QLStephen is a QuickLook plugin that lets you view text files without their own dedicated QuickLook plugin. Files like:

README
INSTALL
Capfile
CHANGELOG
package.json
etc...

brew install --cask qlstephen

• Download the latest version of QuickLookStephen
• Unzip
• Copy the file into ~/Library/QuickLook (You can create the QuickLook folder if it doesn’t exist)

Compiling the project yourself? Run:

make
make install

If you run into issues with macOS not letting you run the plugin because it's not signed by a verified developer you can follow these steps:

1. Install the plugin using one of the methods above
2. run xattr -cr ~/Library/QuickLook/QLStephen.qlgenerator (sudo if needed)
3. run qlmanage -r
4. run qlmanage -r cache
5. Restart Finder by...
   • Restarting your computer
   • or holding down the option key and right click on Finder’s dock icon, then select “Relaunch” from the menu

For more disucssion on this you can read up on #81 starting here

To keep quickview fast the preview is limited in its number of shown bytes. The default value is 100kB. You can change this using the shell to set your own max size.

defaults write com.whomwah.quicklookstephen maxFileSize 102400

If you’ve installed the plugin, but don’t see any changes:

• Run qlmanage -m and look for the public.data line to make sure a different application's qlgenerator file hasn't taken precedence. (Not all qlgenerator files are in ~/Library/QuickLook/ or /Library/QuickLook/!)
• Make sure you are editing (a) the correct plist of (b) the correct bundle. (For example, you might have two QLStephen plugins. It’s possible the plugin in another directory — perhaps /Library/QuickLook/ — is what is being read.)
• Run qlmanage -r in the Terminal. (This will restart QuickLook, which reloads all plugins.)

If you want to preview some text files that do have extensions (e.g., *.txt), follow these instructions.

Because I was listening to Adam and Joe when I first wrote it.

Original author: Duncan Robertson

Special thanks to the following people for submitting patches over the years:

• Guillermo Ignacio Enriquez Gutierrez
• Rob Lourens
• Avi Flax
• Tony
• Nicholas Hutchinson

• Fork the project
• Send a pull request
• Don’t change the build number (I’ll do that when I release a new version)