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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
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