On most Macs, screenshots go to your desktop by default as image files named along the lines of “Screenshot 2026-01-05 at 14.32.10”.

Default screenshot location

  • By default, macOS saves screenshots to your Desktop as PNG images with “Screenshot [date] at [time]” in the name.
  • If you do not see them there, the default save location may have been changed to another folder, such as Documents or a custom “Screenshots” folder.

Quick ways to find all screenshots

  • Open Finder , press Command + F , choose “This Mac”, then type kMDItemIsScreenCapture:1 into the search box to show all screenshots on your Mac.
  • You can also press Command + Space to open Spotlight and search for kMDItemIsScreenCapture:1 or the word “screenshot” to surface screenshot files.

If screenshots are going somewhere else

  • macOS lets you change the screenshot save location with the Screenshot tool (opened with Shift + Command + 5) or via Terminal, so screenshots might be sent to a custom folder you selected earlier.
  • If you recently created a folder called things like “Screenshots”, “Captures”, or a project name, check inside it from Finder, as some guides recommend routing screenshots there for organization.

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