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When I press Command + Shift + 4 and take a screenshot, the screenshot shows as a thumbnail at bottom right of the screen.

If I continue working, the screenshot is not saved. I have to double-click on the thumbnail, open it in Preview & save it.

How do I save the screenshot immediately like it used to?

The answer here doesn't really apply as I don't see a Touch Bar.

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    On mine the thumbnail saves to the desktop if left alone...
    – Solar Mike
    Commented Apr 9, 2019 at 5:13
  • Just looked at the help file for the screenshot app and found out that one can drag the thumbnail directly into a document before it gets saved.. :)
    – Solar Mike
    Commented Apr 9, 2019 at 8:10
  • Possible duplicate of Screen capture utility no longer saves to Desktop
    – pkamb
    Commented Sep 29, 2022 at 0:07

2 Answers 2

Reset to default
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Use the keyboard shortcut Command + Shift + 5 to invoke the screen capture app. Click on Options and check if the Save to location is set correctly.

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    This option looks good, and checking the options the screenshot is set to save to Desktop, but it never ends up there. This has been going on for about 2 weeks. No OS updates in that time.
    – Insight
    Commented Apr 10, 2019 at 5:46
  • Any advice Nimesh? I think the behaviour changed during an OS update.
    – Insight
    Commented Aug 12, 2019 at 5:28
  • @Insight AFAIK it didn't. What's the release of macOS that you are running? Maybe some configuration changes got made.
    – Nimesh Neema ♦
    Commented Aug 12, 2019 at 5:31
  • Running 10.15 Catalina Beta. "Show Floating Thumbnail" was selected. Deselecting it, I can see the screenshot gets saved to Desktop, but it immediately automatically gets deleted every time some how.
    – Insight
    Commented Aug 12, 2019 at 5:32
  • @Insight Can't comment on behavior in Catalina ATM. One, it's currently in beta and things are liable to break. Two, I am not running it on any of the machines. Advise you to wait till the public release is out later in Fall.
    – Nimesh Neema ♦
    Commented Aug 12, 2019 at 5:33
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Adding to the advice by Nimesh Neema -- press Command + Shift 5 to gain access to the settings -- I would also unselect "Show Floating Thumbnail" to have your screenshots go directly to the selected destination (eg Desktop). The nice thing about the floating window is that you can often drag it directly into an app without having to go find it in the desktop.

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  • Cmd+Shift+4 just gives me the cursor to select a portion of the screen...
    – Solar Mike
    Commented Apr 9, 2019 at 14:20
  • Sorry. I mistyped the instruction. Corrected.
    – Brad Howes
    Commented Apr 9, 2019 at 15:45
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    Thanks Brad. "Show Floating Thumbnail" was selected. Deselecting it, I can see the screenshot gets saved to Desktop, but it immediately automatically gets deleted every time some how.
    – Insight
    Commented Aug 12, 2019 at 5:30

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