Is it possible to completely disable quicklook

Question

Level 1

5 points

Is it possible to completely disable quicklook

We have a quantum tape archive which appears as a fiber connected volume on a 10.6.4 client. Users push files to the quantum via Finder drag and drop. The files then goto a temporary landing pad (which is a hard drive) for several hours and then copied to tape and deleted from the landing pad - however a stub remains which looks identical to the original file but doesn't contain any data except metadata.

Users that are restoring data from the quantum volume use Finder to locate the file (the stub) and then drag and drop to the destination required. The quantum tape archive then grabs the file off tape and drops it onto the landing pad before it is then pushed to the required destination.

This all works fine until the user accidentally hits the space-bar whilst on a file in the quantum volume - this triggers a restore and consumes resources. If I can disable quicklook on the client then I can eradicate the issue.

*How do I completely disable quicklook?*

NB If you don't know how to do this please don't reply. I have so far tried:
• +sudo launchctl unload com.apple.quicklook.plist+ reboot
• +sudo vi com.apple.quicklook.plist+ adding
+<key>Disabled</key>
<true/>+ then +sudo launchctl load com.apple.quicklook.plist+ reboot
• Reluctant to try this as a permissions repair will kill it: http://hintsforums.macworld.com/showpost.php?p=485190&postcount=23

Thanks in advance!

MacBook Pro 2.93GHz; 4GB RAM;, Mac OS X (10.6.2)

Posted on Sep 15, 2010 11:20 PM

Reply

Answer 1

Barney-15E

Level 10

112,620 points

Sep 16, 2010 3:49 AM in response to cubikbiskit

Did you try:

sudo launchctl unload -w com.apple.quicklook.plist

The disable flag in the plist is no longer used as you think it is. See unload in the [man page|http://developer.apple.com/library/mac/#documentation/Darwin/Reference/Man Pages/man1/launchctl.1.html].
Sounds like a dumb idea to disable a useful feature instead of teaching the users to not do that.
Edit: And, repairing permissions won't undo it. What they did was disable certain generators by changing permissions on the folders. The launchctl command does not change any permissions.

Message was edited by: Barney-15E

Reply

Answer 2

Oct 28, 2010 9:37 AM in response to Barney-15E

Why is it a dumb idea to turn it off?

For one, I simply don't need it. And I'd like the functionality back of "pressing the space character in a finder window selects the file that is alphabetically closest to starting with a space character".

It's a pain that you can't turn it off or reassign the key.

Also, the QL demon takes about 500 MB of virtual memory, which ends up mattering when I'm in xCode.

Reply

Answer 3

Oct 29, 2010 1:16 PM in response to Alex Zavatone

I ended up deleting the generators that I found but that didn't kill the QuickLook process on a reboot.

To do that, I deleted it the QuickLook pList file from the /System/Library/LaunchAgents folder and not the daemon never starts up after rebooting. If you open your console, you'll see that the OS fails gracefully when trying to call the QuickLook daemon.

Now, if I could only get the ability to hit the space bar and have the Finder select a file, my life would be complete.

Cheers,
- Alex Zavatone

Reply