The Mac has no Snipping Tool app: screenshots are keyboard shortcuts, and out of the box they save a file on the Desktop rather than copying. Contralto puts the Windows workflow back:
- WinShiftS (that is ⌘⇧S on a Mac keyboard) turns the pointer into a crosshair. Drag over an area and it is on the clipboard: Ctrl+V pastes it anywhere at once.
- While the crosshair is up, press Space and the pointer becomes a camera: click a window to capture just that window. Esc cancels.
- PrtSc copies the whole screen; AltPrtSc lets you select an area. Both go to the clipboard with the "Screenshots go to the clipboard first" setting, which the recommended set turns on.
A small bubble shows the capture at the bottom right for a few seconds, like the one Windows shows. Click it to open the editor: pen, highlighter, arrow, rectangle, ellipse, text, crop, blur, numbered steps, with undo and redo. Copy text reads the words in the picture and copies them as plain text; Quick redact covers every email address and phone number it finds with a black box. Save writes a PNG into your screenshots folder under the capture's own name ("Screenshot 2026-09-16 at 10.12.31.png"); Copy puts the marked-up picture on the clipboard; Open in Preview hands it to the Mac's own viewer. As on Windows, your edits also reach the clipboard on their own: while it still holds the capture, the marked-up picture replaces it as soon as Quick redact has drawn its boxes, and when you switch to another window or app, save or open it in Preview, so Ctrl+V pastes what the editor shows, redactions included. Once you copy something else, the clipboard is left alone.
Nothing leaves your Mac: the picture is taken by macOS itself, kept under Application Support, and read by the text recognition built into the system. The last twenty captures stay in that folder in case the clipboard has moved on. The screenshot toolbar, ⌘⇧5, still records the screen and chooses where files go.