The Apple Support Community will permanently close on November 20, 2026. Starting today, the site will no longer accept new posts and is available in a read-only state.

You can continue to find trusted guidance and support on the official Apple Support site.

We want to thank the community members who have contributed their time and expertise to help others with their Apple products.

Screenshots not saving

Everytime I try to save a screenshot (Shift+Command+4) I get the error "Your screenshot can't be saved. Cannot write file to intended destination. It didn't use to do this, it just started.

iMac 27″, macOS 10.15

Posted on Dec 19, 2023 1:44 PM

Top-ranking reply

VikingOSX

Level 10

131,848 points

Posted on Dec 20, 2023 7:01 AM

On Catalina, press shift+cmd+5 to open the Screen Shot panel in the lower left corner of your screen. Click the Options button on it and choose Save To : Desktop, Timer: None, and deselect Show floating thumbnail. Now press the Esc key to dismiss this Screen shot interface.

Now, when you use shift+cmd+4, and release it, the screen shot will be written to your Desktop. If that fails with the original error you mentioned, you have bigger problems…

View in context

Screenshots not saving

Similar questions