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If you want to know how to change where screenshots are saved on a Mac, and the format they are saved in, just follow the steps below: Where Do Screenshots Go on a Mac? They are also saved as PNG files instead of the more widely used JPEG format. This is because Macs automatically save your screenshots on the desktop.
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You're done! You can close the terminal window now by typing in exit.Įvery time you create a new screenshot, it will save it as bQd.jpg – short, unique and much nicer to share over the internet – at least for us.If you take a lot of screenshots on a Mac, you might end up with a cluttered desktop. The Server will restart itself immediately : killall SystemUIServer In order to load the settings, we'll have to restart the SystemUIServer, which can be done easily with the killall command. When you're done typing, press the Escape key, and type : :wq to save the file and quit the editor. Press A, to switch to insert mode, then scroll down with the cursor keys, and add the following new line at the bottom : * * * * * /usr/bin/openssl rand -base64 3 | xargs defaults write name For that we'll use the inbuilt openssl rand feature in a cronjob.įor that we'll have to edit the cronjob, by typing in crontab -e. So what we like to do here, is giving them a random 3 letter filename every minute. Randomize the Screenshot name on Mac OS X However, it's not so nice to have a lot of filenames in the format : screen.jpg You can do that by simply running : defaults write name screenĪnd all new screenshots would start with screen. Now let's change the base name of the Screenshot, the Screenshot.jpg part itself. So Screenshot 19.45.38.jpg would become Screenshot.jpg ( and Screenshot(2).jpg, Screenshot(3).jpg, etc. With the following command, we can remove the part which automatically adds the date to the screenshot name automatically. Remove date from screenshot name on Mac OS X Simply type into the terminal the following : defaults write type jpgĪll commands should be followed by the enter key.
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This will also keep our Dropbox size smaller. That will give us a much nicer filesize saving, which you can benefit from more and more the higher your resolution.
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Let's change the screenshot type from PNG to JPG. With the command defaults read you can see your current options. Reading current Screenshot options on Mac OS X You will need to enter the Terminal on Mac OS, which you can easily find in your finder. It's a bit tougher than anticipated, but we have a solution nevertheless.
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