You can restore Save As… to its rightful place (both in the menu and on your keyboard) by using the Shortcuts tab of the Keyboard system preference. Simply add the following App Shortcut for All Applications:
This will put Save As… back in the menu without holding down option (or any other key) and allow you to use the ‘standard’ keyboard combo for it as well. Duplicate will still exist in the menu underneath Save As… for those times when you want it. (You could also assign a keyboard shortcut to Duplicate if you use it frequently enough to need one.)
"Duplicate will still exist in the menu underneath Save As… for those times when you want it. (You could also assign a keyboard shortcut to Duplicate if you use it frequently enough to need one.)"
Thanks @Jolin (and @Bobwigg761) re the SysPrefs Keyboard Shortcut suggestion. Up until now I’ve resisted that option as I’ve conditioned myself over the years to using the Option key to show the Save As… feature.
But by adding that to the KB Shortcuts, it in fact adds an extra menu item (not replace Duplicate) which is what I thought it would do. So Shift+⌘+S is now Save as… on my Macs.
Now showing SAVE; SAVE AS… ; and DUPLICATE from the dropdown Menu. I think my learners will appreciate that option as well (see next para).
As I use several different Macs (some mine, others are learner-clients) each week in my activities, I try to only use Apple-provided solutions so learners don’t get confused (or I get confused as to why a keyboard shortcut doesn’t work when I’m on their computer!).
As well, past experience has taught me that if you rely on mission-critical 3rd party apps (like Super Boomerang (aka Default Folder) as a mild example; MYOB as a major example), and Apple make an OS change that makes the app not work, then one is in a quandary (sometimes severe).
Apologies to @ACE for complicating the original thread of Window Proxy activation with the Save As dilemma.
You can use a similar trick to prevent critical apps from being accidentally Quit via Command-Q or any other keyboard shortcut you find yourself hitting by accident.
open: Apple > System Prefs > Keyboard > Shortcuts (tab) > App Shortcuts (left side) > [+]
Choose your desired Application from the drop-down menu, then type the Menu Title from that app exactly as it appears. Now click in the Keyboard Shortcut box and press something like Shift-Control-Command-Q and then click “Add”. This is a key combination that you would have to really be thinking about to activate and it should not conflict with anything else. It also cannot* be activated by something laying on that area of the keyboard (* it would have to be a very specific object shape to do so).
When typing the Menu Title, remember to use three single periods for “…” (ellipses). Make sure you match the upper- and lower-cases, use single spaces, and do not add spaces before or after the full title.
If things don’t work, check the menu in the app itself to see if your edit is displayed correctly in the same location as the original item. You can edit the Keyboard shortcut you just made just as you would renaming a file (highlight, then click again for editing). If things get really messed up, you can reset by removing your entry from the Keyboard system prefs (Select your entry in the list and click the [-] button below).
I think the point here is that Apple is using the three separate period characters in that menu command. It may or may not match the ellipsis character. In past experience I’ve had to experiment with which one the developer used in their menu command. If it does not match, the shortcut will fail.
Actually, I’m pretty sure that Apple uses the ellipsis in all its menu commands, but it accepts three full stops as equivalent in the Keyboard preference pane since most people are unaware of ellipsis as a specific character, and fewer still know how to type them.
@jzw
Your post triggered a distant memory of reading Adam’s TidBITS Trick back in 2015. That was shortly after I’d purchased a 2015-model MacBook Pro. At the time, I was delighted to read what @ace had posted, and configured the MBP with the keyboard shortcut (which I’ve used frequently ever since). Until January of this year, when I retired the MBP, replacing it with an M1-MBAir.
The Save As… command was missing from the MBA, and I have been quietly cursing Monterey and Apple every time I hit a File menu. (The new MBA has been nothing but one headache after another. Hours on the phone with AppleCare and hours on the web researching myriad problems). I blamed Monterey for the disappearance of Save As…
For some reason, Migration Assistant failed to copy over the custom keyboard shortcuts from the MBP to the MBA, and I’d totally forgotten that it had been a user-added enhancement,
I’ve now configured the MBA with the Save As shortcut, and macOS happiness has returned (at least as my File menus are concerned). So many thanks for posting your article.
And thanks to Adam for giving me 6 years of Save As… nirvana!
My Ventura Preview is showing Save As… just fine as shift-cmd-S. No idea if this makes a difference, but I have the shortcut defined under All Apps, not specifically Preview.
