Change Screen Capture Save Location?

[UniAce]

Is there a way to change the location where Screen Captures (aka Screenshots) are saved? It's not convenient having them clutter up the desktop. Thanks!

[Raven]

To change the default location, open a terminal window and type in the following (you will need admin access to do this !)

sudo defaults write com.apple.screencapture location /Full/Path/To/Folder

When prompted for a password, type in your admin password, and voila, you've change the location for snapshots !

[UniAce]

Hmm, I tried typing the following in Terminal:

sudo defaults write com.apple.screencapture location ~/Desktop/Screenshots

but the screenshots are still going to the Desktop. I have only one account on this computer and it is the Admin account. Maybe I specified the path incorrectly? Thanks.

[biovizier]

A couple of problems - one is the 'sudo'. The command is supposed to create / modify the com.apple.screencapture.plist file in your home directory, but by using 'sudo', the file ends up being owned by "root" and 'defaults write' always creates files with '-rw-------' permissions so your 'screencapture' process never gets to read the file. The second problem is that the full path is required - you can't use "~". Otherwise, you may need to log out and back in for the change to take effect.

[Raven]

Thanks for filling in the blanks biovizier !
I'm so used to changing things with defaults that I forgot to put more emphasis on using the full path...

[UniAce]

Thanks guys. So beside using the proper full path, what other changes, if any, should I make to the command? Should I not use 'sudo' or 'defaults'? If not, what should be used instead? Apologies, but my UNIX knowledge is quite limited. Thanks again.

[Raven]

Just take out the sudo part...
Also, note that you have to have created the folder in which you want the snapshots to go to before mapping to it !

[UniAce]

It worked!
I typed the following into Terminal:

defaults write com.apple.screencapture location /Users/uniace/Desktop/Screenshots

I was not prompted for a password.
Note that I HAD already created the "Screenshots" folder, as Raven indicated is necessary. I had to log out and back in for the new location to start working. YES!
If there's not already a hint on this, there should be. Thanks again.

[Raven]

I can't remember where I had found this info, but I emailed it as a possible hint asking to check if its already been posted. If not then it should be shortly.

[dave1212]

Posted this on the hint, but this is more a discussion thing:

Working well, I have a folder called 'Shots' on the desktop that it's saving to.

However, it now seems to actually write the file a lot slower. For example, if I took 3 successful screenshots without this hint, it made pic 1, 2, and 3 on the desktop.

Now it names all the temp files pic 1 and only produces one file in the destination folder. If I didn't look at the folder to witness this I would assume it's eating my screenshots.

If I wait an extra few seconds between screenshots, there's no problem.

Why is that, do you think?

[Raven]

Personnaly, I'm only getting something like a second delay between the ones that get saved (was able to time this by having the time with seconds showing on the screen while taking the shots). I have to hit the key combo quite quickly for this to happens... And I see no speed difference in this compared to when I had the screen captures saved to the desktop.
Is it possible that your running a machine on OS X with something like 256 megs of ram or less ? Or that the load on your machine is high (hard drive very full ? or take a look at the Activity Monitor in the Utilities folder and se how much ram, memory, cpu % your system uses when only the Finder is running).

[dave1212]

Is it possible that your running a machine on OS X with something like 256 megs of ram or less ? Or that the load on your machine is high (hard drive very full ? or take a look at the Activity Monitor in the Utilities folder and se how much ram, memory, cpu % your system uses when only the Finder is running).

Haha no unfortunately it's not that.. tons of hd space, and max RAM.

Tried it again, happened again. Leaves the temp files all named the same, then only leaves 1 file behind.

[dave1212]

http://macskill.com/images/Pic2.png

weird stuff.. so taking that shot of those temp files gave me a second final file.

So confusing.

[Raven]

Strange indeed... But at least its very rare that you have to take multiple screen captures at such intervals... If you need to do so regularely, I'd suggest investing in some thing like SnapzPro X from www.ambrosiasw.com
I have been using it for 6 months now and love the fact that you can do snapshots or movies very easily... almost as if you were taking screen captures with the OS X built-in tools.

[guardian34]

I made an AppleScript application to change the screenshot settings (http://scriptbuilders.net/files/screenshotsettings1.0.1.html).

[sydneytim]

Nice work on that script - sure saved me a lot of stuffing around in Terminal. :)

The URL of the script has changed - it's now over here (http://scriptbuilders.net/files/screenshotsettings1.1.html).

Thanks!

[Lake]

Adding to this thread as it's the one linked from the hint:

Apparently you must log out and then back in again for the new defaults setting to take effect. Or if you're like me, rarely log out, and find shutting down everything a pain you can "kill -HUP" the "SystemUIServer" process from Terminal.

killall -HUP SystemUIServer

This worked for me without losing any state, but it was just a shot in the dark I got lucky on with the first try, so I can't guarantee it'll work as described for you.