Or, anywhere outside "userspace?" For example, the login screen, or in Single User Mode.
2 Answers
You most definitely can do a screen capture from Recovery.
- Boot into Recovery
- Open the Terminal from the Utilities menu
In Terminal type:
/Volumes/name_of_HD/usr/sbin/screencapture -s /Volumes/name_of_HD/Users/name_of_user/Desktop/name_for_file.png
You will get crosshairs so you can select what you want a screenshot of (like CMD-Shift-4)
name_of_HD=whatever the name of the HD is
name_of_user=any user on the system
name_for_file.png=whatever you want to name the file
When you login as that user, the screen capture will be waiting on your Desktop.
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1This use of Terminal automatically mounts the filesystem as read/write which prevents the saving of files using the default keys.– bmike ♦Oct 12, 2015 at 22:28
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Under macOS Sierra, it seems that all you can screenshot is the contents of the Terminal window. There does not appear to be a way to interact with the interface whilst the screenshot crosshairs are present nor does multitasking appear to be possible whilst booted to the Recovery System. Jan 10, 2017 at 17:34
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1You can't leave the terminal window, to screenshot anything else tho. Jul 6, 2017 at 20:47
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May need to mount "Macintosh HD" drive first. Even so, in Catalina 10.15.6 I was unable to successfully run
screencapture
("could not find image").– samusSep 11, 2020 at 18:37
Where OS X is booted but you can't take a screenshot because you're not logged in (e.g. the login screen, lock screen) you can take a screenshot over SSH. Connect over SSH to your Mac and run…
sudo screencapture /path/to/screenshot.png
Where OS X isn't displaying a GUI (e.g. single user mode, boot sequence), you can't take a screenshot. This doesn't apply to virtual machines though, if you're determined to get a screenshot.
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1In Recovery, the filesystems are mounted read only, which makes the key shortcuts not work. See the Terminal utility to mount a writeable filesystem and save the pictures from the command line.– bmike ♦Oct 12, 2015 at 22:29