Where do screenshots go on Windows 10 and Windows 11? Unfortunately, that depends on how you capture the screenshot—there is no central location where they’re all stored. However, there are a few common places you can check.
Where Are Screenshots Saved Use Print Screen (PrtScn)?
If you press the Print Screen key to take a screenshot, the screenshot does not get saved to a file by default. Instead, Windows copies the shot into the clipboard, which is a special portion of memory for temporary copy and pasting use. To save the screenshot to disk, you’ll need to paste the image into an image editor (such as Paint) and save it as a file.
The same is true if you use Alt+Print Screen to capture the active window. They go to your clipboard and not a file.
If You Use Windows+Print Screen
If you use the Windows+Print Screen keyboard shortcut to capture screenshots in Windows 10 or 11, Windows will save the image as a PNG file in your Pictures > Screenshots folder.
You’ll find it at “C:\Users\[User Name]\Pictures\Screenshots.” In this case, “[User Name]” is our substitute for the name of the Windows account you were using when you took the screenshot.
Using Windows+Print Screen, Windows takes a full-screen screenshot and saves it as a PNG file named “Screenshot (#).png”. The number at the end of the file name counts up over time based on the number of screenshots you’ve previously taken.
Windows uses the same “C:\Users\[User Name]\Pictures\Screenshots” save location if you use Windows+Fn+Print Screen on an older Surface device, Power+Volume Down on certain tablets, or Windows+Volume Down on other tablets.
Windows 10 and Windows 11 include a tool called Snipping Tool that allows you to capture custom screenshots. By default, every screenshot you take will be stored in “C:\Users\[User Name]\Pictures\Screenshots” and saved to your clipboard, just like if you used the older Print Screen method.
However, Snipping Tool also lets you mark up a screenshot a bit as soon as you take it. In that situation, you can save the file anywhere you want once you edit it.
While that doesn’t help if you don’t know where you saved your last screenshot, the program remembers the last place you saved a file. To see where that is, take another screenshot, save it, and see where it wants to save the new file.
Your older screenshots might be there. If not, you could also check your Documents or Pictures folders under “This PC” in File Explorer.
Related
How to Change Where Screenshots Are Saved on Windows 10 and 11
From now on, you’re calling the shots (and where to save them).
If You Took a Screenshot with the Game Bar
If you use the “Capture” tool in the Game Bar (which opens when you press Windows+G), then Windows will save your screenshot to C:\Users\[User Name]\Videos\Captures, where “[User Name]” is the name of the user account you used to capture the shot.
If you don’t want to navigate to that folder manually, press Windows+G, click the camera button to open the Capture window, then select “See My Captures.”
Once the gallery is open, you can click the small folder icon to open File Explorer to the screenshot folder. Alternatively, you can click “Open File Location” after you select a screenshot or video.
You can also change where the Game Bar saves your captures by editing the registry. Open up the Registry Editor, head to the following path:
Computer\HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\User Shell Folders
Once you’re there, double-click the string value “{EDC0FE71-98D8-4F4A-B920-C8DC133CB165}” and change the path to wherever you want. If that string doesn’t exist, right-click empty space and select New > String Value, then name it {EDC0FE71-98D8-4F4A-B920-C8DC133CB165}.
I set mine to a location on my E:\ drive, which is a 12TB hard disk drive. It isn’t as fast as an SSD, but when you’re just storing game clips, the extra volume is more important than speed.
If you’re taking screenshots in Windows 11 (or 10) using a third-party tool created by someone other than Microsoft, then you’ll need to consult that tool’s settings to see where it saves screenshots. Until then, a few good places to look include your Documents folder or your Pictures folder, both of which can be found under “This PC” in File Explorer.
If You Still Can’t Find Your Screenshots
If you’re still having trouble locating where your screenshots are being saved, there’s a technique that might help. First, take another screenshot, then perform a search for recently modified files in File Explorer. To do so, press Windows+E to open an Explorer window, then enter datemodified:today in the search bar. You can narrow down the search by browsing to a certain drive or folder where you think it might be first.
If you know the file format, you can also use a wildcard (the asterisk, *) followed by the file extension to narrow down your results. For example, if I knew I were looking for a screenshot a took today, and I knew the format was a PNG file, I would enter the following in the search bar:
datemodified:today *.png
That way, the search excludes a ton of other files that might make it difficult to find what you’re actually looking for.
After a while, you will see recently created files appear in the search results list. When you see the screenshot file you just captured, right-click it and select “Open File Location” in the menu that pops up. File Explorer will open to the location of that saved screenshot, and your other screenshots might be there too.
