The Windows Club

TheWindowsClub covers authentic Windows 11, Windows 10 tips, tutorials, how-to's, features, freeware. Created by Anand Khanse, MVP.

Screenshots not saving in Pictures folder in Windows 11

Download Windows Speedup Tool to fix errors and make PC run faster

Till Windows 7, we had to rely upon third-party tools to capture the current window or screen snapshot called screenshots, but with Windows 11 or Windows 10, taking screenshots isn’t an issue. To capture the whole screen at once, you need to just press Windows Key + PrintScreen or Windows Key + Fn + PrintScreen key combination on the keyboard. While capturing screenshots, your laptop dims, and then you can find the screenshot captured in the Screenshots folder under the Pictures library.

But what if you press the above-mentioned keyboard combinations, Windows captures the screenshot, but it is not being saved. This will, of course, disappoint you, but if it is really important, you can just open Paint (native image editor in Windows) and press Ctrl + V (paste), and you’ll now see the captured screenshot inside Paint in editing mode –  which you can save as an image in your desired format. Anyway, let’s stick to the topic and find out how to fix the issue so that Windows can save the screenshots directly inside the Pictures library.

Windows 11 not saving captured Screenshots in Pictures folder

If Windows 11/10 not saving captured Screenshots in the Pictures – Screenshots folder, do the following:

  1. Press Win+R to open the Run prompt.
  2. Type regedit > press the Enter button > click the Yes option.
  3. Go to Explorer in HKCU.
  4. Right-click on it and new New > DWORD (32-bit) Value.
  5. Name it as ScreenshotIndex.
  6. Double-click on it and select the Decimal option.
  7. Enter 695 as the Value data.
  8. Click the OK button.
  9. Go to the User Shell Folders.
  10. Double-click on {B7BEDE81-DF94-4682-A7D8-57A52620B86F}.
  11. Enter this: %USERPROFILE%\Pictures\Screenshots
  12. Click the OK button.

To learn more about these steps, continue reading.

1. Create a system restore point first and then press Windows Key + R combination, type put Regedt32.exe in the Run dialog box and hit Enter to open the Registry Editor.

2. Navigate to the following location:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer

Fix-Captured-Screenshots-Arent-Saved-In-Windows-8

3. In the right pane of this location look for the ScreenshotIndex named DWORD (REG_DWORD).

Since you’re facing the issue of screenshots not being saved, you’ll find this DWORD missing.

To create the same using Right-click > New > DWORD Value. Double click on the same DWORD to modify its Value data.

Fix-Captured-Screenshots-Arent-Saved-In-Windows-8-1

4. In the above-shown box, first, select the Decimal base and then input the Value data as 695. Click OK.

Now to point out this registry DWORD to correct user profile settings, you should check out the User Shell Folders entry inside Registry Editor. So move here:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\User Shell Folders

Fix-Captured-Screenshots-Arent-Saved-In-Windows-8-1-2

5. In the right pane of this location, click on the {B7BEDE81-DF94-4682-A7D8-57A52620B86F} entry which is an expandable string (REG_EXPAND_SZ). Make sure it points to the following Value data:

%USERPROFILE%\Pictures\Screenshots

Fix-Captured-Screenshots-Arent-Saved-In-Windows-8-1-3

After confirming the Value data, you can close the Registry Editor and reboot. Now, try to capture screenshots, you’ll observe that screenshots got saved where they should be, which means the issue has been resolved.

Read: Snipping Tool not saving screenshots on Windows 11

Why my screenshot is not saving?

There could be different reasons why your computer is not saving your screenshots upon clicking the Win+PrintScreen button. However, one of the reasons might be the wrong Value data in the Registry file. For that, you need to open the ScheenshotIndex REG_DWORD value and enter 695. You can also check the aforementioned guide to know more about this.

How do I change where my screenshots are saved Windows 11?

