Where are Preferences Stored - Esp. VoiceOver ?

[gmark]

I would like to find the bash/zsh filesystem location in Catalina of user preferences. Especially for VoiceOver.

I cannot turn this annoying thing off, and I've followed all the procedures, had Apple Support working on it for an hour and giving up. Then I ran malware and cleanup and disk repair. Then I reinstalled 10.15.2. This leads me to believe that either there is a bug or corruption in data. I would rather not restore an earlier version from time machine of the entire system, either.

The bottom line is that I would rather just learn more about where and how the preference data is currently stored in Catalina. I've looked under /Library, but haven't found anything named related to VoiceOver or Accessibility. I would like to know how to find these files for software preferences. I've changed various settings in some utilities, but see no change in the file timestamps, so perhaps an interface is buggy.

How do I find preference files and data?

 

[Cory Cooper]

Hello and welcome.

NOTE: It is always recommended to have a current Time Machine or other backup of your data.

-Which model Mac?
-Have you tried creating another use to see is the issue persists when logged into it?

The majority of macOS preferences are user-based and not system-based. In Finder, if you hold the Option key and click Go in the menu bar, you will see Library appear about halfway down the list. That is your hidden user Library folder, where you will probably find com.apple.VoiceOver files/folders.

In Terminal, this should get you to that directory: cd ~/Library/Preferences

Be careful when deleting/editing things, so you don't make the System unstable/unbootable.

Hope that helps,

C