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August 5th, 2025
Build number 5 of the Default Folder X 6.2 public beta is available! It supports Apple’s latest macOS 26 Tahoe betas and even includes a glassy new icon created with Icon Composer 😁
The importance of this release depends on whether you’re using any of Adobe’s Creative Cloud 2025 apps. If you are, version 6.2b5 will solve problems with selecting or typing text into edit fields in Save dialogs. And although the Default Folder X betas are primarily for getting things working smoothly on Apple’s macOS 26 Tahoe beta releases, these fixes work on any supported version of macOS (10.13 High Sierra through 26 Tahoe). So yeah, if you’re running InDesign 2025, Illustrator 2025, or any other Adobe “2025” app, get Default Folder X 6.2b5.
This build also includes a second attempt to fix a rare bug that has shown up a few times in crash logs, but that I’m unable to reproduce here. The system is throwing an odd exception, but I can’t figure out how to cause it, so the included fix is my best guess at working around the issue. We’ll see if the crash logs stop trickling in 🤷🏻♂️ If you’re actually seeing a crash in Default Folder X, please get in touch!
Complete release notes and download links are on the Default Folder X Beta Testing page. If you run into issues please be sure to report them to DefaultFolderX@stclairsoft.com ASAP. Thanks!
Posted in Development, Tahoe, Version 6 | No Comments »
August 5th, 2025
Version 1.9.3 of Jettison is available, bringing a number of improvements and fixes to our drive management app.
Jettison now understands volume groups, which are the coupled drives that house a macOS system and its associated data. If you manually eject or mount a system drive, Jettison will also eject or mount the data drive that’s associated with that system. You can’t eject the system you’re currently running, but if you’ve got a second copy of macOS installed – like the macOS Tahoe beta that Apple is currently testing – Jettison will handle its data drive for you automatically.
If you’ve got Jettison set up to eject drives when your Mac goes to sleep, it normally waits 5 seconds after the machine wakes up before it tries to remount those ejected drives. That gives external drives time to power up before Jettison goes looking for them, but in some cases that’s not long enough. You can now specify a longer delay in your settings if you’ve got a drive that’s not reliably remounting after sleep:
This update also adds support for NTFS and extFS drives mounted over a network, and fixes a bug that caused SSHFS drives to eject really, really slowly. In addition, the macOS corespotlightd and managedcorespotlightd processes are quit before any external drive is ejected. This gets rid of problems with those processes keeping a drive busy and causing errors when Jettison tried to eject it.
And one more thing… Jettison’s progress window would sometimes get stuck on-screen if you were running a beta of macOS Tahoe. This should be fixed in version 1.9.3 – at least I can no longer reproduce it here. If you run into further problems with Tahoe, let me know.
This update is free for folks who’ve already purchased a license for Jettison – thank you! Just choose “Check for Update” in Jettison’s menu in your menu bar. Or for release notes and download links, visit the What’s New page.
Posted in Jettison, Tahoe | No Comments »
June 24th, 2025
Version 6.1.7 of Default Folder X is now available, delivering a feature that was originally included in the version 6.2 beta last week. When you hold down the Command key, Default Folder X adds a submenu to whatever file is currently selected in its menu:
The menu gives you multiple options for handling the file, rather than just opening it. Those include revealing it in the Finder, copying the path of the file or the file itself to the clipboard, or bringing up a standard Share sheet to attach it to an email, AirDrop it, send it in Messages, etc. Or you can use the Open With submenu to open the file in any app you have that recognizes it.
These options are also available in Default Folder X’s Quick Search window by Control-clicking or right-clicking on a search result:
In addition, the 6.1.7 release addresses a number of issues that have been reported since the last update, including incorrect text input in Save dialogs, problems with Save dialogs in Quick Look, Finder tags not always working correctly in Save dialogs and more.
The update is free for everyone who’s purchased a license for version 6. For a complete list of changes and download links, see the What’s New page. Or if you’re already running Default Folder X, just choose “Check for Update” from its menu in your menu bar.
