I made my screenshots autosave to tmpfs (retrolemmy.com)

submitted 4 days ago by Die4Ever@retrolemmy.com to c/linux@programming.dev

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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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[-] tom_s@friendica.ambag.es 1 points 4 days ago

@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.

[-] Die4Ever@retrolemmy.com 1 points 4 days ago

Because /tmp/ is accessible by any user

[-] Ghoelian@piefed.social 2 points 4 days ago

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.

this post was submitted on 30 Jul 2026

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