How to disable "Rotate Right" Finder shortcut?

Question

I've just found out that the Finder has the ability to make changes to the contents of image and video files using these shortcuts:

• ⌘R - Rotate Right
• ⌘L - Rotate Left
• ⌥⌘R - Rotate Left

(Thanks to this list.)

These actions don't show up in the Finder's menus. The only time I see "Rotate Right" or "Rotate Left" in the menus is after the action. The text for the undo action becomes "Undo Rotate Right" (or Left).

Anyway, the last thing I want to do is change to the contents of files in Finder by accidentally pressing these keys. I've tried this trick to disable these actions, assigning "Rotate Right" and "Rotate Left" to some hard to press combinations.

But only "Rotate Left" becomes disabled. ⌘R stubbornly keeps working.

I've even checked with CheatSheet that my shortcuts are indeed in place.

Any ideas?

Answer 1

The trick is to bind ⌘R to something valid. While I haven't figured out where this behaviour is originating from (⌘R does not flash any menubar item but it does if you bind "Rotate Right" which is seemingly a hidden menu bar entry?) I found a workaround.

This workaround disables ⌘R in Finder. If you want ⌘R to do something you can just rebind it to that. If you bind it to something non-existing however it will still rotate. That is the workaround, providing a noop menu entry (doing nothing).

1. Start "Automator"
2. Create new document and select "Quick Action". A window opens with a list on the left and a workflow area on the right.
3. Change the first line in the workflow area so that "Workflow receives current" is set to "files or folders" and - if you want this service only to show up in Finder - set "in" to "Finder.app"
4. Save it (⌘S) and give it a name such as "Disable Action" (doesn't really matter but you need it for...)
5. Assign ⌘R to "Disable Action" in keyboard shortcut preferences

You can still:

• Press space (quicklook) and use ⌘R to rotate there
• Bind "Rotate Right" to another key if you want to retain that functionality in Finder

Answer 2

It seems this trick with Automator doesnt work in Sonoma 14.6

Short cut for this new action only works if it is different from CMD+R as i.i. CMD+ALT+SHIFT+R, so even using CMD+R, is still used for rotate pics and vids...