Posted in Default Folder X, Version 6 | No Comments »
June 19th, 2025
A public beta version of Default Folder X 6.2 is available, providing preliminary support for macOS 26 Tahoe. It enables DFX’s toolbar in Open and Save dialogs and makes its existing user interface fit with the new dimensions of Tahoe’s “liquid glass” UI. It does not yet include revamped icons and artwork to conform to Tahoe’s new look – those will come in a future beta release. The focus for Beta 1 was to enable all of Default Folder X’s functionality on the new system.
In addition to support for Tahoe, version 6.2b1 also includes a new feature and a number of fixes. First off, if you hold down the Command key while traversing Default Folder X’s menus, you’ll get a new submenu when you select any file. It provides Open, Reveal, Copy, Copy Path, Share and Open With commands for that file:
It’s a convenient way to work with a recent file if you want to edit it with a different app, email it, etc.
There are also a number of fixes in 6.2b1, including solutions for problems entering text in custom fields within Save dialogs, working with Save dialogs in Quick Look, incorrect setting of Finder tags in some situations, and elimination of a rare crash.
There’s a full change history and download links on the Default Folder X Testing page.
Posted in Default Folder X, Tahoe | No Comments »
May 13th, 2025
Version 6.1.6 of Default Folder X is available, and offers a new Focus filter in addition to the usual handful of improvements and bug fixes.
Your Mac comes pre-loaded with Focus modes like Do Not Disturb and Sleep, but you can add your own for things like Work, Finance or Gaming to customize the way your Mac behaves while you’re in one of these ‘modes’. And Focus filters are app actions that you can trigger automatically when you activate a Focus.
Using Default Folder X’s Focus filter, you can switch to a specific folder set, loading a set of favorites, default folders and recent history. This customizes Default Folder X to show the folders and files you want to access quickly while in that Focus. For more about folder sets in Default Folder X, see the User Guide.
To set up a Focus filter, open System Settings and click on Focus in the left sidebar.
Create a new focus or choose from one of the existing ones by clicking on it. Within that Focus, scroll down to the bottom and click on the “Add Filter” button.
Finally, choose the Default Folder X filter and select a folder set to use. Once you’ve done so, your chosen folder set will be loaded automatically whenever you activate that Focus.
In addition to the new Focus filter, version 6.1.6 of Default Folder X includes a number of other improvements. It’s faster at switching between folders in file dialogs, and problems with keyboard shortcuts, Finder-click, keyboard focus and creating new folders have all been addressed.
For a full change history and download links, see the What’s New page. Or if you’re already running Default Folder X, choose Check for Update from its menu in your menu bar.
Posted in Default Folder X, Tips, Version 6 | 1 Comment »
April 18th, 2025
Version 1.9.1 of Jettison has been released, and despite the minor x.x.1 version number change there are some new capabilities that will be significant to certain users.
First, Jettison can now eject disks after the display turns off. This is helpful for people that have system sleep disabled or can’t distinguish between display sleep and full system sleep. By ejecting the disk on display power-down, you can safely unplug external drives anytime the screen is dark.
The flip side of this, of course, is that things like Time Machine backups to an external drive will not run while you’re away because the drive ejects soon after your Mac goes idle. Also, this will NOT fix problems caused by plugging your external drives into a hub that’s integrated into your display. If the hub powers down when the display powers off, macOS will still give you “Disk not ejected properly” errors. Jettison ejects disks after the display powers off – it has no way of detecting display power-down before it happens.
The second big thing in this release is a change to accommodate macOS Sequoia 15.4’s increased security around ejecting disks when your login account doesn’t have administrator privileges. I’m not sure why Apple made this change, but errors saying “Higher privileges required by Jettison” began occurring in 15.4. So Jettison now uses a helper application (which does require an admin password to install) so it can still eject your disks despite this somewhat nonsensical restriction.
Version 1.9.1 also improves error reporting when disks can’t be ejected. It uses additional diagnostics to catch situations where an app is keeping a disk busy and includes more information in the resulting error messages. It also preemptively terminates the system’s AMPDevicesAgent process, which can prevent an external disk from ejecting if it houses your Apple Music library.
A full change history and download links are available on the What’s New page, or if you’re already running Jettison, just select “Check for Update” from its menu in your menu bar. As usual, this update is free if you’ve purchased a license for Jettison.
Posted in Jettison, Sequoia | 1 Comment »
March 12th, 2025
Version 6.1.5 of Default Folder X is available, bringing several enhancements and fixing an interesting problem in Adobe applications on Sequoia.
