How to Change the Default Screenshot Folder on macOS

macOS saves screenshots to your Desktop by default, which gets messy fast if you take a lot of them. There are two ways to change this: Terminal or the built-in Screenshot app.

Terminal Method

Create your destination folder and set it as the default:

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

That last command restarts the system service so the change takes effect immediately.

You can use any path you want. Some other options:

# Documents folder
defaults write com.apple.screencapture location ~/Documents/Screenshots

# iCloud Drive (if you want them synced)
defaults write com.apple.screencapture location ~/Library/Mobile\ Documents/com~apple~CloudDocs/Screenshots

To switch back to Desktop:

defaults write com.apple.screencapture location ~/Desktop
killall SystemUIServer

Using Command-Shift-5

If you'd rather not use Terminal, press Command-Shift-5 to open the Screenshot toolbar.

Click Options, then pick a location under "Save to" or choose Other Location... to select a custom folder.

The change applies immediately.

Changing the File Format

While you're at it, you can also change the default format from PNG if you want smaller files:

defaults write com.apple.screencapture type jpg
killall SystemUIServer

Other options are png (default), pdf, and tiff.