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Blinking cursor when editing text has been driving me crazy. Is there any way to disable it or at least make it blink less frequently? Using OS X 10.8.1.

Typing the following in terminal didn't help:

defaults write -g NSTextInsertionPointBlinkPeriod -int 100000000    
defaults write -g CursorBlink -string 0
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2 Answers

up vote 2 down vote

defaults write -g NSTextInsertionPointBlinkPeriod -int works for me in TextEdit and other vanilla text views on 10.8. It doesn't take effect until applications are quit and reopened. The value is in milliseconds, so 100000000 would only be a bit over a day.

It doesn't work in web views or the WebKit inspector, iWork applications, Mail, Notes, TextMate, or BBEdit.

The CursorBlink key is probably only used by Terminal. It wasn't shown when I tried running strings on the binaries of other applications or frameworks.

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It works for me only in a few text inputs, but in most of them it doesn't, e.g. text area it Super User (using Safari) or any other site, or text edit, etc. In most of the places where I need it to work, it doesn't work. I have rebooted my system after making the change in the terminal. – Atern Aug 26 '12 at 20:09
It works with TextEdit on my account, but not with form controls in web views. – Lauri Ranta Aug 26 '12 at 20:14
Sorry, it indeed works with TextEdit, but doesn't work with other text editor I am using (TextMate). – Atern Aug 26 '12 at 20:16
TextMate is a little special, it doesn't use the default TextView but its own variant, which is why it doesn't inherit these defaults. @Atern – slhck♦ Aug 26 '12 at 20:17
Is there any way to disable blinking cursor in form controls in web browsers and in Apple Mail? – Atern Aug 26 '12 at 20:27
up vote 0 down vote

Bug filed:

In Firefox, open about:config and create new integer ui.caretBlinkTime with the value of 0

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