You’re just looking at your Lock screen while you’re still logged in. Instead, you’ll have to log in first, and then follow these steps:ġ) Click on your account name from the Menu Bar on your Mac.Ģ) Click on the Login Window… option to reveal the Mac’s Lock screen.Īt this point, you should be on the Lock screen, but you’re not technically logged out of your account either. Since you need to be actively logged in as a user in OS X so that your Mac has somewhere to store the screenshot file to, you can’t use a screenshot keyboard command before you’ve logged into your computer. Taking a screenshot of your Mac’s Lock screen

The only problem is, unless you were already logged in as a user, there would be nowhere to store the screenshot file on your Mac, so taking a Lock screen screenshot does take a slight workaround to be made possible. Having the ability to grab a screenshot of the Lock screen is equally useful when you notice a bug on it and you want to contact Apple with a bug report with a picture of what’s going on. Most of the time, this is the case when I’m wanting to show someone how to do something from the login screen, particularly when making tutorials or when somebody asks me a question related to it. In many cases of my own, I’ve needed screenshots of the Lock screen on my Mac. In this tutorial, we’ll be showing you what’s necessary to grab a screenshot of your Mac’s Lock screen. Have you ever tried using the screenshot keyboard shortcut on your Mac’s Lock screen and noticed nothing happened? Getting a screenshot of your Mac’s Lock screen isn’t as straight-forward as you may have hoped, but it is certainly possible.

Mac screen shot short cut