Difference between screenshots on Mac vs. iPad

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Difference between screenshots on Mac vs. iPad

I almost always want my screenshots to become photos accessible in the Photos app. On my iPad it's easy: the thumbnail lingers in the lower left for a few seconds, then without my doing anything it automatically gets sent as a photo to the Photos app. With my iMac, however, after I take the screenshot I have to click on the thumbnail in the lower right while it's lingering there, click the Share icon, and choose Add to Photos. Without taking those steps, after a few seconds pause the screenshot disappears onto the Desktop as a PNG and not directly accessible in Photos.

Is there any way to have MacOS by default send screenshots as photos available in the Photos app?

iMac 24″

Posted on Mar 15, 2023 8:33 PM

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Answer 1

Mar 15, 2023 9:16 PM in response to rick7

Yes.

Try setting up the Desktop Folder as a Watched Folder with an Automator Folder Action associated with it. Here is a older guide on how to do that, some things may look differently now. You could improve on this technique to filter the finder items found in the Desktop Folder to be only the PNG image files that start with the name Screenshot... for example, and add it to a particular Album in Photos. You can also move the image files to another folder, rather than Trash if you want to keep them after import.

Give it a try, crazy enough, it just might work!

https://blog.thomasfitzgeraldphotography.com/blog/2015/11/creating-a-watched-folder-for-apple-photos-to-automatically-import-into-the-application

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