How to Set a Folder to Save Screen Shots on Mac

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Whenever you take the screen shots on Mac it directly save those on desktop. This would be better if you specify a folder on Mac to automatically save the screen shots because in that way it’ll be easy to organize them. So, if you want to change the default storage location, which is the desktop on Mac for screen shots then follow these steps to do so.

Step 1

Click on Finder

Step 2

Navigate to Utilities folder and click on Terminal icon to launch it

Step 3

Type the following command in Terminal and press enter button to execute. You have to specify username and foldername in command according to your Mac settings and most importantly do not use space in folder name otherwise command will not provide the required results

defaults write com.apple.screencapture location /Users/username/desktop/foldername

where: mac09 = mac user name & twscreenshots = specified folder on desktop

Step 4

Now, type and execute another command in Terminal
killall SystemUIServer

Close the Terminal window, the default location to save the screen shots has been replaced by the new specified folder

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Posted in: Mac OS X on September 20, 2009

Tags: Capture Desktop, Capture Screen Mac, Mac, Mac OS X, Mac Screen Shots, Screenshots

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Comments:

Jootoo 27 September 2009 at 12:42 pm #

I was just wondering that how to change the default location to save screenshots on mac, thanx for this

Reply
inds 30 September 2009 at 10:28 am #

I want to say – thank you for this!

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Rukh 1 October 2009 at 11:59 am #

that’s right, when you take screen shots on mac they all store on desktop and create a mess. Nice tip to set a folder to save them all

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Gob 2 October 2009 at 7:13 pm #

nice tip, Is there any separate program available to capture screens in mac?

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- trickYguY 9 October 2009 at 5:19 am #
  
  Whydo you need a separate program for screen capture only. I think built-in screen capture shortcuts are enough to capture screen shots of Dialogs, region, icons etc.
  
  Reply
Roma 3 October 2009 at 5:43 pm #

Thanks neMo

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Roberto 4 October 2009 at 5:31 am #

cool blog

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dinga 4 October 2009 at 12:50 pm #

I bookmarked this link. Thank you for good job!

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Chun 13 October 2009 at 1:52 pm #

Yes, built-in functinality is eniugh to take screen shots

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Nono 17 October 2009 at 3:03 pm #

Mac default screenshot taking feature works nice and especially your this informative writing adds value to that

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phein 19 October 2009 at 2:28 am #

Thanks

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Mats Wiklund 26 October 2009 at 10:48 am #

thanks for Mac article

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Ulf 28 October 2009 at 12:25 pm #

great work all the time I have problems while taking screen shots on mac

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marcus 7 28 October 2009 at 5:33 pm #

you people are doing nice work

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Yebi 30 October 2009 at 6:29 pm #

thanks a lot really helped me out to change the default location of screen shots to save in mac

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Asao 4 November 2009 at 6:37 am #

I was really wondering about this mac screenshot problem thanks for this knowledgeable work

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Paul Johannesson 7 November 2009 at 6:03 am #

Nice mac work

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Nummer 12 15 November 2009 at 1:32 pm #

nice Mac OS tips

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Harlad 17 December 2009 at 4:06 pm #

this was really a problem for me that screen shots came directly to desktop where already i have a lot of stuff. After reading your article I fixed a folder for screen shots on mac.

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ular.padat 30 April 2010 at 9:50 am #

Didn’t work. I did exactly what you told. Below is what I typed.

defaults write com.apple.screencapture location/Users/my mac/desktop/screen cap

I tried it 4 times and still doesn’t work. Did I type it wrong or what?

Thanks in advance

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- trickYguY 1 May 2010 at 4:29 am #
  
  Don’t use space in folder name that you use to store screen shots. You are using “screen cap”, so remove space, you can use “_” or “-” instead of space in folder name.
  
  Create a folder with name like “screen_cap” on your desktop then run the command from terminal.
  
  Command Syntax:
  defaults write com.apple.screencapture location /Users/username/desktop/twscreenshots
  
  username = Your Mac Username
  twscreenshots = Folder name that you want to use for screenshots
  
  Feel free and reply if you still have any problem with command, Thanks.
  
  Reply
Polka 95 4 May 2010 at 4:10 pm #

thanks for this mac tip it works perfect

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garra 17 May 2010 at 4:01 am #

Well written and its easy to set folder for screenshots, thanks

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