The Mac shortcuts worth knowing
- ⌘⇧4: drag to select an area, saved to the Desktop.
- ⌘Ctrl⇧4: same, but straight to the clipboard, ready to paste.
- ⌘⇧4 then Space: capture one window with a clean shadow.
- ⌘⇧5: the full toolbar, including screen recording.
Then click into the ChatGPT, Claude.ai or Gemini message box and press ⌘V. In a browser chat, ⌘V pastes images fine; it is only terminals that need CtrlV.
Why a crop beats a full screenshot
A full screen has a dock, a menu bar, twelve tabs and the thing you care about somewhere in the middle. The model spends its attention on all of it. Crop to the element and the answer gets sharper, and you stop leaking whatever else was on screen.
Add one sentence about what you want, and you have turned "what is this?" into a question it can actually answer.
When you need to show three things
Three crops means three shortcuts, three pastes and a paragraph explaining which is which. That is where most people give up and send one big screenshot.
Deiko does it in one pass: double-tap Right Option, point at each thing while you talk, and it produces one brief with numbered crops. Paste it into ChatGPT, Claude.ai or Gemini, or drop it into Claude Code or Cursor. The screenshots stay on your Mac until you paste them.
Questions people ask
How do I screenshot part of my screen on a Mac?
Press Cmd+Shift+4 and drag over the area. Add Control (Cmd+Ctrl+Shift+4) to copy it to the clipboard instead of saving a file.
How do I paste a screenshot into ChatGPT on a Mac?
Copy it with Cmd+Ctrl+Shift+4, click into the ChatGPT message box and press Cmd+V.
Can I send several screenshots to Claude at once?
Yes. Paste or attach multiple images and refer to them by number in your message so Claude knows which is which.