When Stage Manager is activated, it provides 3D previews of the spaces or stages on the left hand side that are always visible and take space but if you expand the current window over those spaces, they autohide and show up as 2D on top of the window if you move your pointer to the left edge of the screen so you can switch between them. My issue is that they hide immediately when I move the mouse even a little bit to the right but the correct behaviour would be to stay visible up until I move the pointer further away from the location so I can actually click them if I want. Here is a short clip demonstrating how it behaves: https://streamable.com/bv354m Here is a another one demonstrating how it is supposed to be: https://streamable.com/u51461 Over the years I might have fine tuned some settings through the defaults command in the terminal however deleting everything related from the ~/Library/Preferences folder did not help to resolve the issue. As I said, the Stage Manager works as expected a new user account and use it from there, which makes me to conclude that it's not a Beta related bug. Any idea how to fix that? PS: The OS is macOS 13.0 Ventura Beta 6 build 22A5331f

I have a Kensington Expert Mouse on the Mac running the latest 1.3 drivers. There still is no option to use the trackball to in addition to scroll vertically also scroll horizontally. Similar to the ball on the mighty mouse. Has anyone found a hidden setting that I could enable with the defaults write command?

I can read preferences from a domain, and I can read a single key deep, for example:

defaults read com.apple.Terminal "Window Settings"

However, I cannot dereference a key deeper than depth=1 with the defaults command. For example, I want to read the Basic under Window Settings. I would expect to be able to do something like this:

defaults read com.apple.Terminal "Window Settings" Basic

It looks like defaults only works with a fixed depth:

The domain/default pair of (com.apple.Terminal, Basic) does not exist

But surely I can use it to manipulate dictionaries? What utilities are available?

**Target OS:** Macos 10.15.3 Catalina **Goal:** use apple script bundled to app as a default web browser To debug I'm using very simple apple script, that just show passed url in dialog

on open location theURL
	display dialog "Passed url : " & theURL
end open location

I also added CFBundleURLTypes to Info.plist to claim binding to http\https url schemas

CFBundleURLTypes
	
		
			CFBundleURLName
			My test app url
			CFBundleURLSchemes
			
				http
				https

**The problem:** is that app is not showing up in 'Default web browser' combobox in System Preferences -> General I've tried to dump Launch Service database /System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Frameworks/LaunchServices.framework/Support/lsregister -dump And my app is present there. Also tried force register /System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Frameworks/LaunchServices.framework/Support/lsregister -v -f ./MyTestApp.app Also tried to sign my app by self issued signature. Nothing helped. **What could I miss?** Is there any additional configurations that should be done to let macos recognize my apple scrip app as possible default browser?

Is it possible to disable dictation from the command line, so that macOS never asks again if I want to enable it? I know that many such things can be done using defaults write but couldn't find the right key for dictation. I'm using macOS Mojave 10.14.5.

I want to set the default text editor for Makefiles to something like Atom or Sublime Text to make them easier to open, and so that when I edit remote Makefiles through CyberDuck they will open in one of these editors by default. Typically, I set a default file type's default 'open' app by right clicking -> Get Info -> Open With -> Change All However, every time I try to do this for files called 'Makefile', I get the following error: > An error occurred while changing the application that opens “Makefile” > because not enough information is available. > > Do you want to open “Makefile” with “Sublime Text.app”? Any ideas how to fix this? I am currently on OS X El Capitan 10.11.6

I use a number of defaults write commands for configuring Mac system settings. I have yet to find one for setting a solid background color for the Desktop. I've tried a few variations of com.apple.dock and com.apple.desktop but am unsure of the setting key. I would like to be able to set the background color with a hex color value. Something like defaults write com.apple.desktop backgroundColor '#a6889b'. Any ideas?

