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macOS: How to remove the shadow from window screenshots in macOS

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I take lots of screenshots for my blog posts or courses.

I typically use cmd-shift-4 and then I press the spacebar to screenshot the whole application window.

Like this:

By default macOS adds that drop shadow which makes it look pretty nice.

If you want, you can remove it using this command in the terminal:

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

Here’s the same screenshot without drop shadow:

Add it back with:

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

Lessons in this unit:

0: Introduction
1: How to use the macOS terminal
2: Productivity gains of using a Mac and an iOS device
3: A way to set up automations in macOS easily
4: How to hide a file or folder in macOS Finder
5: How to install a local SSL certificate in macOS
6: Reverting a file to a previous version, on a Mac
7: Take screenshots as JPG on macOS
8: Convert an image or resize it using macOS Shortcuts
9: Concatenating videos on macOS
10: Fix a file's creation date in macOS
11: Freeing space on a Mac
12: How to add an “Open in Terminal” icon in macOS Finder
13: How to add an “Open in VS Code” icon in macOS Finder
14: How to find the bundle ID of a Mac app
15: How to Fix the "Your CLT does not support macOS 11" error in macOS
16: How to play a sound from the macOS command line
17: ▶︎ How to remove the shadow from window screenshots in macOS
18: Removing all Homebrew stuff
19: Run a Node.js script from your macOS menu bar