How to Fix macOS Screenshots with Black Backgrounds + Missing Drop Shadows Bug

If you’re like me, you take a lot of screenshots. Normally, Mac window screenshots are elegant-looking, with a nice drop shadow on top of a white background. You might’ve noticed the background suddenly turned black one day, with no apparent way to change it back. So, what happened to the nice white background with the drop shadow, and how do you fix it? Continue reading to learn more.

There’s no good reason as to why Apple’s Mac screenshot backgrounds became black, and so it appears to be a bug. An unfortunate one at that.

In testing with iDrop News‘ very own Jesse Hollington, we’ve discovered the bug will occur depending on the screenshot file type. 

You’re likely taking screenshots in JPG format and made this change on your own inside the Terminal app.

Unfortunately, the bug also appears in every other image format that doesn’t support transparency. 

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JPGs are great for various reasons; however, if you want your white background and drop shadows back – you’ll need to change the screenshot’s file format to PNG.

If you’re reading this before Apple fixes the screenshot bug, you’ll need to change the image file type for screenshots back to PNG in order for the black background to go away and to get your white background and drop shadow back. Here’s how:

1?? Open the Terminal app.

2?? Copy and paste the following code into Terminal, then hit enter.

defaults write com.apple.screencapture type png

3?? Copy and paste the following code into Terminal, then hit enter.

killall SystemUIServer

4?? Test by hitting Command + Shift + 5 simultaneously, then click. 

Learn even more macOS Terminal tricks here: 7+ Expert Screenshot & Terminal Tricks/Settings for Mac Made Easy.

Thanks for reading! Did this fix work for you? Let us know in the comments!