click the crop icon in the toolbar.
3. Drag the corner handles to the area you want to keep.
4. Press Enter or click the tick, then save with Ctrl + S.

Crop a screenshot on a Mac

1. Click the thumbnail that appears in the corner after a screenshot to open Markup, then click the crop icon and drag the edges. Click Done.
2. Or open the file in Preview, drag a selection over the part you want and choose Tools, Crop, or press Cmd + K.
3. Save with Cmd + S. Preview crops the file you opened, so duplicate it first if you want to keep the original.

Crop a screenshot on iPhone and Android

• iPhone: tap the screenshot preview. Drag the corners of the image in the Markup view to crop, then tap Done and save. For older screenshots, open Photos, tap Edit, then the crop tool.
• Android (Pixel and most phones): tap Edit in the preview and drag the crop handles, then Save. In Google Photos, open the image, tap Edit, then Crop.
• Samsung Galaxy: tap the pencil icon on the screenshot toolbar and drag the edges, or open the image in Gallery and tap Edit.
• For just a part of the screen from the start, Samsung's Smart select and the Apple Pencil corner swipe on iPad work like a snipping tool.

Crop and edit screenshots in Chrome

Chrome has no screenshot editor of its own. The NeoReader Full Page Screenshot extension captures the whole page, the visible part or a dragged area, then opens an editor where you can crop, draw arrows and shapes, highlight, add text and emoji, and blur private details. Save as PNG, JPG or PDF, or copy the result to paste into an email, a ticket or a chat. It is free for Chrome, Edge and Firefox, needs no account, and the screenshot is deleted when you close the editor.

Hide private details properly

Cropping is the safest way to remove something: if it is outside the frame, it is gone. When the private detail sits in the middle of what you need, cover it with care.

• Use a solid box or a strong pixel blur. Both replace the pixels in the exported image.
• Do not rely on a highlighter or a semi-transparent pen. Text can show through, especially when someone adjusts the brightness.
• Avoid light blurs on short text such as card numbers. A faint blur can sometimes be read or guessed.
• Keep your apps updated. In 2023 flaws in Pixel's Markup tool and the Windows Snipping Tool could leave cropped-out parts recoverable from the file. Both were fixed, but it is a reason to crop in an up-to-date app and share a freshly saved copy.
• Check filenames and captions too. A screenshot named after a client can give away as much as the image.

After you crop

Name the file so you can find it later, and keep the original if you might need the full view again. Most phone editors save the cropped version over the original but let you revert it, while Preview on a Mac and Paint on Windows overwrite the file when you save.

Save as PNG for sharp text and interface screenshots, or JPG for smaller files with photos in them. To put several cropped screenshots into one document, NeoReader's Screenshot to PDF orders them and makes one PDF in your browser. To copy the text out of a cropped screenshot, Screenshot to Text recognises it on your device.