Resolved Command + Q to close Finder window - How?

[3bs]

I know that you can't do that, you have to press command + W but I find myself doing it a lot. Is there a way to get command + Q to close a window in Finder? I can't figure out a way to do it with BetterTouchTool. Is there a way to get BTT to substitute keyboard shortcuts? Or any other ideas are welcome.

 

[GGJstudios]

I know that you can't do that, you have to press command + W but I find myself doing it a lot. Is there a way to get command + Q to close a window in Finder? I can't figure out a way to do it with BetterTouchTool. Is there a way to get BTT to substitute keyboard shortcuts? Or any other ideas are welcome.

To add a Quit Finder entry to the Finder menu, enter these commands in Terminal, following each line by pressing the enter key:

defaults write com.apple.finder QuitMenuItem -bool yes
killall Finder​

 

[3bs]

To add a Quit Finder entry to the Finder menu, enter these commands in Terminal, following each line by pressing the enter key:

defaults write com.apple.finder QuitMenuItem -bool yes
killall Finder​

GGJstudios thanks so much. I'd just like to point out that I'm glad MR has you as one of it's member!

If I ever want to undo this, I just have to switch the "yes" in the first command to "no", right?

 

[GGJstudios]

If I ever want to undo this, I just have to switch the "yes" in the first command to "no", right?

That's right.

 

[3bs]

That's right.

Is there any way to get it to actually just replicate Command + W instead of actually quitting finder? I have TotalFinder installed so with this way, I have to actually relaunch TF every time I use Command + Q.

 

[GGJstudios]

Is there any way to get it to actually just replicate Command + W instead of actually quitting finder? I have TotalFinder installed so with this way, I have to actually relaunch TF every time I use Command + Q.

I'm not sure what you're trying to accomplish.

Command-W will close the active Finder window
Command-Option-W will close all Finder windows
Command-Q will quit Finder (after you use the Terminal command mentioned earlier)

 

[Night Spring]

I'm not sure what you're trying to accomplish.

Command-W will close the active Finder window
Command-Option-W will close all Finder windows
Command-Q will quit Finder (after you use the Terminal command mentioned earlier)

If I understand correctly, he wants Command-Q to close the active Finder window without quitting Finder. I wouldn't mind having that myself. I'm used to using Command-Q to close out of programs, and when I have a Finder window open, I often forget that Finder is different from regular programs, and find myself pushing Command-Q instead of Command-W.

 

[3bs]

I'm not sure what you're trying to accomplish.

Command-W will close the active Finder window
Command-Option-W will close all Finder windows
Command-Q will quit Finder (after you use the Terminal command mentioned earlier)

If I understand correctly, he wants Command-Q to close the active Finder window without quitting Finder. I wouldn't mind having that myself. I'm used to using Command-Q to close out of programs, and when I have a Finder window open, I often forget that Finder is different from regular programs, and find myself pushing Command-Q instead of Command-W.

Yes that's exactly what I want.

 

[GGJstudios]

If I understand correctly, he wants Command-Q to close the active Finder window without quitting Finder. I wouldn't mind having that myself. I'm used to using Command-Q to close out of programs, and when I have a Finder window open, I often forget that Finder is different from regular programs, and find myself pushing Command-Q instead of Command-W.

Yes that's exactly what I want.

I'm not sure that's such a great idea. There's a benefit to keeping system-wide commands consistent. Command-Q is used to quit an app. That's the same for any app. Command-W closes a window. Making exceptions to that on an app-by-app basis can lead to even more confusion. If I recall correctly, Command-Q won't quit Finder if you don't have that Terminal setting enabled, which protects you from accidentally quitting it.

If you're insistent on making Command-Q close a Finder window instead of quitting, you may be able to set a custom keyboard shortcut for that in System Preferences > Keyboard > Keyboard Shortcuts.

 

[3bs]

I'm not sure that's such a great idea. There's a benefit to keeping system-wide commands consistent. Command-Q is used to quit an app. That's the same for any app. Command-W closes a window. Making exceptions to that on an app-by-app basis can lead to even more confusion. If I recall correctly, Command-Q won't quit Finder if you don't have that Terminal setting enabled, which protects you from accidentally quitting it.

If you're insistent on making Command-Q close a Finder window instead of quitting, you may be able to set a custom keyboard shortcut for that in System Preferences > Keyboard > Keyboard Shortcuts.

