To set the location where macOS saves screen captures to a specific folder on your desktop called “Desktop-Pictures,” you’ll need to use the defaults command to change the setting for where screenshots are saved. Normally these are saved to the ~/Desktop
Here’s how you set the location where macOS saves screen captures to a specific folder:
First, you’ll need to create a folder called “Desktop-Pictures” on your desktop if it doesn’t already exist. Then, use the following command in the Terminal:
sudo mkdir ~/Desktop/Desktop-Pictures
defaults write com.apple.screencapture location ~/Desktop/Desktop-Pictures
SCREENCAPTURE(1) General Commands Manual Page Entry
SCREENCAPTURE(1) General Commands Manual Page Entry
NAME
screencapture – capture images from the screen and save them to a file or the clipboard
SYNOPSIS
screencapture [-SWCTMPcimswxto] file
DESCRIPTION
The screencapture utility is not very well documented to date. A list of options follows.
-c Force screen capture to go to the clipboard.
-b Capture Touch Bar, only works in non-interactive modes.
-C Capture the cursor as well as the screen. Only allowed in non-interactive modes.
-d Display errors to the user graphically.
-i Capture screen interactively, by selection or window. The control key will cause the screenshot to go to the clipboard. The space key will toggle between mouse selection and window selection modes. The
escape key will cancel the interactive screenshot.
-m Only capture the main monitor, undefined if -i is set.
-D
-o In window capture mode, do not capture the shadow of the window.
-p Screen capture will use the default settings for capture. The files argument will be ignored.
-M Open the taken picture in a new Mail message.
-P Open the taken picture in a Preview window or QuickTime Player if video.
-I Open the taken picture in Messages.
-B
-s Only allow mouse selection mode.
-S In window capture mode, capture the screen instead of the window.
-J STYLE ets the starting style of interfactive capture "selection","window","video".
-t FORMAT Image format to create, default is png (other options include pdf, jpg, tiff and other formats).
-T Take the picture after a delay of
-w Only allow window selection mode.
-W Start interaction in window selection mode.
-x Do not play sounds.
-a Do not capture attached windows.
-r Do not add screen dpi meta data to captured file.
-l
-R
-v Capture video recording of the screen.
-V SECONDS Capture video recording of the screen for the specified seconds.
-G ID Captures audio during a video recording using audio source specified by id.
-g Captures audio during a video recording using default input.
-k Show clicks in video recordings.
-U Show interactive toolbar in interactive mode.
-u Present UI after screencapture is complete. Files passed to commandline will be ignored.
files where to save the screen capture, 1 file per screen
BUGS
Better documentation is needed for this utility.
SECURITY CONSIDERATIONS
To capture screen content while logged in via ssh, you must launch screencapture in the same mach bootstrap hierarchy as loginwindow:
PID=pid of loginwindow
sudo launchctl bsexec $PID screencapture [options]
HISTORY
A screencapture utility first appeared in Mac OS X v10.2.
Mac OS June 16, 2004