When in a browser (Chrome or Safari), the following keyboard shortcuts both launch the MacOS Mail app, and there doesn't seem to be any way to change or disable them. Command+I Command+Shift+I Cmd-I / ⌘-I is particularly annoying because of course that is much more often used to italicize text. Is there any way to disable this shortcut?

I have a bunch of .gitignore files, spread across multiple folders. I want to change the default app for all current and future .gitignore files. I tried to do this via Get Info -> Open with -> Sublime text -> Change All. I get the following error: >An error occurred while changing the application that opens ".gitignore" because not enough information is available. I tried to do this via duti and it didn't work. duti says that 'com.sublimetext.4' is associated with all .gitignore files: duti -x gitignore Sublime Text /Applications/Sublime Text.app com.sublimetext.4 but .gitignore (existing and new) files are still being opened with TextEdit.

I like to organise my files into folders, and because of this I'm not a fan of the drop-down list that appears by default when you save a file on MacOS. I usually want to put the file in a specific folder, which means I usually have to scroll to the bottom of the drop down list and click "other" to get to the full save dialog. I was able to fix that problem using the following commands in Terminal, from [this page](https://www.idownloadblog.com/2017/03/18/expand-save-dialog-default-mac/) :

defaults write NSGlobalDomain NSNavPanelExpandedStateForSaveMode -bool true
defaults write NSGlobalDomain NSNavPanelExpandedStateForSaveMode2 -bool true

These commands cause the full save file dialog to appear straight away when saving a file, skipping the drop-down list. However, this only affects the **Save As** dialog and not the **Move To** dialog. So if I download a file, open it in Preview, and then try to move it into a folder, I still get the drop down list. What I would like is to skip the drop down list in that case as well. Is it possible?

#### TL;DR In defaults write , how do I provide a `` that contains parens; i.e. "round" brackets, "(" and ")" ? #### Details I'm using defaults to redirect screen captures to a specific directory. That I can do fine, and have many times in the past, but I'm running into a problem when the target directory has parentheses in its pathname. So I'm doing something like: $ defaults write com.apple.screencapture location and I'm getting an error of the form: Could not parse: . Try single-quoting it. But I get that despite trying all of the following (and a bunch more besides). In this, assume the name of the (pre-existing) directory in question is, literally, dirname(with)parens. My attempts and responses: $ defaults write com.apple.screencapture location dirname\(with\)parens Could not parse: dirname(with)parens. Try single-quoting it. $ defaults write com.apple.screencapture location 'dirname\(with\)parens' Could not parse: dirname(with)parens. Try single-quoting it. And I repeated both, three times each, replacing the single \ with \\\\, \\\\\\, and \\\\\\\\. Same error. Notice however that the error does seem to suggest that the shell globbing itself is working fine, because 'defaults' is seeing the unescaped "(" and ")" correctly. And if directory name/path contains not parens but rather whitespace, then a simple \\-escape works fine (as does quoting). Finally, I observe that for shell commands, like "mkdir", either of \\-escaping parens, or quoting them, also work: $ mkdir dirname\(with\)parens $ ls -ld dirname* drwxr-xr-x 2 jonyive demigods 68 Oct 3 10:56 dirname(with)parens So a likely suspect is defaults itself. man defaults doesn't offer much, saying only that says only that, *"value must be a property list, and must be enclosed in single quotes"*. And even that's a lie. In practice it only *must* be in single quotes if it contains anything funky, and even there, if the funkiness is whitespace, \\-escaping will do. And of course, if the funkiness is parens, then not even single quoting appears to work. So, any ideas? Thanks! P.S. I'm aware of and have used workarounds. For example, I can create a non-troublesome symlink to the parens-infested actual directory, and just give defaults the symlink as the ``. But I'd really like to get to the bottom of this.

