Choose folders and filenames#
New installs use Pictures\Hotshot in work/school OneDrive, or personal OneDrive if no work/school account is available. Without OneDrive, captures stay in local Pictures\Hotshot. Existing folder choices and files are never moved. Change it under General > Captures folder; canceling the picker keeps the current location.
Under File naming, set separate patterns for screenshots and recordings/GIFs. The live preview shows the result; the token dropdown includes examples and inserts a token at the cursor.
| Pattern | Example relative to your captures folder |
|---|---|
{yyyy}/{MM}/{timestamp} (default) |
2026\10\2026-10-11_14-30-05.png |
{app}\{timestamp} |
notepad\2026-10-11_14-30-05.png |
{date}-{counter:4} |
2026-10-11-0001.png |
Both / and \ create subfolders in a naming pattern. Hotshot supplies the file extension, sanitizes invalid filename characters, and adds a numeric suffix when a filename already exists.
All filename tokens
| Category | Tokens |
|---|---|
| Calendar | {yyyy}, {yy}, {MM}, {MMM}, {MMMM}, {dd}, {ddd} |
| Clock | {HH}, {hh}, {tt}, {mm}, {ss}, {fff} |
| Combined/custom time | {timestamp}, {date}, {time}, {unix}, {now:yyyyMMdd}; now: accepts custom .NET date formats |
| Capture context | {type}, {app}, {title}, {monitor}, {width}, {height} |
| Identifiers | {counter}, {counter:4}, {rand}, {rand:8}, {guid}, {computer}, {user} |
Counters are local to each machine; they are not a shared OneDrive sequence.