To change the default location of where your screenshots are saved, you need to change the location of the Pictures Library folder. It is possible to change the default save location for Pictures, and it is via Registry Editor. Once you change the default save location, your computer will automatically save your screenshots in the new location.

Why can’t I find my screenshots?

Some of the reasons for not finding your screenshots on Windows 11/10 are changing the location of your default folder, Pictures, and corrupted registry file. As mentioned earlier, if the registry file doesn’t contain the correct Value data, you might confront the issues as stated here.

NOTE: Please also read the comments below for more ideas.

Check this post if you want to change the Print Screen folder location in Windows.

KapilArya@TWC

An Electrical Engineer by profession, Kapil is a Microsoft MVP and a Windows Insider MVP. Please read the entire post & the comments first & create a system restore point before making any changes to your system.

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Ana says

    Thank you so much!!! I actually had to add in the {B7BEDE81-DF94-4682-A7D8-57A52620B86F} string because I’d deleted the screenshot folder before by accident. Your blog post provided easy to follow instructions and did the trick!

  2. Carpenter says

    This actually works!! and worked well !!! just a side note: the decimal number will correspond to the generic screenshot number 695..696..etc.., I made mine (decimal) 6…I already had 5 other screenshots before my registry became compromised. And I suggest absolutely following the registry file location. if you want to change the screenshot location, do so through the properties box… Thank You KaprilArya, ive been searching for this fix for quite a while..Im disturbed that the best I could get out of tech support was an OEM restart. Good Luck to all….Always Learning.

  5. Farhad says

    Thank you for the writeup.
    I did exactly as per your writeup.
    The problem that I am experiencing though, is that I can only locate screenshots taken by going to:
    Local Disc (C:), Users, User’s name, My pictures, Screenshots.
    I can’t see any screenshots taken by going to the Pictures app on the Home screen on Windows 8.
    I was able to see my Screenshots before by clicking on the Pictures app on the Home screen.
    Please help.

  6. JHT says

    Step complete through # 4 but the string in #5 is missing. I confirm the value data in the DWord as 695 (Decimal) I see another user added the string, but I don’t know how to do that. Can anyone help?

  10. Snehil says

    Thanku :D . your blog provided the easiest way and its a very nice app . was looking for it from quite some time

  12. Patrick Spud Gordon says

    Hi Aditi, that was also my problem so I did right click, New, Ezpandable String Value and then copied the info exactly as above. Oh and if you need the curly brackets for the string name you can press Alt+123 { and Alt+125 } It worked perfectly for me :)

  15. cme5 says

    I had no Screenshots folder at all so I tried this precisely. It did not work. There is still no Screenshots folder appearing in my Pictures folder. Do you have any suggestions? Thanks.

  17. Denes Papp says

    God bless u, I struggled with this problem for months without finding a solution. The {B7BEDE81-DF94-4682-A7D8-57A52620B86F} key pointed to an unmounted drive and the picture saving process failed silently. Please note, ScreenshotIndex key can be any number, it’s just the screenshot counter for the file names

  18. nasdaq says

    Nice! This article is of great help. And we can also use third-party tools to take screenshot, for they let users customize any folder to save the screenshots.

  20. Justin says

    Thanks for your help, but it still is not taking screenshots. What can I do now? I have followed all these prompts too, and double checked them… Cheers

  21. Sandy says

    Did all the steps as stated above. Couldn’t find step 4 so I had to added it and had to do the same with step 5. Still not working. What else can I do?

  22. Sandy says

    Actually, it’s working now. I didn’t realize that I had to press the FN key as well. Thanks!

  23. maritimer4ever says

    Would recommend one thing, back up the registry in “case” you mess up this process. You go to the “file” of the opened registry, export to a selected saved location, that is now your back up. To restore open the registry, go to file and import the back up you made earlier.

  24. Glenn Dixon says

    So evidently I changed this at some point when I was splitting and then merging user profiles. Then I forgot about it. Found all my screenshots under /Users/Public/… Mystery solved, thanks!

