Where screenshots are saved on a Mac, and how to change it

By default a Mac writes every screenshot straight to the Desktop, named after the moment you took it. That default is why so many Macs have a Desktop covered in files nobody can identify. Here is where they go, how to send them somewhere else, and what to check when they are not where you told them to be.

The default location

Screenshots land on the Desktop, named in the pattern Screenshot followed by the date and time, ending in .png. On older versions of macOS the name begins with Screen Shot as two words, which is worth knowing if you are searching for old files and getting no results.

The Desktop default is convenient for exactly one screenshot and unhelpful for the two hundredth. Nothing in the filename records what you captured, so a Desktop full of them is a pile you can only search by opening things.

Change it with the Screenshot app

Press Command, Shift and 5 together. A toolbar appears at the bottom of the screen. Click Options, and under Save to pick Desktop, Documents, Clipboard, Mail, Messages, Preview, or Other Location to choose any folder you like.

The setting sticks, so you only do this once. It applies to the other shortcuts too, not just to captures started from this toolbar.

The same Options menu holds the Show Floating Thumbnail setting. That is the small preview that appears in the bottom right corner after a capture. While the thumbnail is on screen the file has not been written yet, which is the explanation for a lot of "I took a screenshot and it is not there" a few seconds too early. Turn the thumbnail off and files are written immediately.

Change it with a Terminal command

If you want screenshots in a folder that is easier to type than to click to, open Terminal and run this, replacing the path with your own:

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

Then apply it with:

killall SystemUIServer

Create the folder first. If the path does not exist, macOS falls back to the Desktop and you will conclude the command did not work. To go back to the default, run the same command with ~/Desktop as the path.

The shortcuts, and which ones make a file

Command, Shift and 3 captures the whole screen.

Command, Shift and 4 turns the pointer into a crosshair to drag over an area. Press Space after it and the crosshair becomes a camera that captures a single window cleanly, with its shadow.

Command, Shift and 5 opens the toolbar with the options and the screen recording controls.

Hold Control along with any of these and the screenshot goes to the clipboard instead of to a file. That is worth remembering, because it is the fastest route when you are going to paste the image somewhere anyway, and it leaves nothing behind to tidy up.

When they are not where you set them

iCloud is syncing your Desktop. If Desktop and Documents syncing is on, screenshots are uploaded as they are created. On a slow connection a file can briefly show as uploading, and on another Mac signed into the same account it appears with a delay. Nothing is lost, it is in transit.

The disk is nearly full. macOS cannot write a new screenshot when there is no room, and the failure is quiet. If screenshots stopped working around the same time everything else got slower, check available storage first.

Another app claimed them. Dropbox has a setting that redirects screenshots into its own Screenshots folder, and several capture utilities do something similar. If your screenshots vanished the day you installed something, look in that application's settings before anywhere else.

The shortcut was reassigned. Open System Settings, then Keyboard, then Keyboard Shortcuts, then Screenshots, and confirm the combinations are still enabled. Another application can claim the same keys, and a system update occasionally resets them.

Changing the folder does not fix the pile

Moving screenshots off the Desktop and into a folder makes the Desktop tidy. It does not make the screenshots findable, because the problem was never the location. It is that a file called Screenshot 2026-08-02 at 14.32.11.png tells you nothing about what is in it.

What actually helps is being able to search the words inside the image, so you find the screenshot by the error message it contains rather than by remembering which afternoon you took it.

Common questions

Can I change the screenshot file format from PNG?

Yes, with a Terminal command: defaults write com.apple.screencapture type jpg followed by killall SystemUIServer. PNG is the better choice for screenshots of text and interfaces, because JPEG compression blurs exactly the sharp edges that make text readable.

How do I stop the thumbnail appearing in the corner?

Press Command, Shift and 5, open Options, and turn off Show Floating Thumbnail. Files are then written as soon as you capture, with no waiting period.

Why do my screenshots say Screen Shot instead of Screenshot?

Older versions of macOS used two words. It is only a naming change, but it matters when you search: a search for Screenshot will not match files named Screen Shot.

Where do screen recordings go?

To the same location as screenshots, following the same Save to setting, saved as .mov files rather than images.