[jeff k]

I asked this years ago and the answer was no. Still drive sme mad. I have no interest in saving to Documents. I save to Desktop. Thanks!

[Spheric Harlot]

This is an individual application's preference. If individual applications aren't defaulting to the last-used save location and don't have a preference to change that, take it up with the application developer.

The only way to set this globally (though it boggles the mind that people still save everything on the desktop, like in the early 90s) is, and has been for decades, DefaultFolderX

Default Folder X Features
$35 for a single-user license.

[jeff k]

Thanks S, I don't save everything to desktop, maybe 50% of things. Some apps are sometimes smart, Photoshop is sometimes smart, usually not. So it's the apps, excel, word etc that is saving to documents not the Mac OS?

[P]

Not sure if I mentioned this at the time, but the way I do it is to place commonly used save locations as aliases in Documents.

(Personally I save things to the desktop when they should be in some odd location,because it is usually easier to file them using the Finder, but YMMV).

[jeff k]

Thanks P, did not understand that too much..

I think its 80% word, excel I'm saving quicktly to desktop. Amazing, but those don't have option to save to desktop?

I downloaded default folder, to test --have no idea how to use it yet...

And it's amazing the OS does not offer a default save to desktop no?

[Spheric Harlot]

Why should it? Pictures should be saved in ~/Pictures. Music files in ~/Music. Movies in ~/Movies. Other documents in ~/Documents.

[jeff k]

S I do save itunes library in music, but for some reason have never used those other folders.

I actually have a folder called documents that comes after the root hardrive. Maybe I should have done it Apples way!

But that brings up a good points: my Documents is on my hard drive, not the Mac HD, which used to give one 100 gigs only when I set this up 10 years ago.

[andi*pandi]

I find that Word will save to desktop just fine; you have to expand the save window location to select it.

I also like and use lots of aliases to point things where I want to go.

[jeff k]

Thanks Andi,
Well yes, command D, and it changes to desktop, been doing that a long time. It's a nuisance, would be nice to just have it default to desktop. Not possible?

Is your alias trick, would that save to desktop without having to to the command D? thanks.

[Spheric Harlot]

No.

[DCJ001]

One option that you have is to drag any frequently-used location to the sidebar of a Finder window. Then, when you would like to Save a file to the location, you can Save, then select the location in the location in the sidebar, and you won't need to navigate to find a location every time that you Save a file.

Here is my Finder window:

https://s3.amazonaws.com/f.cl.ly/ite...2016.56.48.jpg

[Curiosity]

Why not create a download directory and set the browsers to use it? Works for me.

[Spheric Harlot]

Because this isn't about browser downloads. Those go to the downloads folder by default, not into Documents.