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Is there any way to close "Untitled" Preview documents without getting the confirmation dialog box (where it asks "Do you want to save the changes made to the document ....?")?

I don't want to just quit, or force quit, the Preview program, because I often have some other documents open that I want to combine and/or save with different names LATER.

I've tried un-checking the General System Preferences option "Ask to keep changes when closing documents", but that didn't work, even after a reboot. And there doesn't seem to be anything relevant in the Preview preferences.

I just want to quickly close a bunch of untitled documents so I can free up some memory or reduce clutter, without having to mouse over to each individual dialog box and click "Don't Save".

If that isn't possible, here some ideas for other methods that would also be helpful - I just don't know if they're possible either:

A. Select a bunch of Untitled documents in a multiple document Preview window and:

  1. Close them all at once without saving any of them. (There is a File menu option for "Close Selected Documents", but it opens up a separate confirmation dialog box for each one.)
  2. Save or Rename all of them all at once (i.e. Untitled1, Untitled2, etc). Then if I have the General Systems Preference "Ask to keep changes..." unchecked I could close them all at once by closing the multiple document window.
  3. Combine them all into one document. (I know you can use Print to convert them into a single new document, but you still have to close the original separate documents).

B. Use a keyboard shortcut for the "Don't Save" button, so at least I can get through all of the separate dialog boxes more quickly.

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  • 1
    Quick shortcut for Cancel in the dialog is Cmd+.
    – user14492
    Sep 15, 2015 at 19:12
  • @user14492 ...& I wish I would remember that ;) I still hit Cmd/d, which went out of fashion a decade ago [though I must have missed that meeting] but still works in Photoshop.
    – Tetsujin
    Sep 15, 2015 at 19:16
  • Thanks for the tip, but I don't want to Cancel the close - I want to close it without saving it. So do you know of a keyboard shortcut for the "Don't Save" button? At least that way I could avoid a lot of mousing time...
    – Steve W
    Sep 15, 2015 at 22:34
  • The most common scenario for me is to have a bunch of Untitled documents created from screenshots using the "New from Clipboard" option. The really frustrating thing about this is that (apparently) you can't close a new document without being asked to save changes even though there haven't been any "changes", while at the same time you can't just close an old (previously saved) document without Preview automatically saving all the changes!
    – Steve W
    Sep 15, 2015 at 23:17

3 Answers 3

Reset to default
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Try using ⌘-⌫ (Command-Delete). I read the list of system keyboard shortcuts for documents, and it is near the very end, and I just tried it, as I have had the same question for a few years now. Previously, I had not read far enough before giving up.

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  • Where is this list of keyboard shortcuts?
    – Ɱark Ƭ
    Nov 30, 2016 at 12:06
  • Thanks Brian Lewis, this is a useful shortcut, but it still seems to require that your first try closing the Untitled window with Command-W. But at least it does enable you to close an Untitled window without saving it without using the mouse. I am still holding out hope for a single keyboard shortcut that can do this...but this helps alot.
    – Steve W
    Dec 4, 2016 at 20:41
  • @Mark, there is a list of system keyboard shortcuts in System Preferences -> Keyboard -> Shortcuts, but I couldn't find that particular shortcut (Command-Delete) anywhere in there. I did notice that it's used in the Finder File menu as a shortcut for "Move to Trash".
    – Steve W
    Dec 4, 2016 at 20:51
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Combining both of the other answers here really helps me (thanks!). With the preview window open:

  • first press Cmd-W to close the current window.
  • Then press ⌘-⌫ (Command-Delete) to close the dialog

Now to commit this to muscle memory...

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1
  • Yes, finally I found a way to do this! Works on macOS 13 too.
    – spnkr
    Jun 1 at 22:37
-4

Try Cmd-W to close the current window.

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  • Yes, that starts the close-current-window-process, but it still brings up the confirmation dialog that I want to avoid.
    – Steve W
    Sep 15, 2015 at 22:36

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