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Dropped the extra details that weren't required, and clarified a tricky corner case, credit to question asker for debugging the sol.
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Mr R
Mr R
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This works for me on a Catalina machine and is known to work on Mavericks (HT @bobsmith76 for persevering).

/usr/bin/defaults -currentHost write com.apple.ScreenSaverPhotoChooser 'SelectedFolderPath' "/Users/you/sub/sub/folder"

I used hot-corners to turn on the screen saver, and set different default, then when I enabled screen saver again it used the new folder.

IfNOTE if you need to adjust values inhave System Preferences open when making the dictionary element do likechanges then this may cause the wrong thing to happen (setting name=XX in CustomFolderDictlike the screensaver config flipping to a non-image screensaver - we both ended up on the Message screensaver this way).

/usr/bin/defaults -currentHost write com.apple.ScreenSaverPhotoChooser CustomFolderDict -dict-add name XX

This works for me on a Catalina machine

/usr/bin/defaults -currentHost write com.apple.ScreenSaverPhotoChooser 'SelectedFolderPath' "/Users/you/sub/sub/folder"

I used hot-corners to turn on the screen saver, and set different default, then when I enabled screen saver again it used the new folder.

If you need to adjust values in the dictionary element do like this (setting name=XX in CustomFolderDict)

/usr/bin/defaults -currentHost write com.apple.ScreenSaverPhotoChooser CustomFolderDict -dict-add name XX

This works for me on a Catalina machine and is known to work on Mavericks (HT @bobsmith76 for persevering).

/usr/bin/defaults -currentHost write com.apple.ScreenSaverPhotoChooser 'SelectedFolderPath' "/Users/you/sub/sub/folder"

I used hot-corners to turn on the screen saver, and set different default, then when I enabled screen saver again it used the new folder.

NOTE if you have System Preferences open when making the changes then this may cause the wrong thing to happen (like the screensaver config flipping to a non-image screensaver - we both ended up on the Message screensaver this way).

Gave an example of tricky defaults setting that might be required.
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Mr R
Mr R
  • 309
  • 3
  • 10

This works for me on a Catalina machine

/usr/bin/defaults -currentHost write com.apple.ScreenSaverPhotoChooser 'SelectedFolderPath' "/Users/you/sub/sub/folder"

I used hot-corners to turn on the screen saver, and set different default, then when I enabled screen saver again it used the new folder.

If you need to adjust values in the dictionary element do like this (setting name=XX in CustomFolderDict)

/usr/bin/defaults -currentHost write com.apple.ScreenSaverPhotoChooser CustomFolderDict -dict-add name XX

This works for me on a Catalina machine

/usr/bin/defaults -currentHost write com.apple.ScreenSaverPhotoChooser 'SelectedFolderPath' "/Users/you/sub/sub/folder"

I used hot-corners to turn on the screen saver, and set different default, then when I enabled screen saver again it used the new folder.

This works for me on a Catalina machine

/usr/bin/defaults -currentHost write com.apple.ScreenSaverPhotoChooser 'SelectedFolderPath' "/Users/you/sub/sub/folder"

I used hot-corners to turn on the screen saver, and set different default, then when I enabled screen saver again it used the new folder.

If you need to adjust values in the dictionary element do like this (setting name=XX in CustomFolderDict)

/usr/bin/defaults -currentHost write com.apple.ScreenSaverPhotoChooser CustomFolderDict -dict-add name XX
Source Link
Mr R
Mr R
  • 309
  • 3
  • 10

This works for me on a Catalina machine

/usr/bin/defaults -currentHost write com.apple.ScreenSaverPhotoChooser 'SelectedFolderPath' "/Users/you/sub/sub/folder"

I used hot-corners to turn on the screen saver, and set different default, then when I enabled screen saver again it used the new folder.