How to rename screenshots automatically on a Mac

Every screenshot macOS saves is called “Screenshot” followed by a date and a time. That is fine on the day you take it. A month later, a folder of them tells you when you pressed the keys and nothing about what is in each one. This guide covers the ways to rename screenshots on a Mac, starting with the ones that are built in, and says where each one stops.

Can you change the default screenshot name?

Partly. macOS reads a few hidden preferences for the screenshot tool, and one of them sets the name prefix. Apple doesn’t document it on its support pages, so the details below come from the Terminal’s own manuals and from reports by other Mac users. I haven’t run these commands on this Mac, because they change settings, and I’d rather tell you that than imply I did.

To change the word “Screenshot” to something else, the command people use is this:

defaults write com.apple.screencapture name "Shot"
killall SystemUIServer

Here is what each line does:

• defaults write stores a setting. This one saves the text Shot under the key name in the screenshot tool’s preferences, com.apple.screencapture.
• killall SystemUIServer stops a background process that draws parts of the menu bar. macOS restarts it on its own within a moment, and the screenshot tool reads the new value after that. The menu bar may flicker. Logging out and back in does the same job.

Reports from other Mac users add a few caveats:

• The date and time are still added after your prefix, so you get names like “Shot 2026-03-14 at 11.42.08” rather than a fully custom name.
• A second key, include-date, turns that date and time off, with defaults write com.apple.screencapture include-date -bool false and then killall SystemUIServer. With it off, repeated screenshots get a number added to keep the names apart, such as “Shot (2)”.
• The prefix applies to screen recordings too. One person on Apple Community reported that both their screenshots and their recordings took the new word.
• Those reports date from the Catalina years and earlier. I can’t confirm how the keys behave on macOS 26.6, so try them on one screenshot before you rely on them.

How do you undo it?

Delete the keys, then restart the menu bar process again. The defaults manual describes delete domain key as removing the named key, which puts the setting back to its default:

defaults delete com.apple.screencapture name
defaults delete com.apple.screencapture include-date
killall SystemUIServer

If a key was never set, defaults delete says so and changes nothing. Neither command touches the screenshots you have already taken.

If you also want screenshots to land somewhere other than the Desktop, that is a separate setting. It’s covered in changing where screenshots are saved on a Mac.

How do you batch-rename screenshots in Finder?

Finder can rename a whole selection at once, with no extra software. Apple describes it in its guide to renaming files, folders and disks.

1. Open the folder your screenshots are in and select them. Command-click picks them one by one, and Shift-click picks a range.
2. Control-click one of the selected files and choose Rename.
3. In the pop-up menu below Rename Finder Items, choose Replace Text, Add Text or Format.
4. Fill in the fields, check the example Finder shows, and click Rename.

The three modes suit different jobs:

The limits are plain. Every file in the batch gets the same words, so you choose the name once and Finder numbers or dates the rest. Finder can’t read what is inside a screenshot, and it doesn’t know which app it came from. It works best when you have already picked out the group of screenshots that belong together.

If you rename the wrong batch, press ⌘Z straight away or choose Edit › Undo Rename in Finder. After you have done other things, undoing gets less reliable, so check before you click Rename.

Can Shortcuts or Automator rename them as they’re saved?

Yes, with caution, and on macOS Tahoe 26 there are two ways. Apple’s notes on Shortcuts 26 say Mac automations can run when files are added to a folder. Automator has long offered the same idea as a Folder Action: “A workflow attached to a folder in the Finder. When items are added to the folder, the workflow runs and the files are used as input to the workflow.”

That is the right shape for this job. In Automator, you make a Folder Action, attach it to the folder your screenshots go to, and add Automator’s action for renaming Finder items. From then on, each new file in the folder is renamed as it arrives.

Be careful with either, for three reasons:

• It runs on every file that lands in the folder. If the folder also receives downloads or exports, they get renamed too. A folder used only for screenshots is safer.
• The name can only use what the automation knows. Automator’s rename action can add text, a date or a counter. A shortcut could read words from the image, but neither knows which app the screenshot came from.
• A rename can race the save. A screenshot is written to disk and then a thumbnail may sit on screen for a few seconds. I haven’t tested whether renaming during that window affects it on macOS 26.6, so try it with a few test screenshots first and watch what happens.

Apple describes both triggers but doesn’t walk through a screenshot example. If you build one, test on a copy of the folder and keep the originals until you trust the result. You can remove the automation or the Folder Action later, which returns everything to normal.

What makes a good screenshot name?

Whichever tool does the renaming, the pattern that holds up is the same. Put things in the order you will search for them:

1. The date first, in year-month-day order. A folder sorted by name then sorts by time, and the date is easy to type into a search.
2. The app or place it came from. This is the part you tend to remember. “Notion” or “Figma” narrows a long list quickly.
3. The subject, in a few words. What would you call it if you were telling a colleague?

Here is the same screenshot, before and after:

Screenshot 2026-03-14 at 11.42.08
2026-03-14 Notion - Pricing plans

The first name is accurate and useless. The second one sorts correctly, can be found by typing “Notion” or “pricing”, and tells you what it is before you open it. Keep names short, avoid slashes and colons, which Finder and some apps treat specially, and don’t rely on the extension for anything. macOS keeps it separate.

Doing this by hand is the part that doesn’t last. Most people manage it for a week. The date can be added by Finder, but the app and the subject are what take effort, and they are the two parts that make the name useful.

How DejaShot renames screenshots

This is the gap I built DejaShot to close. It is a Mac app that reads the text in your screenshots and keeps a library you can search. Renaming is one of its features, and it works like this.

• Automatic renaming is off until you turn it on. DejaShot offers it once, and it doesn’t rename anything on its own before you say yes. You can also rename one screenshot or a selection by hand at any time.
• You build the name from tokens. The chips you can add are the date, the time, the app, the window title, the first line of text in the screenshot and the original name. You can put them in any order and add your own text between them.
• You see the result before it happens. A live preview shows what the names will be as you change the tokens, so a wrong pattern shows up before it touches a file.
• It never overwrites. If a new name matches a file that already exists, DejaShot doesn’t replace that file.
• Every rename can be undone. If you don’t like the result, Undo puts the original names back.

You can rename one screenshot or a hundred this way. With the example above, a pattern of date, app and window title turns “Screenshot 2026-03-14 at 11.42.08” into something like “2026-03-14 Notion - Pricing plans”.

The app and the window title are best guesses. For screenshots taken while it’s running, DejaShot notes which app and window were in front, which is usually the app you captured but not always, and reading window titles needs the optional Accessibility permission. Without it, the window title is left out, and you can still rename from the date, the time, the app, the first line of text and the original name. Screenshots from before you installed DejaShot have no app or window title, so a pattern that uses them suits new captures best. Look at the preview before you apply a batch.

Everything happens on your Mac, with no account and no upload. It needs macOS 14 or later, and it is a one-time purchase, with the details on the pricing page.

Which way should you rename screenshots?

The built-in options are free and good for tidy-ups. They stop short of naming a screenshot by what it shows. If renaming is a means to being able to find things later, it may not be the step you need. The guide to searching the text in screenshots covers finding a screenshot without renaming it at all, and the guide to finding an old screenshot helps when all you remember is roughly when you took it. If you use a dedicated capture tool already, see how DejaShot compares with CleanShot X.