How to take a full-page screenshot on Mac (2026)
Capture an entire webpage on a Mac in seconds. Five methods for Chrome, Safari, and Firefox, plus the fastest one-click option and the built-in shortcut everyone gets wrong.
If you've ever tried to take a full-page screenshot on a Mac and ended up with only the visible part of the screen, you're not doing anything wrong. macOS's built-in screenshot shortcuts (Cmd+Shift+3, Cmd+Shift+4) don't capture the full page. They only capture what's on your monitor.
To get the whole scrolling webpage on a Mac, you need a browser-specific tool or an extension. This guide walks through five methods that actually work, ranked from fastest to most technical.
The short answer
The fastest way to take a full-page screenshot on a Mac is to use a browser extension that does the scrolling, stitching, and exporting in one click. Full Page Hero does this in Chrome and takes about three seconds.
If you'd rather not install an extension, every major browser on Mac (Chrome, Safari, and Firefox) has a hidden full-page screenshot feature built in. More steps, more clicks, and each one has its own pitfalls. But they work without any extra software.
The macOS shortcut keys you already know (Cmd+Shift+3, etc.) cannot capture below-the-fold content. Skip those and read on.
Method 1: Full Page Hero (the 3-second method)
This is our extension, so full disclosure up front. We built it because we got tired of every other screenshot tool either truncating long pages, lazy-loading half the content blank, or refusing to capture inner scrollable regions. The trade-off is honest: install one Chrome extension, and this takes three seconds, every time.
Install Full Page Hero from the Chrome Web Store
It's free and asks for no permissions beyond the tab you're capturing. Pin it to your Chrome toolbar so the icon is one click away.
Open the webpage you want to screenshot
For lazy-loaded sites (long Medium articles, e-commerce listings, design portfolios), scroll once from top to bottom so the images all render before you capture.
Click the icon, then Capture Full Page
Full Page Hero scrolls through the page in viewports, captures each one, hides repeated sticky headers, and stitches them into a single image. A results tab opens automatically.
Copy, download, or annotate
From the results view you can copy the image to your clipboard, drag it to your desktop, export as PNG, JPEG, or PDF, or open the annotation editor to add arrows, blur, or notes.
Method 2: Chrome's built-in DevTools method
Chrome on Mac has a hidden full-page screenshot command inside Developer Tools. It's free and doesn't require any extensions, but it's a developer feature and it shows.
Open Chrome DevTools
With the page open, press Cmd+Option+I (or right-click the page and choose Inspect). The DevTools panel appears.
Open the Command Menu
Press Cmd+Shift+P while DevTools is focused. A search box appears at the top.
Run Capture full size screenshot
Type "screenshot" and choose Capture full size screenshot from the list. Chrome scrolls the page, captures it, and downloads a PNG to your Downloads folder.
Method 3: Safari's Web Inspector
Safari can take a full-page screenshot too, but the feature is buried inside Web Inspector and isn't enabled by default. You'll need to turn on the developer menu first.
Enable Safari's develop menu
Open Safari → Settings → Advanced and check Show features for web developers (older versions: Show Develop menu in menu bar). A new Develop menu appears in Safari's menu bar.
Open Web Inspector on the page
Right-click anywhere on the page and choose Inspect Element, or press Cmd+Option+I. The Web Inspector opens at the bottom of the window.
Capture the html element
In the Elements tab, scroll up to find the very first line. It starts with
<html>. Right-click that line and choose Capture Screenshot. Safari asks where to save the image.
This method preserves the page's rendered styles well, but the workflow is awkward for non-developers and it can take five to ten seconds on long pages while Safari renders the full DOM to an offscreen canvas.
Method 4: Firefox's built-in screenshot tool
Firefox on Mac has the cleanest built-in full-page screenshot of the three browsers, and you don't need to enable anything to use it.
Open the page in Firefox
Open Firefox and go to the page.
Right-click anywhere on the page
A context menu opens. Choose Take Screenshot. (If you don't see this option, your Firefox is out of date. Update it and try again.)
Select Save full page
A small overlay appears at the top of the page. Click Save full page on the right side. Firefox captures the entire scrolling page and lets you copy it to clipboard or download it.
This is the easiest non-extension method on a Mac, and it works on simple sites. The catch: lazy-loaded sections can still come through blank, as shown above. And Firefox is the third browser, so this only helps if you actually use Firefox.
Method 5: macOS's built-in screenshot shortcuts (and why they don't do what you want)
You may have arrived here from searching for the macOS keyboard shortcut. Worth saying explicitly: these don't capture full webpages.
- Cmd+Shift+3: captures the entire screen as a PNG on your desktop. Visible content only.
- Cmd+Shift+4: lets you drag a selection box. Visible content only.
- Cmd+Shift+5: opens the macOS screenshot toolbar. Window, region, or full screen. Still visible content only.
None of them scroll through a webpage. They can't, because they operate at the operating system level. They only see pixels that are currently on your display. They're not lazy, they're just literal. To capture content below the fold, use one of the browser methods above.
