MacOS – Show speed in Finder Copy progress window

Yes Thilo, there is a way. It will require a bit of command line wizardry though. As long as you're not allergic you can do the following:

1. Open Terminal.app

2. Change directories to the location of the file you want to view using QuickLook.

   • For example, if the file you want to view using QuickLook is on your desktop you would type: "cd ~/Desktop" (no quotes, caps matter, and ~ is a shortcut to your home directory).

3. Now type: "qlmanage -p filename.pdf" (replacing filename with the name of your file and pdf with the extension of your file).

A new icon will appear in your Dock called "qlmanage". This is the helper application that is usually launched headlessly by the Finder. By launching it from the command line it becomes accessible via the Dock, Command-Tab etc.

Just for the record (and the curios) this little application is stored deep in the OS where mortals are not meant to tread at this location:

/System/Library/Frameworks/QuickLook.framework/Versions/A/Resources/quicklookd.app/Contents/MacOS

Next time this happens, look at the Finder process using ps: First run this in a terminal:

launchctl list | grep Finder

The output should be just one line, listing com.apple.Finder with a number at the beginning of the line. That number is the process ID (pid) of Finder. Now run

ps up xxx

replacing xxx by the pid found in the first step. Look under the STAT heading. If you see the letter U then the Finder is stuck in an uninterruptible system call, and cannot be killed. You will most likely need to restart your system to recover.

Processes stuck in an uninterruptible system call is often a symptom of a hardware problem. It would bear further investigations to find the cause.