First up, there’s a new “Open With” item in the contextual menu when you Control-click on search results in the Quick Search window. Like the equivalent menu in the Finder, Open With lets you open a file using any app that’s capable of doing so.
Because Default Folder X tracks all of your recently opened files and folders, this is a great help in those moments when you’re looking at a document and think “but I really need to open this in [Other Application]”. Just hit Command-Shift-Space, type part of the file’s name into the Quick Search window, then use the Open With menu to open it in that other app. You can even hit Command-O in Quick Search to bring up the menu without taking your hands off the keyboard.
Default Folder X 6.1.5 also includes a fix for an interesting bug. The color of Default Folder X’s toolbar (dark mode vs. light mode) is determined by the average color it sees in an application’s file dialog when the dialog first appears on-screen. This has worked without fault for a couple of years, but recently started failing in Adobe apps.
After some debugging, I discovered that the file dialogs in Adobe apps “fade in” when they appear – they’re initially semitransparent, then become opaque (so far, this appears to be unique to Adobe apps). Default Folder X captures an image of the dialog when it first appears – when it’s still semitransparent – and the Core Image filter that DFX uses to determine the lightness / darkness of that image returns a darker color because it’s not opaque (which isn’t consistent with Apple’s documentation). That resulted in Default Folder X using its dark-mode UI even though the file dialog was in light mode – which looked pretty weird. That problem has been fixed in this release.
There are several other enhancements and fixes in 6.1.5 that are detailed in the release notes. You can read them and download the update by choosing Check for Update in Default Folder X, or on the What’s New page. As usual, if you’ve purchased a license for version 6, this update is free.
Posted in Default Folder X, Sequoia | No Comments »
March 3rd, 2025
AND WE’RE BACK…
In macOS Sequoia, Apple introduced a new “feature” that periodically pops up a reminder that you’ve given permission to an app to record your screen. When this new annoyance made its debut, there was a justifiable uproar about it. The reminders originally popped up on a daily basis, plus whenever you restarted your Mac. After the internet backlash, Apple backpedaled and reduced the frequency to once a week, then to once per month, and now every 90 days for apps that you use a lot. That’s tolerable, if not ideal.
BUT…
I’ve been getting a growing number of tech support complaints from Default Folder X users, saying that they’re seeing screen recording reminders every time an Open or Save dialog appears. It seems that Sequoia’s reminder system contains a bug or two, resulting in people getting pestered constantly.
As a developer, this is really aggravating because it’s not my bug, yet my customers are having a really terrible experience because of it. And all for a reminder that really shouldn’t be appearing in the first place (IMO).
IF YOU’RE EXPERIENCING THIS…
First, please complain to Apple by submitting a bug about it. You can do so using the Feedback Assistant app that’s already on your system. To open Feedback Assistant, click on this URL:
applefeedback://
File the bug under macOS > Security > Privacy and let them know that you’re seeing screen recording reminders every time you use an app you’ve already approved. The more reports they get about this, the more quickly it will get fixed. If they don’t get many reports, they’ll just ignore it.
Now to (hopefully) fix the problem: Assuming you’re running macOS Sequoia 15.3 or higher and have Default Folder X installed in your Applications folder, follow these steps.
- Launch the Terminal application (it’s in /Applications/Utilities)
- Paste in the following two commands, hitting the Return key on your keyboard after each one. Note that the first command should be all one line, even though it may be wrapped to multiple lines below.
defaults write ~/Library/Group\ Containers/group.com.apple.replayd/ScreenCaptureApprovals.plist com.stclairsoft.DefaultFolderX5 -dict-add kScreenCapturePrivacyHintPolicy 7776000 kScreenCapturePrivacyHintDate -date 2035-12-31 kScreenCaptureApprovalLastAlerted -date 2035-12-31 kScreenCaptureApprovalLastUsed -date 2035-12-31/usr/bin/killall -HUP replayd
- That should do the trick. If it doesn’t, contact me at support@stclairsoft.com for additional help.
