Do you want to turn off the screenshot thumbnails that show up on the Mac screen? You may have noticed that if you take a screenshot on Mac a little screenshot thumbnail preview pops up in the bottom right corner of the display and floats there for a few seconds. You can interact with that little thumbnail to quickly markup a screenshot, but showing those screenshot thumbnails also appears too slow down how long it takes for the actual screen shot file to generate and be available to the file system.

If you want to disable the screenshot thumbnail preview in Mac OS, this article will show you how to do that.

How to Turn Off Screenshot Preview Thumbnails on Mac

• From the Finder of Mac OS, go to the /Applications/ folder and then to /Utilities/ and open the “Screenshot.app” application

• Click on the “Options” menu in the screenshot toolbar

• Uncheck the option for “Show Floating Thumbnail” to disable the screenshot preview

• Exit out of Screenshot app when finished

With ‘Show Floating Thumbnail’ disabled, the screenshot previews will no longer appear, and the screenshot that has been snapped will be created and appear almost instantly in the Finder, much like in earlier MacOS versions.

For those who are wondering, the Mac ‘Screenshot’ application takes the place of the “Grab” app in modern MacOS versions, and it has other handy features too that make it easy to change some screenshot options that used to require the Terminal and defaults commands. For example you no longer have to use a defaults write command to change the screenshot file save location, and you can also set a timer and mouse pointer option for screenshots too just like you could in the Grab app. You will still need to use a defaults write command to change the screenshot image file format or screenshot file names however.

How to Re-Enable Screenshot Thumbnail Previews on Mac

1. Open the “Screenshot.app” application from Spotlight or the Applications/Utilities/ folder
2. Click the “Options” menu and check the option for “Show Floating Thumbnail” to enable the screenshot preview
3. Exit out of Screenshot app

With the floating thumbnail option re-enabled, screenshot previews will show up again, and there will be a delay before screenshot files appear in the Finder and to the file system again.

You may have noticed a similar screenshot preview on iPhone and iPad as well, but in the iOS / iPadOS side of things there is currently no method to disable that screenshot preview, as this option remains only on the Mac. Instead on the iPhone and iPad you can simply swipe or push the thumbnail aside to dismiss it, a trick that also works to dismiss the screenshot floating preview on Mac as well.