(2024 Update) Can't Find Screen Shots on Mac? How to Recover Lost Mac Screen Shots

Question #1: Can't Find Screen Shots on Mac

Screen captures are an easy way to save snippets of information or to capture memories to share. But what if you can't find your **screen shot on your Mac**? In this guide, we'll go through several methods to help you locate your screenshots with ease and without hassle.

Question #2: Can't find the desktop screenshot

It turns out that missing screenshots are more common than you might think. Consider this post on the Apple forums by a user named kylieqq: “I have a Mac with macOS Sierra. I can take a screenshot, but it's not on my desktop and I cannot find it by searching for 'screenshot.' Where are my screenshots?” The Apple Support Communities were there to help and provide answers.

Related Topic: Can You Recover Permanently Deleted Photos from iCloud?

Where do screen captures save on a MacBook or iMac?

By default, screenshots are saved to your Desktop with the file name "[Date] Screen Shot [Time]". You can also change the default location for saving screenshots using the “Options” menu in the Screenshot app. You can also drag the thumbnail into a folder or document.

How to Find a Screenshot on a MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, or iMac

Method 1 of 5: Search for the Screenshot File on Your Desktop Method 2 of 5: Check Your App's Preferences Method 3 of 5: Search for the Screenshot in Finder Method 4 of 5: Search for the Screenshot Using Spotlight Method 5 of 5: Use Free Data Recovery Software Bonus Tips: How to Change the Screenshot Location on a Mac

When you take a screenshot, macOS assigns it a label that you can search for to find all of your screenshots easily. Here are four ways you can manually locate a screenshot on your MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, or iMac. If you prefer an automatic but effective way to retrieve a lost screenshot, the last method is for you.

* The Data Recovery Wizard for Mac tool will scan your affected Mac hard drive, desktop or Trash and restore all invisible and deleted screenshot images.

Method 1: Search for a file named 'Screenshot' on your desktop.

With each keystroke, the screenshot is automatically saved to your desktop. The file will be named “Screenshot” followed by the date it was taken. Because it's saved as a PNG, it can be difficult to find if you organize your icons by type or name, especially if you have a lot of icons on your desktop.

Method 2: Check the App's Preferences

Mac apps store user preferences in configuration files, often with the extension "plist." On your device, you can use the built-in utility defaults to quickly read from and write to these files. The configuration file for the Screenshot app is "com.apple.screen-capture." You can view its contents by pasting the following command into your Terminal app. By default, it reads from com.apple.screen-capture. You can replace the read command with the write command to add custom settings to the configuration file.

Method 3: Find a Screenshot with Finder

Finder is a great tool for searching for files on your Mac, and it can also be used to find all of your screenshots at once. Use the search function and look under the “Screenshots” tab to find them all in one place.

One advantage of using the Finder to search for screen shots is that you can save a custom search. The next time you want to view your screen shots, just click the saved search in the Sidebar.

Here's how to locate screen shots using macOS Finder:

Step 1: Open a Finder window. Click the “File” menu in the menu bar, and then click “Find.” You can also use the keyboard shortcut Cmd+Shift+F.

Step 2: Make sure that “This Mac” is selected as the search option.

Step 3: Type kMDItemIsScreenCapture : 1 in the search field, and press Return.

The search results will display screenshots of the pages.

5. To view a thumbnail of the screen shot, right-click anywhere in the window, and choose View > As Icon.

Step 6: To save this search for later use, click the “Save” button in the upper-right corner of the window.

Step 7: Name your custom search, check "Add to Sidebar," and click "Save."

Step 8. Your screenshot should now appear under "Custom Search" in the sidebar.

Method 4: Search for a Screenshot with Spotlight

If you use Spotlight to search for items on your Mac, you can also use it to search for screen shots. Unlike the Finder, however, you can't save a search; you have to enter the search term each time.

One of the advantages of using Spotlight to locate your screen shots is that you get a bigger, better view of the file than you do from the Finder or Terminal.

You can use Focus to take screenshots of any kind:

Step 1. Press the “Cmd + Space” keyboard shortcut to open Spotlight.

Step 2: Type kMDItemIsScreenCapture:1 in the search field, and press Return.

Step 3: You'll see all your screenshots listed on the left. Use the arrow keys to select one, and a preview will appear in the right-hand pane.

Step 4: To open the folder where your screenshot is saved, select the screenshot, and then press the keyboard shortcut Cmd+Enter. This will open the folder containing your screenshot.

Method 5: Use Free Data Recovery Software

When you lose file paths and locations, like with screenshots, you can perform a scan and search. The scanning is completely free. You can use filters to quickly narrow down the scan results to screenshot file types like PNG and JPG. It supports the free recovery of screenshot files up to 2 GB in size.

A free Mac data recovery software tool can resolve many instances of data loss, undelete a file, whether it's a single Office Word document or a large number of permanently deleted files stored on your Mac, no matter the size of the files.

Here's a three-step guide to recovering a screenshot on a Mac:

Note: You can click "Disk Backup" on the left to create a backup first. This way, you can restore your photos from the backup image when the disk is damaged or your pictures get accidentally deleted.

Step 1: Scan the Lost Photos

Select the location where you lost your precious photos and then click on the “Start Search Lost Files” button.

Step 2: Choose the photo you need

The Mac Data Recovery Wizard immediately scans the disk volume you've chosen. The scan results are displayed in the left pane. You can quickly filter out the previously lost photos by "Path" and "Type".

Step 3: Recover Lost Photos

Select the photos you want to restore and click the “Recover” button to get them all back at once.

* What makes Data Recovery Wizard for Mac great for screenshot recovery: Fast downloads and advanced scanning

The software will download in just a few minutes, and with one click, it will begin scanning your computer. A quick scan of the C drive usually takes about five minutes, depending on how many gigabytes you have. A full scan of all data on most home computers should take no more than 10 hours. At the bottom of the Recovery Wizard, you'll see a count of the files detected and an estimate of the remaining scan time. The software's instructions are also available in multiple languages.

The software offers two data recovery modes: Quick Scan and Deep Scan. The Quick Scan is used to find and recover recently deleted files, in case a virus has messed with your file system. Use the Deep Scan to recover data lost a long time ago – this might take up to two hours. The Data Recovery Wizard tool can also retrieve files from formatted hard drives. This includes data stored on SD cards, memory cards, USB flash drives, pen drives, solid-state drives, and hard disk drives. The free trial version offers up to 2GB of data recovery.

Additional Tip: How to Change the Screen Capture Location on a Mac

It's best to change where your screenshots go, because if you leave them on the desktop, they'll pile up and be hard to find later.

Here's how to change the screenshot location on a Mac:

Press Shift + Command + 5. If you have macOS Mojave or later (which would be the case if you purchased or updated your Mac after 2018), this will open an advanced screenshot menu.

When the menu bar appears at the bottom of the screen, click “Options.” A pop-up window will open and be divided into several sections. In the first section, “Save to,” you can choose the default location where your screenshots will be saved. Select a new folder by clicking on any of the preset options or choosing another location.

Any screenshots you take (without holding down Control) will now save to the new location you chose.

Conclusions

Screen capturing lets you take an exact picture of what's on your screen to share with others for reference later on. Taking, cropping, saving, and sharing screenshots is incredibly useful, and some would say it's one of the most important things you can do on the internet.

This article will show you how to recover lost screenshots or save them for easy access anytime. Lastly, a free data recovery software tool is one of the best options to quickly and completely restore files from various Mac devices. It supports over 100 actual cases of data loss, such as deletion, formatting, RAW, and more. This free software can recover your files from multiple instances of data loss.