  25. Lynda Tietjen says

    Yes, it seems that I have a BIG problem. Followed all the steps through 3, creating the ScreenshotIndex. When I went to try to find the user shells, however, I couldn’t find the {B7DE (etc)} thing. I DID, however, find it by a search, and it came up in FolderDescriptions. Also, all the capitalized letters are lowercase on the one I found. When I click on the one I found, this is what came up:

    When I click on UserShellFolders, this is what comes up:
    It also won’t let me write an expandable string to the registry; it says “error creating value, cannot create value: error writing to the registry. I don’t want to fool around with the registry unless I’m SURE what I’m doing will work. So now what?

  27. Dawn Shofner says

    Hello – The problem I keep experiencing is that the windows key/print screen key combo to take screenshots just up and quits working. It will be fine then I go to take a screenshot and it has stopped functioning (page does not dim & no screenshot taken). I have to restart my computer to get it to work again. If you have any ideas as to why this keeps happening and how I can repair it – I would be most appreciative.

  28. Robin MC says

    Right click > New > Add the value thing. For me it even worked without changing the fifth string.

  29. Robin MC says

    You don’t HAVE to press the fn key, it’s either Win + PrntScr or Win + Fn + PrntScr

  31. edward sciano says

    Hi:
    Can’t save a screenshot on my win 10 PC – but my wife can on the same pc with her win 10 desktop. Tried the settings here, seems to make no difference. By the way, it worked fine up until Aug 1, then stopped. Any thoughts appreciated.

    Ed

  32. Tom U says

    Hi, I am having the same problem as cme5 i.e. missing B7….. registry entry. However unlike cme5 I do not have the skill set to add this reg. entry. Can someone step me through the add process. Thanks.

  35. Mike says

    Has anyone figured out why the procedure to modify the Registry does not resolve the problem. I performed the process to a tee on my Windows 10,and still not saving the screenshot. In my case, I can actually see the count in the registry “ScreenshotIndex” get updated for each Win + PrtScr, yet nothing is ever saved. I performed a search on the entire “C” drive without any hits in the case it was saved somewhere else.

  37. itsparadoxical says

    I spent several hours on this yesterday, and eventually just got it to work. I ended up following the steps above, by deleting the existing registry folders and recreating them as indicated in this tutorial. This started with deleting the existing screencaps folder in pictures and starting fresh. In addition to the tutorial’s guided changes to the “User Shell Folders” I also created a file in the “Shell Folders” area to match the format of the “Downloads” folder setup, because there was not one in there. (I noticed the arrangement for the Downloads folder was tracking similarly to the setup of the Screencap folder.)

    Then, I could see the photo index number changing, and could paste the screen grabs in paint (etc.), but they were not autosaving. Today I went back through and the final piece to make it work was auditing the permissions for the pictures folder and re-saving them to make sure I had full access, then doing the same for screen caps. A change consistent to BOTH folders was that they were set to read only for some reason (the read only box was checked). Although the Pictures folder settings said I had full access, I still unclicked and relicked a few boxes and applied the changes. Then I moved on to the screen caps folder. On that one, the permissions were again set at read only, and I also did not have write access as a non-admin user. I fixed that up, applied the changes, and it all worked perfectly! HOURS AND HOURS spent on this problem, and I am VERY relieved to have it working again. Thank you for this tutorial! I still had to play around, but you showed me the core pieces that I NEVER would have gotten to on my own. (And MS tech support was clueless and completely useless…big surprise.) Thank you!

  38. Ashly Nichole Peterson says

    In case someone else finds this and has trouble. When I installed Windows 10, I didn’t bother doing a clean update. I know, a faux pas…and it did cause me trouble, specifically with my permissions. I followed this guide to a T and still didn’t have it working. Every time I tried to do anything in that folder (like make the screen shots folder, and then later when I tried to delete it) it told me I needed to approve of the action because I didn’t have administrator rights to the folder. I right clicked on it and went to Security and gave full control to everything. Voila, I was able to save screen shots. This post did help me though because I didn’t have the {B7….} string.

