Save a clipboard image to computer on macOS

• May 01, 2026 at 21:55 IST
• 1 min read
• macos

I take a lot of screenshots and most of the time keep them in my clipboard and then paste wherever needed, like on socials or in AI coding tools when working. But sometimes, I also need to save those images locally on my computer, and till now I have been doing one of these two things:

1. Either take the screenshot once again, or
2. Paste images somewhere like on Imgur, and then save by using "save image as" feature

Silly, but yes.

However, I recently found out a trick that works like a charm, at least on macOS. The process is:

1. Open the Preview app, you can do so by searching for Preview via Spotlight search
2. Press cmd + n and you should already see the image from your clipboard

Now, just save it using cmd + s or however you want to, as you see in the screenshot here.

It works as expected and even gives you image format you want to save your screenshots as.

TIL.