I have used the function to screenshot a portion of the screen and the only place I can find it is on the clipboard. Most Mac users tell me that their screenshots save directly to their desktop. Has anyone else had this issue?
MacBook Pro 13”, macOS 10.13
The default location may have been changed using a third party utility, such as OnyX. You can reset it to the desktop by launching Terminal from the Utilities folder. Copy/paste the following command:
defaults write com.apple.screencapture ~/Desktop
If the save location had been changed, this will reset it to your desktop.
The default location may have been changed using a third party utility, such as OnyX. You can reset it to the desktop by launching Terminal from the Utilities folder. Copy/paste the following command:
defaults write com.apple.screencapture ~/Desktop
If the save location had been changed, this will reset it to your desktop.
Launch the Screenshot.app and under Options select Desktop instead of Clipboard:
Now when you enable screenshots by any method they will be saved to the Desktop.
Hmm. We know it's not the Mac, or the OS itself, or the same issue would have followed to the new user account.
Something, somewhere in the preferences or installed apps of the account you normally work out of is the problem. The question is, where?
If you login to your account in Safe Mode, does it work correctly then? It should. That would again point to something in your account that is active when starting up normally.
Per the idea it could be a corrupt preference file, open the Preferences folder in your user account and delete this file:
com.apple.systempreferences.plist
Restart immediately afterwards and test. If you prefer, move that .plist to the desktop rather than delete it. If that isn't the problem, you can put it back and restart again. The purpose there being you won't have to manually reset a lot of system preferences back to your liking.
Very confusing. As mentioned, we know for a fact the problem is isolated to your account. But it's a lot of hunting an pecking to find what's causing the problem.
For sure it would fix the issue to make a new folder on the desktop, move every item in the Preferences folder to it and restart. But that's essentially the same result as a new account.
In order to prevent moving out software registration files and such, you could try a partial nuclear move. Make a new folder on the desktop. In your user account Preferences folder, move anything that starts with com.apple to that folder. Restart and test again.
If that doesn't do it, it at least eliminates every one of those as the possible cause. You can move all of those .plist files back and restart if you wish. The OS will recreate most of them anyway.
I seem to recall Dropbox will intercept screenshots. If you use Dropbox investigate that possibility.
Okay. That confirms something else is snagging those commands in your user account. To double check (and will likely provide proof), go back into the System Preferences and change the keystroke for Command+Shift+3 to something else.
Click on the default keystroke to make the field active. Type in a new keystroke, such as Command+Option+Shift+3 and test that.
Check the keyboard shortcuts in the System Preferences to see if any have been changed from the defaults (image), or turned off.
Yes it does. I can also use the screen shot function on the touch bar. But again, it only goes to the clipboard on my admin account. I tried it on my guest account and it saved directly to the desktop. ugh.
Oh yeah! Good catch, BDAqua. To add to your list:
Method 3:
Thank you for the reply.
This was the first place I looked. All are checked. I even tried unchecking them all, restarting, then checking them all again. Nothing seems to help. The only thing I can do is screenshot and then paste the image to word or another program.
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You are right. I used a guest account and the screenshot went directly to the desktop. Now I need to figure out where the heck they are going. Even when I searched the files with the name screenshot, nothing popped up.
Apple hid the Users' Library folders...
Method 1:
1 From the Finder, select the Go menu at top of the screen, and choose Go to Folder.
2 In the window that opens, enter ~/Library, and click Go.
Method 2:
1 Go to the Finder (or desktop).
2 Hold the Option key on your keyboard, and click the Go menu at the top of the screen.
3 With the Go menu open, you'll notice that pressing and releasing Option will display or hide the Library choice in this menu.
4 Select Library from the Go menu (while holding down Option) to access the hidden folder.
I have tried that in the last few days. No luck.
Hello. So I tried switching the keystroke and still no screenshots were saves to the desktop. This is quite a pain.
Does Shift+CMD+4 bring up a crosshair to choose a selection?
Screenshots are not being saved to my MacBook Pro at all and never have been.