  39. Isabelle Mullaley says

    I have the same problem. I am using Windows 10 and it is not taking screenshots at all. I got through to step 2 but don’t have the option ‘screenshothotindes’

  40. Michael Stanaland says

    check your folder permissions right click go to properties click security hit edit make sure every one in group and user names have full control make sure its applied to all sub-folders.

  41. Michael Stanaland says

    i didn’t need step 5 in windows 10 i actually deleted it from the registry and made sure every one had full control in the pictures folder properties

  42. memorymad says

    I had to add the UUID {B7BEDE81-DF94-4682-A7D8-57A52620B86F} because it was missing.
    It’s working now.
    Thank you very much!
    Note: Don’t forget to push and . Only pushing only put one image in the clipboard!

  43. Vlad Zotta says

    Thanks! I had the same problem after migrating from 8 to 10 (on 8 it used to work flawlessly). After doing the steps here, if it’s still not working, check your permission for either the Pictures folder or the Screenshots one. Giving full control solved the problem.

  44. Jimmy Mcloed says

    Thank you sir , you really really made my day with this fix , everywhere that i go i got people i know who got people they know

  46. Undergamer1 says

    Well incase anyone else needs help for the problem I had I’ll leave it here *puts on cape*So my problem was that despite the screen dimming when I pressed win+prnt screen no pictures appeared.So what I need you guys to do (if you have my problem) is to do what is said above to the 3rd step and go to ScreenshotIndex(my screenshotindex wass till there but my B7DE….wasnt) and in edit DWORD put the number of latest screenshot file there,mine was showing 167 while I had 412 screenies anddd boom lo and behold screenshots once more!

  48. Marja says

    Hi, i cant get the second HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionExplorer

    pls. can u tell me where is it , i cant find it .

  51. Chrisovitsiotis Yiannis says

    Unfortunately it doesn’t work for me. Don’t know why. I had to add the {B7BEDE81-DF94-4682-A7D8-57A52620B86F} string as it was not present. Still no cigar… Any thoughts?

  55. NAGARJUNA says

    i have executed all the steps in precise and restarted the pc then also screenshots could be taken.please suggested any other procedure mr.kapil.

  56. ToyAkz General says

    Great!! works fine.
    Thanks to step 4: I just trace the default directory,. I forgot I move it to other folder. Now I remember #LOL

    really helps! :D
    but me ask if
    that thing in step 4:
    HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionExplorerUser Shell Folders
    #highLightened ?

    I just delete it before I manually move it to the default directory (User/Pictures/Screenshots) using window explorer. I wonder if it would be harmful?

    #apologize for my English^_^
    #reply would be appreciated! thank

  58. Joel Gardner says

    in step 3, the DWORD or REG_DWORD was there (it wasn’t missing) so what do i do? my laptop used to take screenshots until like 5 months ago (i realized today that no screenshots had been saved in 5 months THE HARD WAY) so what should i do right now?

  59. Peter says

    If I take a screenshot of a window (Alt-PrtSc) then it does save to the Screenshots folder, but if I take a screenshot of the entire desktop (Win-PrtSc) then it does not.
    The screenshotindex value was correct, but the {B7BEDE81-DF94-4682-A7D8-57A52620B86F} was missing, and I’ve added it without any change.

  60. Bob Hennessy says

    The {B7BEDE81-DF94-4682-A7D8-57A52620B86F} string doesn’t exist in the appropriate folder, can you tell me how to add it?

  61. Bob Hennessy says

    Hi Ana………can you explain how to add that string. I have the same problem.

