How to change screenshots save location in Mac OS

By default all the screenshots you take on Mac are saved on desktop, it can be useful for some but most of the users find it annoying as the desktop looks ugly. The good news is that you can change the default save location of the screenshots to any folder of your choice. This way you can have a dedicated folder for screenshots so that you can manage them easily.

Change where the screenshots are saved on Mac

For changing the default location, follow the steps:

  1. Open Terminal by pressing Command + Space, type terminal and hit enter.
  2. Type the following command and hit enter.
    defaults write com.apple.screencapture location ~/Documents/TheMacBeginner/Images;
    killall SystemUIServer

    change default location screenshots command line
    Note: Change the screenshot destination from ~/Documents/TheMacBeginner/Images to your preferred screenshot folder in the above command. For example, if you want your screenshots to be stored in documents folder then the command would be:

    defaults write com.apple.screencapture location ~/Documents;killall SystemUIServer
  3. That’s it. You can verify the change by taking a screenshot. Just press Command + Shift + 3 and then check your folder that you have specified in the above command.

    Reverting back to original location

    If at some point you feel that the desktop location was much better place for saving screenshots then you can revert back to the original state by typing following command in terminal.

    defaults write com.apple.screencapture location ~/Desktop;killall SystemUIServer