In this quick troubleshooting guide, we explain what to do if you take a screenshot on your Mac, but the saved file is grayed out and won’t open as an image.
When you take a screenshot, you expect the image to save to your desktop or the Finder folder you set as the save location.
However, if you haven’t restarted your Mac in a long time or Finder is glitching, the image file may appear as if it wasn’t saved as an image. Instead, it will be dimmed/grayed out and have a non-PNG extension like “png-urliu3” or something random. It may also have dots (or underscores) at the start of the file name, which makes macOS treat it as an invisible system file.
If you’re facing this problem, the fix is quick and easy. These fixes should also help if you downloaded a file using Safari, Chrome, or Firefox but it has a random extension and seems unusable.
Rename the file manually
This is the easiest fix, provided the dimmed-out screenshot file appears on the screen (if not, see the next tip: relaunch Finder).
Plus, this approach is practical only if one or a few screenshots have this issue. In case you took a bunch of screen captures, and they all have this problem, I recommend trying the next method first.
Simply select the dimmed-out file, press the return key to rename it as follows:
- Remove any extra dots, underscores, and text at the beginning of the file name before the word ‘Screenshot.’
- Remove any extra words after the actual ‘.png’ extension.
After renaming, confirm that you want to use the new extension by clicking “Use png.” The screenshot should be normal now, and you can open it in Preview, Photos, and other apps.
Relaunch Finder
Usually, the screenshot doesn’t save properly because of Finder glitches. Just relaunch Finder to fix this issue. This tip also helps if you take a screenshot, but the file seems absent.
- Click the Apple icon in the top left corner and select Force Quit.
- Select Finder and click Relaunch.
- Wait a couple of seconds, and your Finder windows should reopen. Check the previously problematic screenshot file; it should now be normal and ready to view and use.
Restart your Mac
This is another important solution if the problem keeps happening for new screenshots.
Save your ongoing work in other apps, then restart your Mac. Once booted, the screenshot problem should not affect you any longer, at least for the foreseeable future.
Update to the latest macOS version
If this screenshot issue keeps repeating every few days, make sure your Mac is running the latest version of macOS. Go to System Settings > General > Software Update to check for and install any available updates.
If you’re running macOS Developer or Public Beta software, consider unenrolling and switching to the normal version.
Check your Mac’s screenshot settings
You can tweak a lot of screenshot settings on your Mac, like removing shadows from window screenshots, changing the default naming scheme, and removing date and time from screenshot file names. Usually, these changes won’t cause any issues.
However, on certain macOS versions, changing the screenshot format from the default PNG to PDF or TIFF may lead to minor problems. If that’s you, consider switching back to PNG or JPG screenshot file formats.
Also, check out: How to quickly find all screenshots on your Mac