  63. Ellie says

    Thanks for the post. I followed the clear instructions and discovered the {B7BEDE81-DF94-4682-A7D8-57A52620B86F} entry was missing after a Windows update. Everything is A-Okay now! Thanks mucho!!

  66. Drew The Phoenix says

    Oddly it worked for a little bit but now it wont work even spamming buttons and even the picture route isnt workinf. What so I do?

  67. Mariah Harris says

    When I take a screenshot, I can paste the picture in a word document, but still the screenshot doesn’t flash when I take a screenshot and it still does not end up in my screenshot folder.

  68. HighOnHentai says

    Still dosen’t work when you do “ctrl+alt+prt sc” which is for when you got dual screens and only want to screen one of them.

  69. anush says

    i dont hav the screeshot index in HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionExplorer

  70. Zoli Nagy says

    If i set screenshot index as decimal and click ok, it automatically changes it back to hexadecimal or tf. HALP

  71. Sunil Saundarya says

    {B7BEDE81-DF94-4682-A7D8-57A52620B86F} is showing in my pc .what to do plz…

  72. SuriViruS says

    Thnx, god knows why the number 695 was not explained in the article…

  75. SuriViruS says

    AS WRITTEN IN THE ARTICLE:

    “Since you’re facing the issue of screenshots not being saved, you’ll find this DWORD missing. So create the same using Right click -> New -> DWORD Value. Double click on the same DWORD to modify its Value data:”

    Wtf is wrong with you ? that was rhetorical…

  77. Abby Mae Kee Garcia says

    I followed the steps you gave but there’s no {B7BEDE81-DF94-4682-A7D8-57A52620B86F} in the User Shell Folders, what am I gonna do now?

  78. Shiben Chakravorty says

    {B7BEDE81-DF94-4682-A7D8-57A52620B86F} DOESN’T exist in my user shell folders!!! HELP!

  81. aditya says

    Thanks alot man…I had no idea what I did ..I followed your steps and its working..thanks ..The final step was the problem in my system.

  82. Chuly Destiel97 says

    Did you solve this? It’s exactly whats happening to me.. if you did please tell me how! Thanks!!

  84. RC says

    Thank you so much! This was easy to follow and all fixed in 5 minutes, thanks again =)
    (From reading previous comments, I also had to add {B7BEDE81-DF94-4682-A7D8-57A52620B86F} but apart from that, it was as you outlined)

  85. Bettina Bianca Francisco says

    I’m not sure I understand Step 5. Do we copy “%USERPROFILE%PicturesScreenshots”? As it is??

  89. senith says

    thank u so much brow…!!!! and .. easiest way to restore ur screenshot folder… please follow these steps… itll be awesome… > Restart your computer once!!!

  92. Sirius says

    Thank you, followed all the instructions here but it still did not work then I read the comments that said to check the permissions on the pictures folder. Changed the permission to full control for all home users and it is finally working. So much time will be saved now!

  93. Sirius says

    Same thing here, I followed the instructions in the article on windows 10 and it didn’t work. Until reading comments like these about the permissions. The permissions is key!

  95. Sirius says

    Right Click the Pictures folder, then click Properties, click the “security” tab in the window that pops up. click the edit button under group or user names then just click allow box next to “full control”. Do it for the users listed under “group or user names” then hit OK when you’re done.

  96. Hemanth Sagar says

    i am unable to post a screenshot but all my allow boxes are checked in and greyed out….not able to edit them….
    anyways all of them are checked
    but still it doesnt work

  98. Ralph Price says

    TIP: Download this tool to quickly find & fix Windows errors automatically IS A LINK WITH MALWARE

  99. Curt85 says

    I followed the instructions exactly but I still don’t get screenshots saved to my screenshot folder automatically, or anywhere else that I can tell. My OS is Wni 7 Professional. I made the re-edits from the User account which needs it. Although it is not a super user account, the register changes are present after rebooting. Any other suggestions (besides up grading to Win 10, this laptop probably won’t handle it).

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *