Where do screenshots go on a Mac? How to find them and change the folder

The short answer: the Desktop

Every screenshot you take with ⇧ ⌘ 3, ⇧ ⌘ 4 or ⇧ ⌘ 5 is saved to your Desktop as a PNG file, named Screenshot followed by the date and time — for example Screenshot 2026-10-13 at 9.41.07 AM.png. Screen recordings land in the same place as .mov files named Screen Recording.

That's true on every Mac, from a MacBook Air to an iMac, on every recent version of macOS. If a screenshot isn't on your Desktop, one of the following happened.

Screenshot not on the Desktop? Check these five places

1. The folder set in Options

Press ⇧ ⌘ 5 and click Options. The Save to section has a check mark next to the current destination: Desktop, Documents, Clipboard, Mail, Messages, Preview, or a folder you picked with Other Location…. Whatever is checked there is where your screenshots are going. Press ⎋ Esc to close the toolbar without taking anything.

You can also ask the Mac directly. In Terminal, run:

defaults read com.apple.screencapture location

If it prints a path, that's the folder. If it says the key doesn't exist, nobody changed it and the destination is the Desktop.

2. The clipboard

Adding ⌃ Control to any shortcut — ⌃ ⇧ ⌘ 4, for example — copies the screenshot instead of saving it. No file is created. The image is on the clipboard until you copy something else, so paste it with ⌘ V into Preview (File → New from Clipboard) to keep it. If Save to is set to Clipboard, every shortcut behaves this way.

3. iCloud Drive

If Desktop & Documents Folders is turned on in iCloud Drive settings, your Desktop lives in iCloud. Screenshots still go there, but on a Mac with Optimize Mac Storage older ones may show a cloud icon and download only when you open them. They also appear on your other Macs and in the Files app on your iPhone, under iCloud Drive → Desktop.

4. Wherever you dragged the thumbnail

After a screenshot, a thumbnail sits in the bottom-right corner for about five seconds. The file isn't written until it slides away. If you drag the thumbnail into a Mail message, a Slack window or a Finder folder, the screenshot goes there instead of the Desktop.

5. Another app's folder

Some apps take over the screenshot shortcuts and save to their own folder — Dropbox, for example, can offer to save screenshots to Dropbox. Screenshot apps such as ShotDock, CleanShot X or Shottr save to the folder set in their own preferences. If you have one installed, check its settings.

Find every screenshot on your Mac at once

macOS tags screenshots with a hidden Spotlight attribute, so you can find them wherever they ended up:

1. Open a Finder window and click in the search field (or press ⌘ F).
2. Type kMDItemIsScreenCapture:1 and press ↩.
3. Click This Mac at the top so it searches everywhere, not just the current folder.

The same query works in Terminal: mdfind kMDItemIsScreenCapture:1 prints the full path of every screenshot. Save the Finder search (File → Save) and it becomes a smart folder in the sidebar that always lists your screenshots.

How to change where screenshots are saved

The Desktop is a poor default: after a week it's covered in files. A dedicated folder keeps them together and makes them easy to clear out.

With the screenshot toolbar

1. Create the folder you want, such as Pictures → Screenshots.
2. Press ⇧ ⌘ 5 and click Options.
3. Choose Other Location… under Save to and select the folder.
4. Press ⎋ Esc. The setting sticks for every future screenshot and screen recording.

With Terminal

Useful if you're setting up several Macs, or if the toolbar won't show your folder:

mkdir -p ~/Pictures/Screenshots
defaults write com.apple.screencapture location ~/Pictures/Screenshots
killall SystemUIServer

To go back to the Desktop, run defaults delete com.apple.screencapture location followed by killall SystemUIServer.

How to delete screenshots in bulk

1. Open the folder your screenshots go to, or the kMDItemIsScreenCapture:1 search above.
2. Switch to list view (⌘ 2) and click Date Created to sort.
3. Click the first file you want to remove, hold ⇧ Shift and click the last one.
4. Press ⌘ ⌫ to move them to the Trash, then empty the Trash to get the space back.

Retina screenshots are big: a full-screen PNG on a 5K display can pass 10 MB, so a year of them adds up. If you mostly paste screenshots into chats and documents, sending them to the clipboard instead (add ⌃) avoids the pile altogether.

Where ShotDock saves screenshots and recordings

ShotDock is a screenshot and screen recording app for the Mac that works the other way round: nothing is written to disk until you decide. Each capture opens in an editor, and you finish with one key:

• ⎋ Esc copies the image to the clipboard and closes the window — no file, no clutter.
• ↩ saves it to the folder set in ShotDock's preferences (the Downloads folder until you change it).
• ⌘ ↩ uploads it and puts a share link on the clipboard.

Screen recordings work the same way: when you stop, you get a preview with the length and file size, and you choose whether to save the MP4, copy it or upload it. The macOS shortcuts keep working alongside ShotDock's own (⇧ ⌘ 0 for an area, ⇧ ⌘ 9 for a window, ⇧ ⌘ 8 for the screen), so you can use both.

It also adds what the built-in tools don't have: blur and pixelate, scrolling capture, and screen recording with your Mac's sound and your webcam. It's $12 once, with a 14-day trial and no account. If you're weighing it against other paid apps, see the CleanShot X comparison.

Frequently asked questions