Use PhotoBooth on Your Mac to Take & Edit Photos

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A step-by-step guide to taking pictures on your Mac

Co-authored by wikiHow Staff

Last Updated: April 9, 2024

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Setting Up Your Camera

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Taking a Picture

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Taking Multiple Pictures

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Applying Effects

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Saving and Exporting

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Video

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Q&A

This wikiHow teaches how to use the Photo Booth application on your Mac desktop or MacBook. Photo Booth allows you to take single pictures, sequences of pictures, and videos using your built-in or external webcam. You can even take a photo or record a video using fun effects!

How to Take a Picture in Photo Booth

First, connect a camera to your Mac if desired—most Macbooks come with built-in cameras, but you can use a different one if you want. Then, open Photo Booth and click the red camera button at the bottom of the screen. To quickly save your photo, drag it from the timeline at the bottom of the screen to your desktop.

Part 1

Part 1 of 5:

Setting Up Your Camera

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1
Connect a camera to your Mac (if necessary). If you have a MacBook, such as a MacBook Air or MacBook Pro, you can use your built-in webcam with Photo Booth. If you're using a Mac desktop, you can connect a webcam to one of your Mac's USB ports.
- Most webcams simply need to be plugged in to a USB port and they're good to go, as long as they're Mac compatible.
2
Open Photo Booth. There are a couple ways you can quickly open Photo Booth:
- Click the Go menu, select Applications, and find Photo Booth in the Applications folder.
- Click the Spotlight Search button in your menu bar, type photo booth, and press ⏎ Return.
- Click the Photo Booth icon on the Launchpad.
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If you have multiple cameras installed, you'll need to select the one you want to use with Photo Booth.^{[1]
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You'll see a list of all of your connected cameras. After selecting a camera, you should see the image from it in the Photo Booth window.

Part 2

Part 2 of 5:

Taking a Picture

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You'll see the image from your webcam in the Photo Booth window. Move yourself or your webcam until your shot is lined up correctly.
You can find this in the bottom-left corner of the Photo Booth window, and it is typically selected by default.
The countdown will begin at the bottom of the screen.
When the countdown completes, the screen will flash and your picture will be taken.

Part 3

Part 3 of 5:

Taking Multiple Pictures

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You'll see this in the lower-left corner of the Photo Booth window. The button looks like four small squares arranged in a grid.
You'll be taking four pictures in succession, with a few seconds in between to change poses. Make sure your camera is properly lined up in the Photo Booth window.
This is in the bottom-center of the window.
You'll see the countdown at the bottom of the screen.
You'll see the screen flash each time a picture is taken. Four pictures will be taken altogether.

Part 4

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Applying Effects

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You can apply effects to a picture you've just taken, or you can select an effect before taking a picture.
You'll see these at the bottom of the screen. Clicking these buttons will change pages and display more effects.
You'll see a preview of each effect in the menu.
If the effect you chose can be adjusted, you'll see a slider appear. This allows you to change the strength of the effect.
At the end of the list, you'll see backgrounds with silhouettes on them. These allow you to apply special backgrounds or effects to your body.
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Move out of the frame. Photo Booth will need to detect what is the background so that it can properly apply the effect. You'll need to move completely out of the frame for it to work.
- Make sure there's nothing moving in your background either. This will work best with a solid background, but should work well as long as nothing is moving.
You'll see that the effect you chose has been applied to your body.

Part 5

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Saving and Exporting

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After taking a photo or video, you'll see it appear as a thumbnail at the bottom of the window. You can click and drag this to your desktop or any open folder to quickly save it.
2
Select a photo and click Share. The Share button looks like a square with an arrow coming out the top. This will open the Share menu.
- Click an item in the Share menu to choose how you want to share it. You can add it as an email attachment, send it in iMessage, or use any third-party apps that support sharing.
3
Click File → Export to save images. If you want to select where an image is saved, or change the format, you can use the Export menu.
- Browse for where you want the file to be saved, give the file a name and choose the format, then click Export.
4
Find your Photo Booth photos. Your Photo booth photos are stored in your Pictures library:
- Click the Finder button in your Dock.
- Click the Pictures folder.
- Find the Photo Booth Library package file.
- Right-click the file and select Show Package Contents.
- Open the Pictures folder in the Photo Booth Library and then find your pictures.

Community Q&A

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Question

Can I use Photo Booth as a camera to take someone else's photo?

Community Answer

You can type a code to hack into someone's computer and execute a command to take over their camera creditionals to take pictures of them without them knowing.

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Question

How can I delete a photo booth video off the internet?

Community Answer

It depends on where the video is hosted. If you own the video on youtube, follow the directions to delete a youtube video. If someone else owns it, contact the owner. If it infringes any of the rules on the video hosting site, then report the video and it may be deleted.

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Question

How do I pause the video?

Community Answer

You might be able to use QuickTime instead of Photo Booth. If you have skill with or time to learn Automator or AppleScript, you may be able to use their QuickTime control automation capability to create simple timed recordings of your Mac's inbuilt camera. Alternatively, you can search the web or Mac App Store for some commercial software that might be able to do what you want.

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