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Can OS X's Grab utility be made to save images in formats other than .tiff? I'm specifically looking to extend / adjust Grab for the sake of a quick, short workflow, rather than looking for another tool to use.

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What kind of file are you wanting?

If you use the built-in screenshot shortcuts (⌘-Shift-3 / 4) it will save the screenshots by default as .png files. You can find more about this by checking out the SuperUser question: How to take screenshots in Mac OS X?

You can also adjust the file type saved by the screenshot shortcuts (and screencapture on the command line) by running: defaults write com.apple.screencapture type image_format in the Terminal where image_format can be jpg, pdf, png, tiff, and a few others. You'll need to log out and log back in for this to take effect.

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I would usually like .pngs, but as importantly I'd like to change type as and when I choose. I am grateful for your answer, but I am usually using Grab and would particularly like to change it's file type if possible. – Ollie Glass Jul 22 '10 at 1:24
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@Ollie G - Grab only saves as .tiff files. – Chealion Jul 22 '10 at 3:10
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up vote 2 down vote

No, but you can use Preview to convert the image. If you're doing this as part of a workflow, you could use Automator to do the conversation automatically.

If you want a screenshot in PNG format, you can use ⌘+Shift+3 to take the screenshot.

Using Automator

The Automator utility has a task called "Change Type of Images" that takes in a set of images and converts them into another file format. You could create a Workflow or even a Folder Action (possibly attached to the Desktop folder) that would allow you to drop the images onto the workflow and convert them automatically.

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Actually I am currently using Preview to convert the images. Could you expand on how this could be done with Automator? – Ollie Glass Jul 22 '10 at 1:25
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Sure, I updated my answer. – mipadi Jul 22 '10 at 14:48
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