I know I can set show names and pictures for conversations. How do I set this as default for all conversations? I set this and then exit messages and re-open it and it is back to only showing the pictures. I tried to delete the plist files from ~/Library/Preferences for iChat.
MacOS – Set Messages app to show Names and Pictures by default for all conversations
macosmessages
Related Solutions
You should be able to do this by going to Mail Preferences > Fonts & Colors and selecting the following option:
I can submit to you this partial answer, which achieves some of what you want, but not all. No matter what combinations I attempted, Arrange By refuses to take on any initial default value other than None. I tried for a couple of hours to solve this one, but gave up. However, I thought you might still benefit from what I did manage to achieve.
The following steps set all folders to list view, and sort by Kind. Although you wanted to have them sorted by Name and arranged by Kind, in the absence of being able to set a default value for Arranged By, what I found was that sorting them by Kind will do just that, whilst using the filename for secondary sorting. That is, the files will be listed by file type, such as JPEGs, TIFFs, MP4s, etc., but within each group of, say, JPEGs, the files will be sorted by name.
1. Backup com.apple.finder.plist
cp ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.finder.plist ~/Desktop
2. Set top-level defaults using the defaults command
Default to list view:
defaults write com.apple.finder FXPreferredViewStyle Nlsv
Default Arrange By flags that don't seem to be effective:
defaults write com.apple.finder FXArrangeGroupViewBy kind
defaults write com.apple.finder FXPreferredGroupBy kind
defaults write com.apple.finder "FK_ArrangeBy" kind
3. Use PListBuddy to set nested defaults
/usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c "Set :\"FK_StandardViewSettings\":ExtendedListViewSettingsV2:sortColumn kind" ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.finder.plist
/usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c "Set :\"FK_DefaultListViewSettingsV2\":sortColumn kind" ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.finder.plist
/usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c "Set :StandardViewSettings:ExtendedListViewSettingsV2:sortColumn kind" ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.finder.plist
/usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c "Set :StandardViewSettings:ListViewSettings:sortColumn kind" ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.finder.plist
/usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c "Add :\"FK_StandardViewSettings\":ExtendedListViewSettingsV2:arrangeBy string kind" ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.finder.plist
/usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c "Add :\"FK_DefaultListViewSettingsV2\":arrangeBy string kind" ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.finder.plist
/usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c "Add :StandardViewSettings:ExtendedListViewSettingsV2:arrangeBy string kind" ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.finder.plist
/usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c "Add :StandardViewSettings:ListViewSettings:arrangeBy string kind" ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.finder.plist
/usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c "Set :\"FK_StandardViewSettings\":ExtendedListViewSettingsV2:arrangeBy string kind" ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.finder.plist
/usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c "Set :\"FK_DefaultListViewSettingsV2\":arrangeBy string kind" ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.finder.plist
/usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c "Set :StandardViewSettings:ExtendedListViewSettingsV2:arrangeBy string kind" ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.finder.plist
/usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c "Set :StandardViewSettings:ListViewSettings:arrangeBy string kind" ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.finder.plist
I initially had the first four set to name in an attempt to achieve the original objective. Upon failure, I set them to all to kind to achieve the result I described.
Ignore any Entry Already Exists reports when running these commands.
4. Clear the .DS_Store files
sudo rm /.DS_Store
find ~ -name .DS_Store -type f -delete
5. Restart cfprefsd and Finder
killall cfprefsd
killall Finder
That's the best I can achieve for now. Hopefully, someone else can build on my answer and give us the missing piece.
Best Answer
This looks like a bug. Mine when checked does the same.
So I set it again and I also changed the Show As Balloons to Show As boxes. Quit and re opened. This stuck.
I then Change back to Show As Balloons Quit and re opened. Both settings stuck.
Tested on two Macs. Same thing
Further investigation which I think proves it is a bug
The show names and pictures or what ever you set in the app is actually being written out to the plist file.
The Dictionary SOTranscriptSettingsDefaultIMChatSettingsPreferences that holds this preference participantDisplay changes from number value 0 to 1 or 2.
The problem is the original default in the Dictionary SOTranscriptSettingsDefaultIMChatSettingsPreferences is to only have the participantDisplay entry.
When you also change the Show As Balloons setting to something else like boxes a new entry transcriptStyleID is added to the Dictionary SOTranscriptSettingsDefaultIMChatSettingsPreferences. Which will have the string value of for example com.apple.iChat.Styles.Balloons.
Once both entries exist then the setting participantDisplay is actually actioned.
I used Defaults delete,write to remove and replace these settings and the results are consistent.