[Update: Feb. 26] macOS 12 Monterey Quick Look preview with spacebar not working in Finder? Here's an easy workaround

New updates are being added at the bottom of this story…

Original story (published on November 05, 2021) follows:

macOS 12 Monterrey has been available since the end of October. However, early adopters have been discovering certain features that need to be polished.

One of the most valued macOS features is Quick Look, which is also present on macOS 12 Monterrey. But, users are reporting that, after the update, it no longer works properly in Finder.

To understand the problem, you have to know a thing or two about macOS. First, you have to know what the Finder is, and then, know what Quick Look is.

‘Finder’ is basically the native file explorer of macOS. It allows you to open and organize your files, access content stored in iCloud and more.

Then we have Quick Look, a feature that allows you to see a ‘preview’ of an image or video in full size, but without having to open the file.

To use Quick Look, the user only has to place the mouse pointer over an image or video, and press the space bar on the keyboard.

According to reports from macOS 12 Monterrey users (1, 2, 3, 4, 5), pressing the space bar on an image in the Finder will show a small view of it with much lower quality.

After installing MacOS Monterey Quick look in finder just showing a small image. I often use space bar to have quick look at image but with macOS Monterey I only get a small image, the same size that I already have in finder. This is useless. I tried different modifiers and with Option I get an image that is a little bigger but not as big as before.

How do I get the old Quick Look function back?
Source

Also, the feature would be even worse on videos. In the previous version of macOS, using Quick Look on a video would play it in a preview, Now, it only shows a small thumbnail in low quality.

My video quick preview isn’t working whenever I use the spacebar browsing on Finder since I updated to macOsMonterrey
Whenever I’m looking through RAW footage or any footage in general I tend to use the spacebar to preview each clip to find the right ones. However, since the new macOS Monterrey update, using the spacebar just gives me a pic preview instead of the actual video preview.
Source

Among the reports, some users discovered a workaround to get Quick Look working properly again. Apparently, you have to ‘kill’ the Quick Look task from the activity monitor. The process would be the following:

It is not yet known if Apple is aware of the bug. It only remains to wait for the company to officially pronounce on this matter. If there is any new related development, we will update this article.

IST 12:07 pm: Reports from macOS users (1,2,3) now indicate that EPS files are not showing icon preview on macOS Monterey.

Luckily, there might be a workaround for this issue as explained by one of the affected users in the community forums.

Basically go into Finder, Pref, Advanced, tick ‘show all filename extensions’, untick ‘show warning before changing an extension’…….. back into Finder, search ‘.eps’, select all, rename, replace, .eps with .ai and done!!!
Source

06:34 pm (IST): If you are still facing this issue then here’s another workaround to try suggested by one of the affected users.

That worked, thank you so much! I sincerely appreciate your support.

– In Finder, click Go > Go to Folder, then type /System/Library/QuickLook

– Duplicate Illustrator.qlgenerator file to the Desctop and do the edits as described on page 3 of the discussion.

– Then go to Finder > Go > Go to Folder, then type /Library/QuickLook, and paste the edited file here.

– Restart your computer and EPS previews are back!

(Don’t try to click Go + Option to open Library using Finder as QuickLook folder is empty there) (Source)

You can also check the update tracker dedicated to macOS 12 Monterrey.

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