How to change where screenshots are saved on a Mac

To change where screenshots are saved on a Mac, press Shift-Command-5, click Options in the toolbar that appears, and pick a destination under Save to. Choose Other Location to use any folder you like. The setting sticks, and it applies to every screenshot shortcut, not only the toolbar.

Change the folder from the Screenshot toolbar

Out of the box, macOS saves every screenshot to the desktop as a PNG file named Screenshot followed by the date and time. To send them somewhere else:

1. Press Shift-Command-5. A toolbar appears near the bottom of the screen.
2. Click Options.
3. Under Save to, choose Desktop, Documents or Other Location.
4. If you chose Other Location, pick a folder in the dialog, or click New Folder to make one (a Screenshots folder inside Pictures is a common choice), then click Choose.
5. Press Esc to close the toolbar without taking a picture.

The folder you chose now appears in the Save to list with a checkmark, so switching back and forth later takes two clicks. Shift-Command-3 (the whole screen) and Shift-Command-4 (a selected area, or a window if you press Space) follow the same setting. So do screen recordings made from the same toolbar, which Where screen recordings go on a Mac, and how to send one fast covers.

What the other Save to choices do

The Save to list is not only folders.

• Clipboard. Nothing is saved as a file. The capture is copied, ready to paste into a document, a message or an image editor.
• Mail. A new message opens with the screenshot attached.
• Messages. A new conversation opens with the screenshot ready to send.
• Preview. The screenshot opens in Preview as an unsaved image, so you can crop or annotate it and then decide whether to keep it.

These suit a run of captures that are all going to the same place, but they are easy to forget about. If screenshots stop showing up anywhere, this menu is the first place to look.

For a single capture you want on the clipboard, you do not need to change the setting at all. Add Control to the shortcut: Control-Shift-Command-4 copies the selected area instead of saving it, and Control-Shift-Command-3 does the same for the whole screen. How to keep a screenshot as an image through a paste covers what happens next.

Set the folder with Terminal

The same setting can be changed from Terminal, which is useful when you are setting up a Mac from a script or already have the path you want. Make the folder first, then run:

defaults write com.apple.screencapture location ~/Pictures/Screenshots
killall SystemUIServer

The first line stores the folder. The second restarts the part of macOS that reads the setting, so the change takes effect without logging out. If the folder name has a space in it, wrap the full path in quotes. To go back to the desktop, run the first line again with ~/Desktop as the location, or pick Desktop in the Options menu.

The toolbar and the Terminal command write to the same setting, so whichever you used last wins.

Where to put them

A few choices that work well:

• A Screenshots folder in Pictures. It keeps the desktop clear and gives every capture one predictable home.
• A folder inside Documents. If you keep your Desktop and Documents folders in iCloud Drive, screenshots saved there (or on the desktop) upload to iCloud and show up on your other devices. That is convenient if you want it, and a reason to choose a different folder if you do not.
• The current project’s folder. Worth it for a week of documentation work. Remember to switch back afterwards.

Whichever you choose, add the folder to the Finder sidebar or the Dock so new captures are one click away. Sorted by Date Added, the newest screenshot is always on top. How to add a folder to the Dock on a Mac and drop files onto it walks through that.

Avoid pointing screenshots at an external drive or a network folder unless it is always connected. When the folder cannot be reached, captures may land back on the desktop or fail to save, and you will need to choose the folder again in Options.

When a screenshot is headed somewhere, not into storage

Most screenshots are not kept. They are taken to show someone something, and the folder is only a stop on the way. Two built-in moves help:

• Drag the thumbnail. After a capture, a thumbnail floats in the bottom-right corner for a few seconds. Drag it straight into an email, a document or a Finder window and the image goes there. Swipe it to the right to save it immediately.
• Click the thumbnail to crop or mark up the image before the file is written.

The catch is timing. The thumbnail leaves on its own, and the window you wanted is often behind three others. That is the gap Ledge fills. Drag the thumbnail, or the saved file, up to the notch at the top of the screen and let go. It lands on a shelf that drops from the notch and stays there until you take it somewhere. Take a second and a third screenshot and add those too. When the destination is ready, press Option-Space or click the notch to open the shelf, and drag the images off.

Each destination gets the form it can use. A chat app receives the screenshot as an upload. A terminal receives the file’s path as text, which is what a command-line tool wants. A Finder folder receives the file itself. On a Mac without a notch, the shelf sits at the top center of the screen. Ledge needs macOS 14 Sonoma or later, is free for 14 days, and then costs $19 once. How to hand a screenshot straight to another app goes through the routine step by step.

The two habits fit together: a fixed folder for the captures you keep, and a shelf for the ones that are only passing through.

Questions

Does the new location apply to Shift-Command-3 and Shift-Command-4?

Yes. The Save to choice in the Screenshot toolbar is one setting shared by all the screenshot shortcuts and by screen recordings.

My screenshots are not appearing anywhere. Where did they go?

Press Shift-Command-5, click Options and read the checkmark under Save to. If it says Clipboard, they were copied rather than saved; paste to get the most recent one. If it names a folder, look there. Also check that you are not holding Control when you press the shortcut, since that copies instead of saving.

Can I change the file name or the format?

Not from the toolbar. Terminal can do both: defaults write com.apple.screencapture type jpg switches the format from PNG to JPEG, and defaults write com.apple.screencapture name "Capture" changes the word at the start of each file name. Run killall SystemUIServer afterwards.

Will changing the location move my old screenshots?

No. Only new captures go to the new folder. Search the desktop for Screenshot in a Finder window to round up the old ones, then drag them across yourself.