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Every once in a while, my Mac will do this thing where Command+F will no longer work to find/search in any application I use (Atom, Slack, Chrome, etc). Command+G still works in Chrome for "Find Next" as does Command+Shift+F in Atom. The problem seems to be solely limited to Command+F. It doesn't matter which Command key I use (left/right/built-in/external). When I pull up the Keyboard Viewer, the Command keypress registers correctly but not the F

Things I have tried:

  • Closing all applications
  • Fully restarting. The problem persists across full restarts.
  • Resetting all keyboard settings to default
  • Uninstalling Karabiner (which I use for a couple of shortcuts unrelated to Command+F)

The problem persists after trying all of the above and usually goes away after a couple of days for seemingly no reason. Has anyone run into this before or can anyone help me diagnose the issue further? This is driving me nuts.

OS Details: Macbook Pro running OS X El Capitan v 10.11.6

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  • I have since upgraded to High Sierra 10.13.1 and it started happening again this morning.
    – Josh Cox
    Nov 14, 2017 at 15:48
  • Sanity check, first. When this problem is happening, can you verify that your keys are still being registered as pressed? Eliminating the hardware as a concern.
    – Jeff Warner
    Nov 14, 2017 at 16:22
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    The Command registers as being pressed but not the F. When I press Command + Shift + F the F is registered. So something low-level seems to be stopping that from being picked up in the Command+F case.
    – Josh Cox
    Nov 14, 2017 at 17:13
  • does this happen with both Command keys? Does it happen with an external keyboard's Command keys?
    – Jeff Warner
    Nov 14, 2017 at 17:18
  • Yes it happens with both command keys as well as external keyboard's command keys.
    – Josh Cox
    Nov 14, 2017 at 17:19

2 Answers 2

Reset to default
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This has been driving me nuts for months too, and today I figured out that when I press Command+F (in that order), the F key press doesn't register. However, if I flip the order by pressing F + Command, it works again. That seems to "reset" something so that I'm able to continue using Command+F for the rest of that session. I hope this helps!

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    This started happening to me again this morning. F+Command does seem to work to search! Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to have the same "reset" behavior for me. I am only able to get it to work with F+Command.
    – Josh Cox
    Jun 26, 2018 at 15:31
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this is old post but it is first in the google search results by "cmd F doesn't work", so let me post a link to working solution

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5471806

TL;DR

  1. remove ~/Library/Caches/com.apple.Safari/Cache.db
  2. restart in safe mode
  3. restart again in normal mode
  4. PROFIT

and i'm not sure about deleting file, please someone check it

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  • deleting the cache file is not needed for me. It seems starting the safe mode is the only solution for me.
    – Hadi Tok
    Oct 1, 2019 at 13:59

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