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How do I change the format of a Mac screen capture?

About 6 months ago I was playing around on my iBook G4 and I found the option to change the format that Apple+Shift+4 saves in. For some odd reason I choose JPG-2000 (picture.jp2). Of course, now I can't find how to change it back!


Dave's Answer:

It's not hard to change the format of a screen capture / screenshot made with the native Mac OS X capture utility, but you do have to be comfortable opening up your Terminal.app and typing in a command on the command line. Y'know, the Unix underneath the snazzy graphical interface. :-)

Start by going to Applications --> Utilities --> Terminal.app and launching it. You'll see something like this:

Mac OS X: Terminal application

At this point you want to decide which format you'd like. Here are your choices:

  • BMP (Windows bitmap)
  • GIF
  • JPEG 2000 (what you chose)
  • JPEG
  • PDF
  • PICT
  • PNG
  • PSD
  • SGI
  • TGA
  • TIFF
Quite a few choices, as you can see!

Pick the one you like -- I recommend PNG, which stands for progressive network graphic, as the best of both GIF and JPEG formats -- and then type in the following command exactly as shown:

defaults write com.apple.screencapture type image_format

For example, if you did decide to use PNG format, you'd type:

defaults write com.apple.screencapture type png

Type that in and you won't see anything change, but next time you take a screen shot (as documented here: how to get a screen capture on Mac OS X) you'll have the image saved in the format you seek.


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Categorized: Mac OS X Help   (Article 7585, Written by )
Tagged: mac os x, screen capture, screen grab, screenshot
Previous: How do I take a screenshot on my Mac?
Next: How do I find files in Windows Vista?




Reader Comments To Date: 5

wylie said, on September 17, 2007 11:44 AM:

I use this for the images I post on my blog:

http://wyliemoney.blogspot.com/

Is png the best for quick images for web sites?

Thanks!

Grab said, on September 20, 2009 11:19 AM:

It doesn't work in new macs. It could only work in useless antiques computers

bill said, on December 21, 2009 3:29 AM:

didn't work for me

James said, on January 23, 2011 10:25 AM:

For those who said it didn't work, what I found was that the change doesn't take effect until you restart. (I'm using a MacBook Pro with Snow Leopard.)

Chris Britton said, on February 26, 2013 1:57 PM:

Awesome. Thanks!

Starbucks coffee cup I do have a lot to say, and questions of my own for that matter, but first I'd like to say thank you, Dave, for all your helpful information by buying you a cup of coffee!

I do have a comment, now that you mention it!











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