Change Windows 8 Screenshot Feature Output Folder

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Change Windows 8 Screenshot Output Folder

By Team Windows 8 · Sunday, Nov 18, 2012 0 Comments

Windows 8 has this awesome built-in feature of taking screenshots with ease. All you have to do is to press Windows + Prt Sc. keys and windows will automatically save the current screenshot in your Picture\Screenshot.

But what if you want to change this default location where the windows 8 stores these screenshots? Same question has been asked by one of our reader and after playing with registry we are finally able to bring the solution. Follow this tutorial if you want to change the default location of screenshots from Pictures\Screenshots to something else.

Step 1: Open your registry editor. You can do so by pressing Windows + R keys and type regedit and press enter.

Step 2: Once the registry editor opens, go to Edit menu and click Find or simply press Ctrl + F, and search for “Screenshots”

Registry editor will take some time in searching for the desired keyword, meanwhile no progress will be shown, but a box.

Once the search is completed, you will have search results like this:

Note that you can also open this folder by navigating to the following location. Choose whichever method suits you.

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\FolderDescriptions\{b7bede81-df94-4682-a7d8-57a52620b86f}

Step 3: Default location for storing Screenshots is saved in ParentFolder string. You can edit this string to give your custom location. Note that locations are provided in the form of GUID, which is a specific syntax of windows to name system folders. Current GUID i.e. {33E28130-4E1E-4676-835A-98395C3BC3BB} is actually for the Pictures folder.

List of common GUID’s are given below so you can use them in order to change the default location. All you need to do is to choose the GUID from the list as per your requirement, put it in the ParentFolder string. Registry value can be modified by right clicking on string and select Modify.

For example if you want to change the default location of screenshots so that they may be saved on your Desktop instead of Pictures folder, then from the list we see that GUID for Desktop is {B4BFCC3A-DB2C-424C-B029-7FE99A87C641}

Paste this GUID in the fialogue box, click OK.

Now all you need to do is to restart your computer for new registry settings to take effect.. Try taking screenshot now by pressing Windows + Prt Sc. key and you will see that Screenshot folder will be automatically created on your desktop with the screenshot just taken.

Common Folder Path GUID Strings:

Desktop,{B4BFCC3A-DB2C-424C-B029-7FE99A87C641}
DocumentsLibrary,{7B0DB17D-9CD2-4A93-9733-46CC89022E7C}
Downloads,{374DE290-123F-4565-9164-39C4925E467B}
Favorites,{1777F761-68AD-4D8A-87BD-30B759FA33DD}
Fonts,{FD228CB7-AE11-4AE3-864C-16F3910AB8FE}
Libraries,{1B3EA5DC-B587-4786-B4EF-BD1DC332AEAE}
LocalAppData,{F1B32785-6FBA-4FCF-9D55-7B8E7F157091}
Music,{4BD8D571-6D19-48D3-BE97-422220080E43}
MusicLibrary,{2112AB0A-C86A-4FFE-A368-0DE96E47012E}
Pictures,{33E28130-4E1E-4676-835A-98395C3BC3BB}
Profile,{5E6C858F-0E22-4760-9AFE-EA3317B67173}
ProgramFilesCommon,{F7F1ED05-9F6D-47A2-AAAE-29D317C6F066}
ProgramFilesCommonX64,{6365D5A7-0F0D-45E5-87F6-0DA56B6A4F7D}
ProgramFilesCommonX86,{DE974D24-D9C6-4D3E-BF91-F4455120B917}
ProgramFilesX86,{7C5A40EF-A0FB-4BFC-874A-C0F2E0B9FA8E}
Public,{DFDF76A2-C82A-4D63-906A-5644AC457385}
PublicDesktop,{C4AA340D-F20F-4863-AFEF-F87EF2E6BA25}
PublicDesktop,{C4AA340D-F20F-4863-AFEF-F87EF2E6BA25}
PublicDocuments,{ED4824AF-DCE4-45A8-81E2-FC7965083634}
PublicDownloads,{3D644C9B-1FB8-4f30-9B45-F670235F79C0}
PublicGameTasks,{DEBF2536-E1A8-4c59-B6A2-414586476AEA}
PublicLibraries,{48DAF80B-E6CF-4F4E-B800-0E69D84EE384}
PublicMusic,{3214FAB5-9757-4298-BB61-92A9DEAA44FF}
PublicPictures,{B6EBFB86-6907-413C-9AF7-4FC2ABF07CC5}
PublicRingtones,{E555AB60-153B-4D17-9F04-A5FE99FC15EC}
PublicVideos,{2400183A-6185-49FB-A2D8-4A392A602BA3}
RoamingAppData,{3EB685DB-65F9-4CF6-A03A-E3EF65729F3D}
SampleMusic,{B250C668-F57D-4EE1-A63C-290EE7D1AA1F}
SamplePictures,{C4900540-2379-4C75-844B-64E6FAF8716B}
SamplePlaylists,{15CA69B3-30EE-49C1-ACE1-6B5EC372AFB5}
SampleVideos,{859EAD94-2E85-48AD-A71A-0969CB56A6CD}
UserProfiles,{0762D272-C50A-4BB0-A382-697DCD729B80}
Videos,{18989B1D-99B5-455B-841C-AB7C74E4DDFC}
Windows,{F38BF404-1D43-42F2-9305-67DE0B28FC23}

Entering Custom Path:

If your desired location is not one of the folder paths given above, you can also manually enter the path to save screenshots. But here instead of editing the value of ParentFolder sring, you need to edit the value of RelativePath string.

For example if you want to save the screenshots to your Dropbox or Skydrive folder then you can enter the following paths to save screenshots in those folders. Note that here we are assuming that both the Dropbox or Skydrive folder are located in your C:\Users\{username}\Skydrive if your desired folder is located somewhere else, you can simply enter the path of that folder in your dialogue box and it will work.

So to save images in your Skydrive folder which is located at C:\Users\{username}\Skydrive\ you can enter the following path as: