Change where your Mac saves screenshots

By default every screenshot lands on your Desktop. Here are two ways to send them somewhere tidier.

The easy way: the Screenshot toolbar

1. Press ⇧⌘5 to open the Screenshot toolbar.
2. Click Options.
3. Under Save to, pick Documents, Clipboard or another place, or choose Other Location… and select any folder.

From now on, new screenshots go to that folder. Old ones stay where they are.

The Terminal way

Run these lines in Terminal. The first makes the folder, the second points screenshots at it and the third applies the change. Swap the path for any folder you like.

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

To go back to the Desktop, run defaults delete com.apple.screencapture location and then killall SystemUIServer.

A tidy setup

• Save screenshots to a Screenshots folder inside Pictures.
• Drag that folder into the Finder sidebar for one-click access.
• Let Snaptitle give each file a real name, so the folder stays searchable.