I understand but it's how I'd like for it to work. I can't seem to figure out how to set up a keyboard shortcut to do this. I went to Keyboard Shortcuts > Application Shortcuts > + > added a name and "command Q" as the Keyboard Shortcut but that's all I can do. Not sure what the next step is.

 

[Night Spring]

I'm not sure that's such a great idea. There's a benefit to keeping system-wide commands consistent. Command-Q is used to quit an app. That's the same for any app. Command-W closes a window. Making exceptions to that on an app-by-app basis can lead to even more confusion.

Well... In Windows, Alt-F4 usually quits programs, except for Windows Explorer, where it closes the open Explorer window but doesn't quit the background Explorer process, which always continue to run as long as Windows itself is running. I don't think any users are confused by this, as most of them aren't really aware that Explorer doesn't quit and is running in the background. To them, Alt-F4 means simply "get out of what I'm doing now," and they don't know that it does something different in the case of Windows Explorer than for other regular programs.

 

[GGJstudios]

I understand but it's how I'd like for it to work. I can't seem to figure out how to set up a keyboard shortcut to do this. I went to Keyboard Shortcuts > Application Shortcuts > + > added a name and "command Q" as the Keyboard Shortcut but that's all I can do. Not sure what the next step is.

Did you specify that the shortcut is for Finder? You may have to reverse the Terminal command to avoid a conflict with the default definition of Command-Q.

 

[3bs]

Did you specify that the shortcut is for Finder? You may have to reverse the Terminal command to avoid a conflict with the default definition of Command-Q.

I did reverse the Terminal command and also tried specifying the shortcut for Finder and then All Applications.

 

[GGJstudios]

I did reverse the Terminal command and also tried specifying the shortcut for Finder and then All Applications.

View attachment 338523

It should look like this when you're adding it:

​

 

[3bs]

It should look like this when you're adding it:

View attachment 338524​

Still isn't working. Can you get it to work on your computer?

 

[Night Spring]

Still isn't working. Can you get it to work on your computer?

Got it working on mine.

You need to type the "Close Window" exactly, with the correct capitalization and spacing.

 

[3bs]

Got it working on mine.

You need to type the "Close Window" exactly, with the correct capitalization and spacing.

I did but it's not working. Could it be because of TotalFinder? The previous method using a Terminal command worked but that made it quit not close window. I also tried quitting BetterTouchTool in case it was causing a conflict but it wasn't.

 

[GGJstudios]

I did but it's not working. Could it be because of TotalFinder? The previous method using a Terminal command worked but that made it quit not close window. I also tried quitting BetterTouchTool in case it was causing a conflict but it wasn't.

Usually when a shortcut doesn't work, it's due to a conflict with an existing shortcut, or due to not typing the command exactly as it appears on the app's menu.

 

[3bs]

Usually when a shortcut doesn't work, it's due to a conflict with an existing shortcut, or due to not typing the command exactly as it appears on the app's menu.

I typed it exactly like you did. How do I find which other shortcut might be causing the conflict? I just checked all the sections in Keyboard Shortcuts but nothing is set to be triggered by Command Q

 

[GGJstudios]

I typed it exactly like you did. How do I find which other shortcut might be causing the conflict? I just checked all the sections in Keyboard Shortcuts but nothing is set to be triggered by Command Q

That's a bit of a mystery. The Keyboard Shortcuts window in System Preferences doesn't show all shortcuts that are available on the system. If you can't override the function by adding a custom shortcut, I'm not sure you're going to have much success doing what you want to do in Finder. You might compare notes on what you're doing with Night Spring, who got it working.

 

[Night Spring]

That's a bit of a mystery. The Keyboard Shortcuts window in System Preferences doesn't show all shortcuts that are available on the system. If you can't override the function by adding a custom shortcut, I'm not sure you're going to have much success doing what you want to do in Finder. You might compare notes on what you're doing with Night Spring, who got it working.

Well, I'm afraid I don't have much insight to offer -- I just typed in the command like you showed, and it worked. I do have BetterTouchTool installed, but I don't have TotalFinder. Other than that, I think it'd take quite a bit of digging to figure out what might be different between my system and 3bs's.

 

[poop4]

i have totalfinder, and setting close window to command Q actually made it command shift Q… strange
but is "Close Tab" what you actually want?

 

[3bs]

i have totalfinder, and setting close window to command Q actually made it command shift Q… strange
but is "Close Tab" what you actually want?

Yeah that's what I want but I can't seem to get it to work. I guess close tab will do the same as close window if I only have one tab open in Total finder

Edit: it suddenly decided to work. Maybe it was the reboot.