![Video thumbnail for Changing Screenshot Formats In OS X [Video How-To]](https://video-meta.open.video/resized-posters/SnhXp1cslJ2/res640.webp?cb=1)
Up next in 10
defaults write com.apple.screencapture type
killall SystemUIServer
Show More Show Less View Video Transcript
0:10
hey everyone today I'm going to show you
0:11
how to change the default format for
0:13
screenshots in Mac OS 10 so when you
0:15
take a screenshot Mac OS 10 you can
0:18
achieve this by holding down command and
0:19
shift and tapping three and once you
0:22
take your screenshot you're going to
0:23
notice that if you right click on the
0:26
screenshot and click get info the
0:29
default format for the screenshot is a
0:32
PNG file now pgs are fine and everything
0:35
but the problem with them is that the
0:36
file sizes are always extremely big so
0:40
you can see here that this one
0:41
screenshot of my desktop is 5.5
0:44
megabytes which is pretty ridiculous in
0:46
my opinion and I would much rather have
0:48
a JPEG screenshot and those file sizes
0:51
are a lot smaller now unfortunately the
0:53
only way I found that works that lets
0:55
you change the screenshot format is
0:57
going through terminal I've tried some
0:59
third party applications that they've
1:01
never worked for me so unfortunately
1:03
we're going to have to use terminal for
1:04
this one uh but it'll be worth it if you
1:07
want to decrease your file sizes if you
1:09
take a lot of screenshots like I do so
1:11
you're going to have to launch up
1:12
terminal now an easy way to do this is
1:14
to go into your applications folder in a
1:16
new finder window and then scroll down
1:19
to utilities and go into your utilities
1:21
folder and from there you should find
1:24
the application terminal so what you're
1:27
going to have to do is type in this
1:28
string of text that I'll vot show you
1:30
and that sh enough text will be right
1:31
below the video if you just want to copy
1:33
and paste it so what you're going have
1:34
to write is
1:37
default space right
1:40
space. apple. screen
1:45
capture space and then type space then
1:49
here's where you're going to want to
1:50
enter your screen capture format in this
1:52
case I want to make it a JPEG so I'm
1:54
going to type jpg and then I'm going to
1:57
hit enter and then you'll just see the
1:59
prompt again so after that you want to
2:02
type kill all as one word and then
2:04
system with capital S and then without a
2:08
space UI both capital and then no space
2:11
again server with a capital S then hit
2:14
enter and looks like I just spelled it
2:17
wrong there so let's try that
2:18
again so now when I go back and take a
2:21
screenshot I'm going to hold on command
2:22
and shift and hit three now when I right
2:26
click on this and hit get info you can
2:29
see that the screenshot is now only 848
2:32
Koby which is quite a bit smaller and a
2:35
lot more manageable in my opinion now
2:37
the nice thing about this is you can use
2:39
other formats other than a JPEG as well
2:43
for example I can type in the exact same
2:45
thing but instead of jpg for the type
2:48
I'm going to type
2:51
PDF and I'm going to kill all system UI
2:54
server
2:56
again and then now if I take a
2:58
screenshot
3:00
you can see if I hit get info the
3:02
screenshot is a PDF now of course this
3:04
PDF is rather large it's 7.6 megabytes
3:07
uh but if you want a PDF for some reason
3:09
uh there you go and now you have a PDF
3:11
screenshot so that's kind of interesting
3:13
now this works with not only jpegs and
3:15
PDFs but pretty much every other image
3:17
format that you'd want to save it as as
3:19
well now last but not least if you don't
3:21
want to use the default PNG format and
3:23
you don't want to work with terminal if
3:25
you go and open a finder window and go
3:27
into your applications folder utilities
3:29
once again and you open up grab which is
3:32
a screen capture utility that vable with
3:34
OS 10 and you go to the capture menu and
3:38
we'll just click window for this one and
3:41
uh I'll just choose this finder window
3:44
now this screenshot format if I go up to
3:47
the file menu and click save you can see
3:50
that the default format is Tif a tiff
3:54
file now if you try to change the format
3:57
of this I go jpg I click save it's going
4:00
to give me an error or a warning rather
4:03
and I have to use that Tiff so if you
4:05
want to save your files as that format
4:08
using grab is probably the easiest way
4:09
to go so that's how you can change your
4:12
default screenshot format type in Mac OS
4:15
10 now if you have anything you'd like
4:17
to see me a video how two on make sure
4:19
to send me an email this video is
4:20
actually suggested by a reader as a
4:22
matter of fact I hope you found this
4:24
video useful and thank you for watching
4:30
sh
Software
Science
Other
Computer Education