Select text in a Quick Look preview window

If you use Quick Look to view files that features text, you’ll notice that you can’t click and drag to highlight text. This default write command will let you click and drag to highlight text, and use the cmd⌘ + C key combination to copy text.

To activate the setting, open a Terminal window and type the following:

defaults write com.apple.finder QLEnableTextSelection -bool TRUE

To make the command take effect, you need to restart the Finder.

killall Finder

To deactivate the setting use:

defaults delete com.apple.finder QLEnableTextSelection; killall Finder

Example:

2 thoughts on “Select text in a Quick Look preview window”

  1. This command doesn’t work for me in 10.8.2:
    sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.finder QLEnableTextSelection -bool TRUE
    Password:
    2013-03-08 22:13:17.425 defaults[86439:707]
    The domain/default pair of (/Library/Preferences/com.apple.finder, QLEnableTextSelection) does not exist
    2013-03-08 22:13:17.441 defaults[86441:707]
    The domain/default pair of (/Library/Preferences/com.apple.finder, QLEnableTextSelection) does not exist

  2. I got the error message shown above, but the command did make the change. Using “defaults read com.apple.finder | grep ‘QL’ ” revealed the setting. It is working. Thanks.

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