Space bar won't open photos in Mojave

Nope! I spent 2 hours this morning fiddling and tinkering around with no luck, so have just left things as described in my answer to Léonie further down. But do send Apple feedback about this, the more the merrier! www.apple.com/feedback

Regards, Ian.

I love Apple, but sometimes they do the stupidest of things. Why change the spacebar function?? Going on a limb here and saying people take more photos than videos, so it makes more sense to use the function for PHOTOS! At the very least, give us the option to choose which one we prefer.

The logic of Apple design is becoming stranger and stranger. Why change spacebar to return? People usually use the right hand to navigate in the trackpad and the left one to open file. now you can navigate and open the photos using your right hand only and it's not the best way to do this.

Eric, I second @Ramblinmanva's comments - thanks for the post!

That said, I'm experiencing the same shortcoming - the spacebar shortcuts only seems to work after I've invoked the "Image" menu. Still looking to Apple for a fix...

This doesn't work for me. Nor does clicking on image. Is this the image menu at the top of the screen? Just click on it then let the drop down menu close and then the space bar is supposed to work. That also doesn't work. only the return key works to open and close images. anyone else having this problem?

johnesquivel,

The "Photos" item will be added to the list, when you click the "+" button to add a new shortcut, and then select "Photos" from the "Applications" drop-down menu at the top of the panel. It is safer to restrict your new shortcut to Photos, so it will not interfere with other applications.

Thanks! I just followed your link and left this feedback for Apple:

This is one of the most ridiculous, unnecessary, and out-of-touch changes I've ever seen. I have way more photos than videos, so your trying to somehow be consistent with video viewing in your shortcut change has caused me a huge amount of trouble. There is a good workaround published on line. You should check it out.

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/8554200?answerId=33928019022#33928019022

If you want to get the Space bar functionality back and make the rest of your workflows more efficient use a macro app like Keyboard Maestro which can be used to launch apps, open folders and or documents, enter text, etc. with a single keystroke or simple key combination. I use it and have over 250 macros which I use to shorten my workflow and speed it up. Entering the Keyboard Maestro URL link was one of them.

Hi Léonie! I´ve left only the "Open" shortcut defined...for some reason having a second shortcut stops the "Return" key from working. To close the preview I flick my middle finger down (towards me) on my wireless Magic Mouse, as if I had a scroll wheel...not ideal but it´s fast and easier than reaching up for the "Return" key! I imagine the majority of us use Photos for just that...photos...so I think Apple ought to give us back the Space Bar functionality for opening photos. I've sent them feedback. Regards, Ian.

Thank you, Ian.

That is what I finally did. I changed the "close" shortcut back to "return", and now I am mostly using a double tap on my trackpad to open and close photos. And use the spacebar to open the photos only on my old iMac, where I do not have a trackpad in the keyboard.

Tell Apple what missing features you'd like restored or new features added in Photos via https://www.apple.com/feedback/photos.html.

Hi Eric in Boca! Before updating to Mojave 10.14.2 your shortcut workaround worked great on my iMac, but now it´s only possible to have a shortcut to open or to close, not both! **** nuisance!

😠 You're right, Ian. Now only the "Open" shortcut is working for me. "Close" is still defined, but it does no longer work. And the "Return" key is no disabled as well.

Uhhg. I completely agree. MacOS has conditioned me to slap the spacebar to view objects, and this was an obvious, intuitive and consistent way to open/close photos.

My quantity of photos outnumbers my quantity of videos 30:1, so this change has made the spacebar 30x less useful (not to mention that the spacebar could previously be used to open/close videos as well).

Changing this behavior (without providing an option to restore the previous behavior) is offensive. I will not update to Mojave on my primary machine until an option is available.

Eric: This is fantastic. Your tip--I love it and it (mostly) work. Thank you for taking the time to post it.

I say "mostly" because I have one issue I can't figure out. When I first open Photos, this shortcut doesn't work. I see "image" in the menu bar light up like it's trying to do something but it won't work. However, if I click on the "image" menu bar one time, from then on the space bar will work as I want it to with this short cut. It won't work if I click on other menus, it has to be the "image" menu, and then the space bar works going forward.

Are you experiencing the same behavior? Any way to avoid having to click in the menu bar first?

Thank you!