Side-by-side comparison
| Method | Time | Captures full page | Handles tall pages | PDF export | Annotations | Works in |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Full Page Hero | ~3s | Yes | Yes (auto-tiles) | Yes | Yes | Chrome |
| Chrome DevTools | ~15s | Yes | No (truncates ~16k px) | No | No | Chrome |
| Safari Web Inspector | ~10s | Yes | Yes | No | No | Safari |
| Firefox Take Screenshot | ~5s | Yes | Yes | No | No | Firefox |
| macOS Cmd+Shift+3/4/5 | ~2s | No (visible only) | N/A | N/A | Basic | Anywhere |
| Cmd+P → Save as PDF | ~5s | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Anywhere |
Common problems and how to fix them
Even with the right tool, some webpages fight back. Here's what usually goes wrong on Mac, and how to handle it.
The captured image cuts off at the bottom
You're almost certainly using Chrome DevTools and hit the canvas-size limit. Switch to a method that tiles the capture (Full Page Hero, Safari Web Inspector, or Firefox's built-in tool).
Sticky headers and footers repeat in the screenshot
When the page has a sticky navigation bar, naive screenshot tools capture it again in every viewport. Full Page Hero detects repeating sticky elements and hides them on all viewports except the first. Browser built-ins don't do this. Your only fix is to manually scroll the page once before capturing, which sometimes (not always) tricks the sticky element into a non-sticky position.
Images are blank or half-loaded
Long pages lazy-load images as you scroll. If your screenshot tool captures faster than the images can render, you get gray placeholders. Before capturing:
- Scroll the page from top to bottom once.
- Wait two or three seconds at the bottom.
- Scroll back to the top.
- Start the capture.
Full Page Hero pre-scrolls automatically and waits for network idle, so this is less of an issue if you use the extension.
A scrollable section inside the page doesn't capture
Modern apps often have inner scrollable regions: sidebars, comment threads, data tables. Most screenshot tools only follow the main page scroll and miss the inner content. The Chrome DevTools method has no support for this. Full Page Hero's element-level capture mode handles inner scrollable divs.
Animations look frozen mid-state
If a page has CSS animations or motion that runs during the capture, the stitched result can show the same element in different positions across the viewports. Pro tools (including Full Page Hero's Page Freeze) pause animations before capture. Without that, the workaround is to disable animations in your OS settings (System Settings → Accessibility → Display → Reduce motion) before screenshotting.
Which method should you actually use?
- You take full-page screenshots often → Install Full Page Hero. Three seconds, every site, no truncation.
- You take one a year and don't want any extensions → Use Firefox's Take Screenshot tool. Easiest built-in method on Mac.
- You're already in Chrome and want to avoid installing anything → Use the DevTools method, but expect truncation past 16,000 pixels on tall pages.
- You need a printable, paged PDF (not a single image) → Use Cmd+P → Save as PDF.
- You're on Safari and need it occasionally → Enable the develop menu and use Web Inspector.
If you've been hitting limits with built-in tools, install Full Page Hero free from the Chrome Web Store and try the same capture. You'll probably have a "wait, that's it?" moment the first time.
Skip the steps. Install the extension.
Full Page Hero captures the entire page in one click. Free to install, no account, no data uploaded.
Frequently asked questions
No. Cmd+Shift+3 and Cmd+Shift+4 only capture what is currently visible on your screen, not the parts of a webpage that are below the fold. To capture an entire long page on a Mac you need either a browser-specific tool (Chrome DevTools, Safari's Web Inspector, Firefox's built-in screenshot) or an extension like Full Page Hero.
If you're using Chrome, press Cmd+P to open the print dialog and choose Save as PDF. That prints the entire page, including the part below the fold. The downside is that it paginates the output and can break layouts. For a single continuous PDF that preserves the rendered layout, use Full Page Hero's PDF export, which is included in the early-access Pro tier (currently free).
This usually happens with Chrome DevTools on very tall pages because Chrome enforces an internal canvas size limit. Pages over roughly 16,000 pixels tall get silently truncated. Full Page Hero handles this by splitting tall captures into multiple tiles and reassembling them, so nothing is lost.
Yes. None of the methods in this guide depend on Mac hardware. They run inside Chrome, Safari, or Firefox and work identically on Intel Macs, MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, iMac, Mac Studio, and Mac mini regardless of M1, M2, M3, or M4 chip.
Yes. Most extensions support area selection, and Full Page Hero lets you crop and chunk a capture in its editor. The browser built-ins (Chrome DevTools, Safari Web Inspector) can also screenshot a single element if you right-click it in the DOM tree and pick Capture Screenshot, but the workflow is meant for developers.
Look for extensions that process images locally and don't upload your captures. Full Page Hero is one example: all stitching, annotation, and export happen inside Chrome on your machine. The only network request is optional license activation through Polar.sh. Always read the Chrome Web Store permissions list before installing any extension on a managed device.
Get Full Page Hero for Chrome
One click to capture the whole page. PNG, JPEG, PDF, and Markdown exports. Screenshots stay on your device.
- Free Chrome extension
- No manual stitching
- Screenshots stay on your device