Screenshot guides
Practical answers to the questions that come up around screenshots, written to be useful whether or not you use Screenshot Files. Where the files go, why they sometimes do not appear, how to hide the parts that should not be seen, and how to get one to somebody else without an attachment.
Where your screenshots go
Why your Windows screenshot is not saving
Three of the four Windows shortcuts never create a file at all. What each one actually does, where the file lands when there is one, and the realistic reasons Snipping Tool fails to save.
Where screenshots are saved on a Mac
The Desktop by default. How to change that in the Screenshot app or with a Terminal command, and what to check when they are not where you told them to be.
Screenshot without a Print Screen key
Compact laptops, Mac keyboards and every Chromebook either hide the key or do not have one. Every route that works instead, on all three platforms.
Finding them again
Copy text out of a screenshot
Your Mac and Windows can both do this for free, and you should try that first. The built-in routes, and the narrower cases where a browser tool is the better answer.
Find a screenshot by the text inside it
Text recognition runs in your browser, so the words inside an image become searchable without the image ever going to an external service. Search for the error message and the screenshot comes back.
Save screenshots straight into a folder
In Chrome and Edge you can point Screenshot Files at a folder on your own disk and have every screenshot written into it, named readably, with no account and no upload.
Before you send it
Blur or redact a screenshot safely
Blurring and redacting make two different promises, and only one of them survives someone who actually tries. Why a semi-transparent marker hands the information straight back, and when pixelation is not enough.
Getting it to somebody else
Share a screenshot with a password and an expiry date
What each of the three link controls does, when each one is the right choice, and the link preview problem that quietly consumes a single-view link before a human ever clicks it.
Send a screenshot that is too big to email
Attachment limits bite sooner than the published number suggests, and compressing a screenshot destroys the text you were trying to show. Why a link is the better answer, and what it gives you that a file cannot.
Screenshot Files runs in your browser. Paste a screenshot and it is named, stored and ready to share. No install, and no account needed to start.
Open Screenshot Files