I made my screenshots autosave to tmpfs

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I take screenshots a lot using Spectacle, so I set my default save location to /run/user/1000/screenshots and made it autosave and copy to clipboard.

Since /run/user/1000/ is a tmpfs, it gets wiped on reboot, it doesn’t write to my SSD, and unlike /tmp/ it’s inaccessible by other users. I think it’s really convenient!

Anyone else doing this? I also often download zip files to /run/user/1000/screenshots so I can extract and delete the zip file without wasting SSD writes lol.

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I like to save my screenshots in case they become relevant, like so:

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30

“Relevant” comes from “relief” and somehow it’s exactly what your screenshot conveys. Pertinent.

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If anyone’s wondering, it’s a frame of the music video for A$AP Rocky’s “Tailor Swif”

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neat, thanks for sharing the idea

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It uses RAM, though. And if I’m not mistaken, it could write to swap file. But I guess it’s not an issue with screenshots unless one doesn’t make million of those without deleting them.

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OP edited

yea it does, but it’s pretty minimal

mine is at 3.7 MB with 23 png files (I always use the rectangle select, not full screenshot)

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That’s worth at least $100 with current RAM prices 😜

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How did you do that? Is there a configuration option in the GUI?

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OP

yea, in Spectacle click the Options, Configure Spectacle

in General, check “Save file to default folder”

and in Image Saving, set the Save Location

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@Die4Ever

Why don't use /tmp for this?

$ mount | grep /tmp
tmpfs on /tmp type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,nodev,relatime,inode64)

Devuan excalibur, Debian is the same.

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OP

Because /tmp/ is accessible by any user

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Don’t the screenshots get saved with your user as the owner? The only real difference is that other users can list your screenshots in /tmp afaict.

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@Die4Ever /tmp as a directory, yes. Rest depends on your settings and software.

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OP

I’d rather leave things as default when possible, /tmp/ being the public tmpfs and /run/user/1000/ being the private tmpfs

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@Die4Ever Thumbs up. I was reading, when will /tmp be cleaned without reboot, as default, is one day on debian. But for a workstation, you do not have to take care about this I think.

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