OS X Default Screenshot Save Location is Annoying

OS X is quite efficient and quick when it comes to snapping screenshots. Although, it tends to have a annoying quirk: Always saving the screenshots on the desktop by default. This is all fine and dandy — till you have several trillion screenshots/image files scattered all over the damn desktop. In this quick post, I’ll show you how you could change the default location of where the screenshots are saved to is OS X.

Just so we are on the same page, these are the shortcuts for taking a screenshot in OS X:

Command+Shift+3: takes a screenshot of the full screen and save it as a file to the desktop

takes a screenshot of the full screen and save it as a file to the desktop Command+Shift+4: brings up a selection box so you can select an area to take a screenshot of, then save it as a file to the desktop

brings up a selection box so you can select an area to take a screenshot of, then save it as a file to the desktop Command+Shift+4, then spacebar, then click a window: takes a screenshot of a window only and saves it as a file to the desktop

takes a screenshot of a window only and saves it as a file to the desktop Command+Control+Shift+3: take a screenshot of the entire screen (screens if multiple monitors), and saves it to the clipboard for pasting elsewhere

take a screenshot of the entire screen (screens if multiple monitors), and saves it to the clipboard for pasting elsewhere Command+Control+Shift+4, then select an area: takes a screenshot of selection and saves it to the clipboard for pasting elsewhere

takes a screenshot of selection and saves it to the clipboard for pasting elsewhere Command+Control+Shift+4, then space, then click a window: takes a screenshot of a window and saves it to the clipboard for pastin

Personally, I almost exclusively use the following command to snap screenshots:

Command+Shift+4

So, how do you change the location?

Simple. Just open up your terminal and use the following command to change the default path. For example, if you wanted the default save location to be a new folder in your desktop called “Screenshots”, you would use: /Users/John/Desktop/Screenshots for your new path.

defaults write com.apple.screencapture location /path/

We are almost done. In order for changes to take place, you must LOG OUT and LOG BACK IN.

That’s it.