When I start a new Mac OS system from scratch, inside the keychain application I notice there are 3 certificates that are not trusted or not verified yet. I know I can double click each one of them and make them trusted for the entire system. But my question is what are those certificates for? What is the purpose of these certificates and should I make them trusted? or not? One certificate is located inside the Keychain under the Login section: **member: xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxx** (expire in one year from the current date) (this certificate has not been verified by a third party) The other 2 certificates are located inside the Keychain under the System section: **com.apple.kerberos.kdc** and **com.apple.systemdefault** (expires in 2040) (this certificate has not been verified by a third party.)

Does anybody know how to setup a smart folder as Finders default folder? If I try to select the smart folder in Finder settings, the "choose" button is deactivated like the screenshot shows:

I configured my Mac to show different wallpapers on each MacOS Space. Until now, I had the path to the wallpaper shown on the screen as well. I had done this by setting defaults write com.apple.dock desktop-picture-show-debug-text -bool TRUE;killall Dock However, since my update to MacOS 15.1, the path is not shown anymore, even after re-issuing the defaults write ... command. Any idea of what I could do to find out the path to the wallpaper in a certain MacOS Space? Note that defaults read com.apple.dock desktop-picture-show-debug-text displays 1, from which I conclude that the value was indeed set correctly. It just seems that Sequoia ignores it.

I've been looking at plist variables while trying to set the position and size of a window when the editor is launched. But I'm failing to guess or find the name of plist key for this. I was following similar advice here but without success so far. defaults read $HOME/Library/Containers/com.apple.TextEdit/Data/Library/Preferences/com.apple.TextEdit.plist HeightInChars I'm not working with multiple monitors which I hope makes it easier.

I'd like my text editor, Nova , to always show scroll bars. I know you can make them always show globally through System Settings > Appearance > Show scroll bars > Always But is there a way, perhaps using defaults, of forcing this setting per-app?

defaults write '$1/Contents/info.plist' MyVariable false

For some reason, I cannot get this to work, and I've tried everything I can think of. Even through an AppleScript, instead of a shell script, with the same results. I can have it output the command first, then copy that output, and paste it in Terminal, and it works fine. The syntax is 100% what I want. It just will NOT work in Automator. I even tried using sudo, and admin withe the AppleScript attempts, but that's not the problem. I can output to a text file, and just like using the clipboard to paste, the syntax is correct, and functions as expected. My goal is to be able to drag and drop an application on an Automator app, and have it add my variable to the info.plist in the application bundle. Why would it work in Terminal, but not in Automator?

output:
defaults write '~/Desktop/MyApp.app/Contents/info.plist' MyVar false

![Screenshot of Automator ][1]

I want to change the trackpad tap-to-click property from the command line. Graphically, I can do it by clicking System Preferences -> Trackpad -> Tap to Click. How can I do it from the command line? I have tried: defaults write com.apple.driver.AppleBluetoothMultitouch.trackpad Clicking -int 0 defaults write GlobalPreferences com.apple.mouse.tapBehavior -int 0 but these didn't work (with int as 1 and 0, with reboot). Am I missing some step? I have Macbook 5,1 Snow Leopard.

I'm trying to clear out the defaults for an app I'm working on.

defaults read com.mycompany.Foo

That prints a bunch of stuff.

defaults delete com.mycompany.Foo

Silent.

defaults read com.mycompany.Foo

It's all still there. Why?

defaults delete com.mycompany.Foo specificKey

This appears to work. But I don't want to go through key by key. I'd like to delete the entire domain.

I have two versions of Firefox installed (regular 126 and beta 129) to help me switch between my work and my private user profile. Both installations show me "Firefox is set as default browser". In the system setting I tried switching back and forth (and even temporary switched to another browser), but still it opens all links in the beta version and not in the regular browser. According to this answer, the problem occurs, because all Firefox installations use the same bundle id and mac chooses the newest version when there are multiple versions available. So I was wondering how I can force one of those two versions to identify with another bundle id? I thought the beta once had org.mozilla.firefoxbeta instead of org.mozilla.firefox ? Or do you have other solutions how to switch the default browser between multiple installed versions?