How to change where Mac screenshots are saved in older macOS versions
Pre-Mojave it wasn’t quite so easy to tell macOS to save screenshots somewhere else: in a folder labelled Screengrabs, for example. In the following example we’ll assume we’ve created a desktop folder called exactly that, but you can change this process for different locations provided you know the file path.
- Click on the Finder to open a new Finder window.
- Create a folder in the Finder by right clicking on the Finder window. Name it Screenshots (or whatever you want to call it)
- Now open Terminal (press Command + Space and start typing Terminal until the icon appears) then click on that icon to open the app.
- In Terminal type the following: defaults write com.apple.screencapture location (There needs to be a space after location – it won’t work without it)
- Now drag and drop your Screenshots folder on top of the Terminal window and it will automatically fill in the directory path.
- Now press Enter.
- Then type the following to make sure the change take effect: killall SystemUIServer
- A word of warning – don’t delete the folder you created!
- If you would still like easy access to your screenshots from the desktop you could create an alias. Just locate the folder you created in the Finder and right click on it.
- Choose Create Alias.
- Now drag and drop the Alias to the desktop.
- Take a couple of screenshots to check it’s working.
If you’d like to revert to the default screenshot location, go back to Terminal and type “defaults write com.apple.screencapture location ~/Desktop” (with no quotation marks) and hit Enter. Then type “killall SystemUIServer” (no quotes) and hit Enter.
How To Change Where Screenshots Are Saved On A Mac | Macworld
