Top 15 Terminal Commands for Hidden Mac OS X Settings
Ivan | Wed, 2007-03-21 06:09I know most of these have already been posted earlier in some form, but here is a great collection of Terminal based GUI customization tips from Mac OS X tips. And, remember you need to log out and back in for most of these to take effect.
1. defaults write com.apple.Dock showhidden -bool YES
Makes hidden applications' dock icons translucent. NO to reverse.
2. defaults write com.apple.iTunes invertStoreLinks -bool YES
Normally the arrows next to artists and albums in your iTunes library search the iTunes store when you click them. This command changes them so that clicking will search your iTunes library instead. Put NO at the end to reverse.
3. defaults write com.apple.dashboard devmode YES
This allows you to drag widgets out of Dashboard onto the desktop. Requires the dock to be relaunched to take effect, so type "killall Dock" and press enter. Now, if you click and hold onto a widget in the dashboard and press F12 to return to the desktop, the widget won't disappear with the rest. Put NO at the end to reverse.
4. defaults write com.apple.mail PreferPlainText -bool TRUE
Forces all mail to be displayed as plain text. Replace TRUE with FALSE to reverse.
5. defaults write -g NSNavPanelExpandedStateForSaveMode -bool TRUE
Sets expanded save dialogs as default (showing column/list view of folders rather than a drop down menu). Replace TRUE with FALSE to reverse.
6. /System/Library/Frameworks/ScreenSaver.framework/Resources/ ScreenSaverEngine.app/Contents/MacOS/ScreenSaverEngine -background
Displays the currently chosen screen saver to be shown as the desktop background. Press Control-C or Command-. to stop.
7. defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.loginwindow AdminHostInfo SystemVersion
Displays useful system stats in the login window. More details here. Replace "SystemVersion" with one of the following for different stats:
SystemBuild
SerialNumber
IPAddress
DSStatus
Time
HostName
8. sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.loginwindow HiddenUsersList -array-add shortname1 shortname2 shortname3
To remove accounts from the login window type this command with the short name of each account you wish to remove.
9. com.apple.frameworks.diskimages skip-verify TRUE
Skip disk image verification. Potentially risky, use with disk images from trusted sources. Replace TRUE with FALSE to reverse.
10. defaults write "Apple Global Domain" AppleScrollBarVariant DoubleBoth
Puts double scroll arrows at both ends of scroll bar. Use Appearance pane in system preferences to reset.
11. defaults write com.apple.CrashReporter DialogType none
Disables the unexpectedly quit dialog that normally appears when an application crashes. Replace "none" with "prompt" to enable again.
12. defaults write com.apple.Safari WebKitHistoryItemLimit 2000 and/or
defaults write com.apple.Safari WebKitHistoryAgeInDaysLimit 30
Sets the history limit in Safari to a certain number of items and and/or a certain age.
13. defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles TRUE
Shows hidden files in the finder. Replace TRUE with FALSE to hide hidden files again
14. defaults write com.apple.safari IncludeDebugMenu 1
Enables the debug menu in Safari. Type again but with 0 instead of 1 at the end to disable.
15. defaults write com.apple.dashboard mcx-disabled -boolean YES
Deactivates Dashboard. Requires the dock to be relaunched to take effect, so type "killall Dock" and press enter. Replace YES with NO to enable again.
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That page of tips, and the UK site it's from have really been making the rounds over the past couple days. Cripes, my brother even sent it to me, and he knows I always see stuff like that before he does.
For those who dig this kind of stuff, I've been recommending they check out the wonderfully powerful CLIX.
CLIX is a free suite of about 18 applications that wraps up over 1500 Terminal Commands into a dead simple UI. Many of the functions you see packaged up all nice and pretty in various shareware and commercial apps—stuff like Transparent Dock, Onyx, Cocktail, and many others—can all be performed using the CLIX routines.
Full download size for all that power?
93.84KB! That's it!!! And did I mention it was free!?
Wow! Thanks. Looks really cool.
Some advice for everyone (myself included!) about using the Terminal and CLIX:
Always remember, that with great power comes great responsibility.
CLIX, just like the Terminal, will allow users access to some seriously deep and vital system functions.
If you are cautioned to be careful with some of the commands, and you don't know what you're doing, it's best to heed those warnings.
Not doing so could completely hose your system.
In other words, don't mess around under the hood if you don't know how to rebuild the engine!
Hey Ivan...while you're attention is here:
What do you figure is going on here on your site/blog/forum?
Surely, and lamentably, it isn't as busy as it used to be, but it amazes me that this blog entry, for example, has had over 950 views (as of this writing), and yet you and I are the only people who have posted comments to it.
I'm sure you wish viewers actually participated more, but do you have any well-considered theories on why they don't?
Surely the majority of those 950+ hits on this thread aren't from spider crawling, right? I mean, there must be a good many actual people visiting.
What's changed? Since I've been more active with SparkBox lately, I'm curious about these things, when I wasn't really too concerned about it before.
I think this subject is just not something you can really comment on. That's all. It is also possible that majority of the views are coming from google and people will not take the effort to register to post just one comment.
Hey Ivan, there's also the lurker* phenomenon. Veerle from Duoh has a regular "delurking" day to encourage lurkers to come out and comment at least once. How about we do that here on CB?
*lurker: In the Internet, a participant in a chat room or a subscriber to a mailing list or newsgroup who passively observes but does not actively participate in the exchange. (ATIS Telecoms Glossary)
Ref : Delurking at Veerle.
If you keep your ears open, you'll see better.
very funny idea. :)
here's a comment:
you're diving into terminal, just like win users dive into registry
you can always feel that hunger... more settings, gimme more settings.
i thought the macs were on the opposite side :P
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always outnumbered, never outgunned
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always outnumbered, never outgunned
http://www.behance.net/mimimi
Great collection! I knew some of them, but the one with the background screensaver was completely new to me.
I use a defaults write command to speed up appearance and disappearance time of certain dialog boxes:
defaults write NSGlobalDomain NSWindowResizeTime .07The standard value is .2, .07 is the lower limit for me. If you enter a smaller time value, the animation will not look fluent any more. You might also set it to .001, which will not animate the dialogs anymore but they merely pop onto Your screen.
Which dialog boxes are we talking about?
The animated ones ;)
As an example, the save dialog in Safari when You hit CMD-S.
Now when you ask I notice the animation is not used that often anymore as it was in previous version of OS X.
Thanks!
Ivan,
thank a lot for share this post! Great article :)
Regard
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