Taking a screenshot on your Macis simpleton enough , but there are elements of the process that remain inscrutable . Beginners may not realize where the screenshot is salt away , since by default it goes to the background rather than to the pasteboard ( as on Windows ) . But even quite advanced users may not be cognisant that you could change the destination — which you might require to do if your Mac background is getting really littered .

In this article , we show how to commute where screenshots are salve on your Mac . If you want to make screenshots go to a folder or even your pasteboard , we ’ll show you how .

Where are screenshots saved on a Mac?

By default , Mac screenshots are saved to the Desktop and have a name such as ‘ Screenshot 2018 - 09 - 28 at 16.20.56 ’ , indicate the date and time the screenshot was taken ; in this vitrine , a screenshot taken at 56 seconds past 4.20pm on September 28th 2018 .

If you are using Desktop Stacks ( which is a feature that was introduced in macOS Mojave ) you may organise your Desktop so that all your screenshots are neatly tidied away into a folder . ( We excuse how to do that , and some other ways to square away your background inHow to organise your Mac desktop . )

Or , you’re able to surveil the dance step below to take or make a brochure that will keep the screenshots in one place and not littered all over your screen .

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If you have a really sometime Mac that is n’t incline macOS 10.14 Mojave or later ( Mojave arrived in 2018 ) you will have a screenshotting app called Grab . Grab ( which was turn up in a Utilities booklet in the Applications booklet ) could be used to take screenshots . Grab unremarkably saved screenshots to your Documents folder , and if you did n’t alter the name of the effigy it was save as Untitled .

How to change screenshot location on a Mac

If you havemacOS Mojave or later installedit is very easy to exchange where screenshots are save up . ( Anything old , we have the instructions at the bottom of this article ) .

As well as your ego - delimit ‘ Other Location ’ you could choose from the followers : Desktop , Documents , Clipboard , Mail , Messages , Preview .

For example , you could keep all your screenshots in a leaflet called Screenshots that sits in your Desktop folder .

How change where save screenshot Mojave

This means they will reside somewhere you might look them to , but in a far neater arrangement .

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Save screenshots to the pasteboard

The Print Screen function on a Windows PC works a bit differently to Mac .

Instead of saving a screenshot direct to the screen background , in Windows it lay aside it to the pasteboard . You then take to open Photoshop , Paint or whichever image - edit out app you prefer , make a young document , and paste the screenshot onto it .

If you care , you’re able to repeat this part on a Mac by change the keys you hold when take the screenshot .

New Screenshots Folder Mac

Once you ’ve used Command + Shift + 4 to create the crosshairs , carry Ctrl while sweep the cursor across the desired field . The resultant screengrab will be re-create to the pasteboard – in other words , you ’ll be able to glue it into Preview or a Keynote text file or standardised – instead of it saving to the desktop .

This joke sour on Macs whether or not they have Mojave or later on instal .

Here ’s how to lay aside a screenshot to the pasteboard on a Mac :

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How to change where Mac screenshots are saved in older macOS versions

Pre - Mojave it was n’t quite so easy to tell macOS to save screenshots somewhere else : in a folder labeled Screengrabs , for example . In the following instance , we ’ll assume we ’ve create a desktop pamphlet call on the button that , but you could transfer this physical process for different locations provide you know the file way of life .

If you ’d like to turn back to the default screenshot location , go back to Terminal and type “ nonpayment write com.apple.screencapture location ~/Desktop ” ( with no quotation marks ) and hit Enter . Then type “ killall SystemUIServer ” ( no quotation ) and hit Enter .

How to change where Mac screenshots are saved: Terminal