Since macOS Mojave, Apple has included a highly useful screenshot utility. However, a feature introduced alongside it can be mildly annoying: the floating thumbnail. Whenever you take a screenshot (using Cmd+Shift+3 or Cmd+Shift+4), a small preview thumbnail of that image appears in the bottom-right corner of your screen and hovers there for about five seconds before finally saving itself to your desktop. While this allows you to quickly click the thumbnail to edit or share the image, it delays the file creation process. If you take screenshots in rapid succession, you might even accidentally capture the floating thumbnail in your next shot.
How to Disable the Floating Thumbnail
Disabling this hover feature forces macOS to instantly save the image file directly to your desktop the exact millisecond you press the screenshot shortcut, just like it did on older versions of OS X.
- Press the keyboard shortcut Command (⌘) + Shift + 5. This will not take a screenshot immediately; instead, it will open the macOS Screen Capture control panel overlay at the bottom of your screen.
- On this control panel, look for the button labelled Options and click it.
- A pop-up menu will appear with various settings for saving and timing your captures.
- Look near the bottom of this menu for an option labelled Show Floating Thumbnail.
- If there is a checkmark next to it, click Show Floating Thumbnail to uncheck and disable the feature.
- Click the small ‘X’ icon on the far left of the control panel, or simply press the Escape key on your keyboard to close the overlay.
The setting is saved instantly. The next time you press Command+Shift+3 or Command+Shift+4, you will hear the camera shutter sound, but no thumbnail will appear in the corner. The image file will generate on your desktop immediately, allowing for a much faster workflow.