Can the format of a screenshot-to-clipboard paste be changed from TIFF to JPG in Big Sur?

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Can the format of a screenshot-to-clipboard paste be changed from TIFF to JPG in Big Sur?

I have a keyboard shortcut for the (screenshots) 'Copy picture of selected area to clipboard' and it is very convenient in that I dont need to mess with the screenshot editor/markup/save process and often want to paste the clipboard <image> into a iMessage or Email. I have previously used the terminal defaults command to set the screen capture format to JPG however whenever I paste the clipboard into a Message it saves it as a TIFF. I was wondering with Mac OS Big Sur if there's an additional default setting for making the clipboard image paste output JPG instead of Tiff (some other, non apple users cant get at times). So thought id ask. I've seen other old posts asking similar questions (no solution I've found) for older versions of the OS; so was wondering if there was a setting or default I might be missing to make my pasted area screenshots more compatible with those I communicate with. The keyboard shortcut is immaterial here; just wondering how to get from a quick area screenshot - clipboard - past to Messages/Email in JPG format.

iMac Line (2012 and Later)

Posted on Aug 31, 2021 1:19 PM

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VikingOSX

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Aug 31, 2021 1:54 PM in response to DrMemory99

There is no magical user configuration that can override the image type on and off of the clipboard. That's why there has been no answer for that for many years.

When you copy a .png or .jpg to the clipboard there is no longer any reference to public.jpeg or public.png on the clipboard data types, but rather a public.tiff, and a NeXT TIFF v4.0 pasteboard type. There is also a public.url that points to the file URL path on disk if that was its source.

When you attempt to paste into an application from the clipboard, that application was built with specific data types that it would accept from the clipboard, and bingo, you get a .tiff as no other image format references exists on the clipboard.

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