I just updated to Mojave and now, in Photos, when I have a thumbnail selected, hitting the space bar no longer functions to open (or later close) the image. This really inhibits my ability to quickly toggle into and out of images. I've seen a couple other scattered reports of this on the big wild web, but am wondering if anyone else here is experiencing it?
MacBook Pro (15-inch, 2017), macOS Mojave (10.14)
You are not alone with this sentiment, see:
Re: Is v.4 of Photos (Mojave) different than v.3?
The spacebar is now used to start and stop videos - a video will play a preview in the thumbnail and I can start and stop it by hitting the space bar. It is now similar to iMovie, but to quickly open or close an image i have now to use the return key.
Hey, Eric in Boca.. Thanks!!!
FYI.. to others: I don't have the option for "Photos" in 'app shortcuts' (see images below).. but fortunately, I was still able to add the two shortcuts per his post and it works in Photos. 🙂
Works perfectly, thanks.
Apple is supposed to avoid us having to do workarounds like this.
If Jobs were alive, someone would get the sack over this.
I've left feedback
everyone else who's annoyed should too.
The "solved" icon should NOT be on your post. You merely explained the problem better. The person who posted the (almost) perfectly functioning workaround, Eric in Boca, is the one who helped us. We came here for help so we could go on with our work in an efficient manner, not commentary, so please give the "Solved" designation to him.
As the original poster, please understand that I accidentally hit the "solved" button next to the wrong post, and I realized it immediately, but to my knowledge this forum has no way to undo that or to mark another post as having solved the problem.
Sometimes the forum software marking another post as the correct answer, if there is a race condition in the network transfer. Probably you marked the correct post, Kenneth, but on the server my post got marked. I could ask the hosts to remove my reply completely, and then your question would probably have the solved mark, which would not help much. There is something else very strange - Eric in Boca's solution has already 11 well deserved Helpful marks. This alone should have kicked it automatically to the top of the discussion, but that is not happening for some reason.
Also, once I'm signed in, I'm not able to mark any posts as Helpful. I thought maybe because I'd already marked too MANY as helpful, and that I was being limited as to how often I could "vote" on a given thread.
There are limits on the number of "Helpful" and "solved" per discussion.
Thats great except there seems to be something preventing me from using the same shortcut to open and close. The open with spacebar works fine then gives me an error chime when pressing spacebar to close. Sure would be great if Apple would ruin functionality with new releases ....
Same here, Bell86! Before updating to Mojave 10.14.2 the shortcut workaround posted by Eric in Boca worked fine on my iMac, but now it´s only possible to have a shortcut to open or to close, not both! **** nuisance!
what idiots.... why do they always change stuff that works! fix the sh... that doesn't! I makes me so angry that after every update I have to change my workflow because they keep changing things. One of the reasons I stopped using Windows a decade ago, but it seems to be just as bad here these days. Please bring back the space bar preview !!!
Am I the only one here who grew up using space bar to start and stop videos? When did this expectation change? (Maybe with the move from iPhoto to Photos..?)
Funny, I came here to find out why space bar wouldn't play videos in MacOS (Sierra) Photos and found that people were complaining of the opposite, as if space bar ALWAYS meant "preview/close" (it didn't - it used to mean "open/play/stop" and 'Esc' meant "close"). Weird ...
OMG Apple I am really starting to get annoyed with how bad you are. Your developers used to be the best in the world and now, literally everything... and I mean EVERYTHING you do has major bugs. Now add to the list that it' not just bugs, but intentional acts of stupidity.
So your developers think that spacebar should preview every file, including videos within the photos app and photos stored anywhere else on the Mac... and return should rename every file. Apart from when you want to preview a photo in the photos app - then suddenly, the shortcuts change. Why? It's not like it has another function, it just gives an error dong sound.
I don't care which key you settle on, whether it be spacebar or return but for gods sake make it consistent. This is one tiny issue in a list of maybe 100 other issues i have with your products, hence my frustrations.
If you want to charge several thousand pounds for your devices, in a market where everyone else is charging several hundred, you need to be perfect - no excuse. Or drop the prices, one or the other.
I tried this and it worked only for opening the photos with the Space Bar. For closing the same it does not work the same way. Shame on Apple for messing up years of intuitive interaction with the keyboard.
WHAT WAS THE NEED TO DO THIS??
I like your comment about the spacebar being made 30 times less useful. It's true!!
Makes sense. Done.
Thanks for the help!!
Space bar won't open photos in Mojave