NOTE: If you’re running the Setapp version of Default Folder X, you’ll need to use com.stclairsoft.DefaultFolderX5-setapp in place of com.stclairsoft.DefaultFolderX5 in the first command above. If the problem is occurring with some other app, substitute that app’s bundle identifier there instead. Also, if the app isn’t located in the standard /Applications folder on your system, you need to replace the bundle identifier with the exact URL to the application, like file:///Volumes/MyApps/Default%20Folder%20X.app.
Posted in Default Folder X, Sequoia, Tips | No Comments »
February 13th, 2025
Version 1.9 of Jettison was released today, delivering some significant internal changes as well as improvements that many users will see when using it.
First off, Jettison now asks you to give it permission for Full Disk Access in your system’s privacy controls. This is necessary because macOS will sometimes refuse to let Jettison mount external USB drives unless it has this special permission. It’s still not clear to me why Apple makes this distinction, since Jettison is able to mount other drives without Full Disk Access, but to avoid problems and confusion, Jettison now requests it by default.
Another change is that Jettison no longer shows every volume that’s mounted on your system. On recent versions of macOS, a number of disk images are automatically mounted by the system. Some, known as cryptexes, are encrypted volumes used for augmenting or updating parts of the system itself, while others such as the iOS Simulator are mounted if you use Apple’s Xcode developer tools. Still other disk images are mounted as part of installing macOS updates. Jettison used to show all of these in its “Eject” menu, which could be confusing because they’re not shown by the Finder, so they no longer appear there.
When Jettison can’t eject a drive because there are open files on it, it pops up an error message to tell you so. These messages have been improved to provide more detail, and when you’re manually ejecting a disk you’ll also see “Quit” buttons to quit any offending apps. That will usually let Jettison finish ejecting the drive.
In the past, using Jettison to mount encrypted volumes that were part of the boot volume’s APFS container would generate odd error messages. This was because the system automatically unlocks those volumes when it unlocks the system volume, but Jettison wasn’t aware of that (Jettison has to unlock all other encrypted APFS volumes before mounting them, so it tried to do that with the unlocked volumes and got an error because they weren’t locked). Jettison is now smarter about handling this case. My apologies if you have this somewhat odd configuration on your system and ran into the bug.
The internal revamp also fixed a number of little bugs, as well as changing the behavior of one feature: If you have volumes selected in the “Don’t remount these disks” menu in Jettison > Settings > Options, those disks will automatically be ejected when Jettison launches. The assumption here is that if you don’t want the drives remounted after they’ve been ejected, you basically don’t want them mounted unless you do so manually.
As usual, this update is free if you’ve already bought a Jettison license (thank you!). You can choose “Check for Update” from Jettison’s menu to get the new version, or download it from the What’s New page. Both ways also give you a complete change history.
Posted in APFS, Jettison | 1 Comment »
January 7th, 2025
Version 6.1.4 of Default Folder X has been released, adding a number of improvements and some important bug fixes.
Quick Search gets new filtering options, which are especially useful if you want to automate things using AppleScript or Default Folder X’s new URL handler. You can restrict searches to the same options available in the Quick Search menu:
For example, searching for “folders:receipts” will yield only folders whose names match “receipts”, rather than all files, folders, and apps. The filter keywords are the same as the menu items:
- all:
- files:
- folders:
- apps:
- recent:
- favorite:
- finder:
- spotlight:
This can be used in AppleScript like this:
tell application "Default Folder X" to QuickSearch "folders:receipts"
Or in a URL like this:
defaultfolderx://QuickSearch?folders:receipts
Other additions to version 6.1.4 include an “Apply to All” checkbox when dragging and dropping multiple files or folders onto Default Folder X’s menu bar icon when they already exist in the chosen folder:
and identical behavior when dropping items onto a folder in Default Folder X’s Finder drawer.
There are also several important bug fixes in Default Folder X 6.1.4 that prevent crashes, hangs, and misbehavior. If you’re using Microsoft Word with Microsoft Sharepoint, running the Copy’Em app, or synchronizing DFX’s settings via iCloud, make sure to update immediately. A less harmful bug, in which DFX fails to show label colors in its menus if you have fewer than 8 favorite labels set up in your Finder settings, has also been fixed.
For a full list of changes and download links, go to the Default Folder X What’s New page. Or if you’re already running Default Folder X, select “Check for Update” from DFX’s menu in your menu bar.
Posted in AppleScript, Automation, Default Folder X, Version 6 | No Comments »
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