How to enable keyboard shortcut preference after modifying it through `defaults write com.apple.symbolichotkeys AppleSymbolicHotKeys`

defaultskeyboardshortcut

I modify keyboard shortcut by defaults command.

For example,

# Disable "Search word in terminal man page index"
defaults write com.apple.symbolichotkeys AppleSymbolicHotKeys -dict-add 124 "<dict><key>enabled</key><false/><key>value</key><dict><key>parameters</key><array><integer>65535</integer><integer>26</integer><integer>262144</integer></array><key>type</key><string>standard</string></dict></dict>"

# Change "Move focus to next window" shortcut to Alt + Tab
defaults write com.apple.symbolichotkeys AppleSymbolicHotKeys -dict-add 27 "<dict><key>enabled</key><true/><key>value</key><dict><key>parameters</key><array><integer>65535</integer><integer>48</integer><integer>524288</integer></array><key>type</key><string>standard</string></dict></dict>"

How can I enable to work them without restart OS?

I expect there are some Input Service and need to restart it.

ex. killall SomeInputService

Best Answer

On macos Big Sur 11.2.1 I have been able to resolve this problem. This solution applies to com.apple.symbolichotkeys plist for OS wide shortcuts as well as trackpad related plists.

After running the default write ... commands, run the following command.

/System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/SystemAdministration.framework/Resources/activateSettings -u

From my experience, it will read the plists and force them to take effect.

You may need to ensure the System Preferences app is not running before you run the command.

Some log output will be available if you run this before:

defaults write com.apple.activatesettings log true

However there is no output about parsing the com.apple.symbolichotkeys plist although it seems to read that plist.

Related Solutions

MacOS – undo changes made via “defaults write”

Yes, usually you can just use defaults delete

If for example you have run

defaults write -g NSScrollAnimationEnabled -bool false

You can undo the changes by running one of

defaults delete -g NSScrollAnimationEnabled
defaults write -g NSScrollAnimationEnabled -bool true

(In all cases you need to restart the application to apply changes)

Even if the preference key had some value before you used defaults it shouldn't matter if you delete the key.

It is generally safe to delete preference keys or even complete files, and they can usually be recreated by OS X or applications.

The property lists modified by defaults are stored in directories like

~/Library/Preferences/
~/Library/Containers/com.apple.mail/Data/Library/Preferences/
~/Library/Preferences/ByHost/

You can edit a plist in a text editor after converting it to XML with

plutil -convert xml1 FILENAME

MacOS – How to check what mode is already on on defaults write

You can use defaults read. For example, if I wanted to check for AppleShowAllFiles, I would do:

~$ defaults read com.apple.Finder AppleShowAllFiles
YES

Which would return YES in the stdout. You can make your script execute this command and read it from stdout.

Another perhaps unrealistic (and quite dangerous) option would be to read directly from ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.<ID>.plist, however most of then are rather unreadable. For example, com.apple.Finder.plist around the area of AppleShowAllFiles looks like this:

NSNavOutlineColumnSettings.v1_FXMyDocumentsArrangeGroupViewBy_AppleShowAllFiles_ViewSettingsDictionary_CopyProgressWindowLocation_FK_StandardViewSettings_8NSTableView Hidden Columns

This is not recommended though

Best Answer

Related Solutions

MacOS – undo changes made via “defaults write”

MacOS – How to check what mode is already on on defaults write

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