macOScleanupstorageFinderautomation

How to Delete Screenshots on Mac: All at Once or by Date

Name: Pizazoo
Author: Pizazoo

Bulk delete screenshots on Mac with Finder search, a Smart Folder or a date filter, free up space, and automate cleanup with Shortcuts on macOS 26 and 27.

October 6, 20267 min read

Muhammed BasilFounder & maker of Pizazoo

To delete screenshots on a Mac, find them in Finder, select them, press Command-Delete to move them to the Trash, then empty the Trash so the space actually comes back. A saved search (Smart Folder) gathers every screenshot in one place, a date rule handles "everything older than last year", and Shortcuts can run the cleanup on a schedule. The steps below apply to macOS 26 Tahoe and macOS 27.

We make Pizazoo, a screenshot organizer for Mac. It comes up near the end; every built-in method here works without it.

How do I delete all screenshots on my Mac at once?

A Finder search is the quickest built-in way to bulk delete screenshots. Apple's Mac User Guide for macOS 27 says screenshots are saved as .png files whose names begin with "Screenshot" and include the date and time (Apple: Take screenshots on Mac).

Open a Finder window and press Command-F. At the top, choose This Mac, or the folder your screenshots save to (the Desktop by default).
Type Screenshot in the search field and pick the Name matches suggestion, so Finder checks filenames rather than file contents.
Click the Add button (+) below the search field, choose Kind in the first pop-up menu, then Image in the second. This leaves out screen recordings, which are .mov files named "Screen Recording" (Apple: Narrow your search results in Finder).
Look through the results, press Command-A to select them all, then press Command-Delete to move them to the Trash.
Click the Trash in the Dock, then click Empty in the upper-right corner of the window, or choose Finder > Empty Trash (Apple: Delete files and folders on Mac).

Two catches. Older versions of macOS named files "Screen Shot" (two words), and Apple's own screenshot support article still shows that form, so run a second search for it. And if your Mac is set to another language, the prefix is translated, so search for whatever word your screenshot files actually start with.

Emptying the Trash is permanent: Apple warns that emptied items are no longer available. If you're unsure about a batch, leave it in the Trash for now; you can select anything there and choose File > Put Back.

How do I find every screenshot, even ones I renamed?

A name search misses screenshots you renamed. macOS also marks each screenshot it saves with a hidden metadata attribute, kMDItemIsScreenCapture, that is stored on the file itself, so it stays with the file when you rename or move it. Finder accepts it as a search term:

Press Command-F in Finder, choose This Mac, type kMDItemIsScreenCapture:1 in the search field, then press Return.
Add a Kind is Image rule with the Add button (+) if you only want still images.
Click Save, name it something like "All Screenshots" and keep Add To Sidebar selected. Finder stores it as a Smart Folder that updates itself as screenshots come and go (Apple: Create or change a Smart Folder).

Apple's user guide doesn't document this attribute; the search trick has circulated for years (OSXDaily). Before you select everything and delete, check two things:

A This Mac search also turns up screenshots stored inside other apps' folders, such as message attachments or project assets. Select a result to see where it lives in the path bar at the bottom of the window, and leave anything inside another app's data alone.
Third-party capture apps may or may not set the flag, so confirm their files show up before you rely on it.

Deleting from a Smart Folder moves the real files to the Trash. The Smart Folder itself is only a saved search.

How do I delete screenshots older than a certain date?

Add a date rule to either search above:

Click the Add button (+), choose Created date in the first pop-up menu, set it to before and enter a date.
Or type criteria straight into the search field. Apple's examples include kind:images created:8/16/24 for one day and modified:<=7/29/24 for on or before a date (dates follow your region's format).

Then select the results, press Command-Delete and empty the Trash. To keep a few, Command-click them to deselect before you delete. If you can't tell what's safe to remove, finding old screenshots by date or content first makes the decision easier.

Why are screenshots taking up so much space on my Mac?

Each screenshot is a full-resolution image of your display, so a few thousand of them add up. On macOS Ventura 13 or later, you can see what's using space in Apple menu > System Settings > General > Storage (Apple: Free up storage space on Mac). Two things catch people out:

Moving files to the Trash frees nothing until you empty it.
Items moved to the Trash from iCloud Drive are removed after 30 days regardless of Finder settings, but items from your Mac stay until you empty the Trash yourself or turn on automatic removal.

If the pile is so large you don't know what's in it, start with cleaning up an overflowing screenshots folder or organizing 3,000+ screenshots before you delete anything.

Can a Mac delete screenshots automatically?

Not out of the box: macOS has no setting that deletes screenshots after a set time. Two built-in pieces get you close. Finder can empty the Trash for you (Finder > Settings > Advanced > "Remove items from the Trash after 30 days"), and Shortcuts on macOS 26 and 27 can run a cleanup shortcut on a schedule or when a screenshot is saved (Apple: What's new in Shortcuts 27). The step-by-step setup, with safe options that move files to the Trash instead of deleting them outright, is in how to auto delete screenshots on iPhone and Mac.

How does Pizazoo handle deleting screenshots?

We make Pizazoo. It's a Mac app (macOS 14 Sonoma or later) that watches your screenshot folders, copies each new screenshot into its own library, makes the text inside searchable on device and sorts it into categories. A few parts help with cleanup:

A Trash with restore. Screenshots you delete in Pizazoo go to its Trash first, where you can Restore them or choose Delete Permanently. You can select many at once.
Discard at capture time. After each screenshot, a review popup lets you keep, recategorize, tag or discard it. Discarding a throwaway capture sends it to Pizazoo's Trash right away.
Delete by what's inside. Every screenshot is searchable by its text and sorted into categories such as Code, Receipts, Chats or Errors, so you can pull up the batch you no longer need (say, every error screenshot from a bug you've closed) and delete it in one pass.

One thing to know: deleting inside Pizazoo removes Pizazoo's copy, not the original file in your screenshots folder. With default settings each screenshot exists twice, so deleting in Pizazoo alone won't shrink that folder. The original goes away only if you turn on Delete originals after import in Settings > Capture. That keeps the Desktop clear, but use it carefully: when it's on, original files are permanently deleted from the source folder after import, and this cannot be undone. Turn it on only once you're happy for Pizazoo's library to be the one place your screenshots live.

The free version includes the Trash, the review popup and text search. Download Pizazoo if that workflow suits you.