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I am using MacOS Mojave with lots of tools like Keyboard Maestro, Better Touch Tool, Witch and some more.

Now I have somehow remapped the keyboard shortcut Shift + CMD + L, and I cannot use that shortcut in Safari and Mail.app anymore. I used it in Safari.app to toggle the side bar.

In order to find the app that remapped the shortcut, I stopped/quitted almost all apps and after each app I checked the shortcut, if it works again, but without success.

Going into Preferences > Keyboard > Shortcuts I cannot see any entry that remaps the said keyboard shortcut.

Is there a way to find out in which app I remapped the keyboard shortcut globally?

I cannot boot into safe mode with my MBP 2018 (Touchbar version). So I couldn't incrementally start my tools to see which app is responsible for the remapped key-combo.


Edit

I even created an app shortcut for Safari.app via Preferences > Keyboard > Shortcuts > App Shortcuts and added Show Sidebar (Cmd + Shift + L), but it still won't work.

How can I find out which app "overshadows" / intercepts with this keyboard shortcut?

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From my research it looks like there are a few options.

Application solutions

  • KeyCue can supposedly detect when shortcuts are changed and list out all existing keyboard shortcuts. This program was suggested here.

  • Another program is Shortcut Detective. Please note however that on their site is states that "Not all hotkeys can be detected". This was suggested here however I haven't used it myself!

Manual solution

If neither of those options work you could try to capture your input and activity using opensnoop.

  1. Launch Terminal and run:

    $ sudo opensnoop -v >> output.txt
    

    According to the opensnoop man page this will record all file opens as they occur. The -v flag includes timestamps to make it easier to find the event we're looking for. The >> part writes the output to a text file called output.txt.

  2. While opensnoop is running, navigate to the applications you're having difficulty with and type your shortcut - in this case Shift + CMD + L

  3. Go back to your Terminal and hit CTR + C to quit opensnoop

  4. Open the output.txt file in your text editor of choice and look for the application you switched to or the rough timestamp you tested at. Hopefully this gives you more information about what that shortcut actually did!

This solution is heavily based on an answer by daniel Azuelos so full credit to him :)

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    Excellent tips! Thank you very much indeed!
    – Ugur
    Mar 13, 2019 at 7:01

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