Remove the date and time from screenshot filenames on Mac

Every Mac screenshot is named something like Screenshot 2026-07-01 at 10.23.45 AM.png by default. If you'd prefer plain Screenshot.png — or just want consistent filenames that sort nicely — here's how to strip the timestamp out.

Why the date is in there

macOS uses a com.apple.screencapture preference called include-date to decide whether to append the current date and time to each screenshot filename. It's on by default, presumably so multiple screenshots don't overwrite each other. Once you turn it off, macOS uses a simple sequential counter instead — so your second screenshot in a row becomes Screenshot 1.png, not a timestamp clash.

Remove the date via Terminal

Open Terminal (Applications → Utilities) and run these two commands:

# remove date/time from screenshot filenames
defaults write com.apple.screencapture include-date -bool false
killall SystemUIServer

The killall SystemUIServer restarts the process that owns the screenshot system — your menu bar will flicker for a second, which is normal. You don't need to log out or restart.

To restore the default timestamp behaviour, set the value back to true:

# restore date/time in screenshot filenames
defaults write com.apple.screencapture include-date -bool true
killall SystemUIServer

What the filename looks like after

Take a screenshot after running the command and it will save as Screenshot.png. Take another one immediately and it saves as Screenshot 1.png, then Screenshot 2.png, and so on. The counter resets when you rename or move the existing files out of the save folder.

This is cleaner if you're dropping screenshots into documentation, design specs, or a folder you check into version control — no more stale timestamps in filenames that don't match when the file was last edited.

Combine with a custom save location

If you've changed your screenshot save folder (via ⌘⇧5 → Options → Other Location…), clean filenames become even more useful — a dedicated ~/Screenshots folder full of Screenshot.png, Screenshot 1.png files is much easier to navigate than a Desktop scattered with dated names.

You can set a custom save path from Terminal too:

# save screenshots to a dedicated folder
defaults write com.apple.screencapture location ~/Screenshots
killall SystemUIServer

Create the folder first with mkdir -p ~/Screenshots if it doesn't exist yet.