I just updated to Sonoma, and I am using Scrivener 3.3.3 and the cursor is huge and blue. I’ve spent the last hour trying to get it back to normal, testing editing text other apps, and it seems Scrivener is the only app so far that has a cursor problem. It’s very distracting and I’m struggling to find my writing groove staring at the big blue pill.
I see this update in 3.3.3, but it doesn’t seem to work for me?
Fixed some issues with the size of the new text cursor on Sonoma.
Please refer to this post. On macOS 14, the top line is the “normal” cursor, and the bottom line is the legacy, deprecated cursor that is no longer favoured by Apple.
Welcome to the future, and progress!
(P.S. As noted there, we are not looking for feedback on this, because it is not our cursor. If you want to express your dislike for it, please head on over to Apple.com and let them know.)
OK. I headed on to Apple about the big blue cursor which is driving me crazy BUT because it ONLY appears in Scrivener Apple says it’s a Scrivener issue. So does this mean no one has a plan to fix this?
Ha ha, it’s almost heartening to hear that Apple’s customer support is about as helpful as their developer support can be sometimes!
That is absolutely hilarious. Apple did a whole presentation at WWDC announcing the new cursor and telling developers how they should adopt it in custom areas, and how it would be present across the whole OS now. It’s even in one of the screenshots on the Sonoma page. And it is in every Apple app, from Mail to Pages to TextEdit to typing in Safari’s search bar.
And yet they tell you it only appears in Scrivener.
I’m guessing whoever replied to you wasn’t using macOS 14 to type their reply!
Apple support are unlikely to be able to do much other than tell you that this is just the standard cursor on macOS 14 and that you can’t change it. What you can do is send Apple some feedback, e.g. via this form:
Be sure to mention how the cursor appears in Apple apps - Mail, Pages, Safari, every text field - so that they don’t dismiss it as not their issue. And say that you don’t like the new thicker appearance and suggest that they add an option to the system Settings to change it back to the old cursor.
The more people that send them feedback along those lines, the more likely they are to listen (although still not very likely!).
(I believe they have made the change to make it look more like the iOS text cursor.)
The craziest thing is that Apple didn’t even manage to stick to one version of this revamped cursor, e.g. when comparing Scrivener / TextEdit (left) and Pages (right) at 200% zoom level:
Huh, yeah, in Pages it looks as though Apple has managed to avoid zooming the cursor while zooming everything else, but that’s not possible for me. Or maybe they are resizing it horizontally to compensate for the zoom. But for mere mortal developers it is not possible to change the width. I can change the height - which I do to fix up Apple’s annoyingly tall cursor in e.g. double-spaced text - but not the width. If I try to change the width, the cursor stays the same width but just appears in a different position. (E.g. If I try to make it 10pt wide, the cursor just appears 10pt further to the right minus its usual width.) So Apple is controlling the width separately.
TextEdit didn’t get this treatment (in that case I suppose it would automatically make a difference in Scrivener, too). Maybe they forgot about it or it wasn’t ready to ship.
I just updated my mac to Sonoma and it has made my Scrivener text cursor big and thick.
When I google how to fix this I get pointed to a setting which lets you set “block insertion point” which adjusts the thickness of the cursor. However that option doesn’t appear to exist in the version I am running v3.3.5.
Does anyone know how I can make my cursor thinner in 3.3.5? I can’t find it.
I’m afraid you can’t - at least not easily. Apple changed the text cursor across macOS on Sonoma and also made it impossible to change the new cursor’s thickness - it’s always two points (although it will look bigger if the text is zoomed). Thus we had to remove the block cursor width feature. You’ll find the same, thicker text cursor across Sonoma - Mail, Pages, TextEdit, in Safari’s search bar, and so on. I believe Apple wanted to make it more like the iOS text cursor, which has always looked like this. The only place you’ll find thinner cursors are in apps that don’t use Apple’s standard frameworks, but we do.
That said, there does seem to be a secret way of disabling it across the system:
From that link, it seems that you just need to fire up Terminal app and enter the following two lines:
Finally. I thought there’s something wrong with me, as apparently everyone else seems to dislike the new cursor. I had it set to 2 px in Scrivener before, but now it blinks more… relaxed?
I guess only those who don’t like it post or email asking to ask how to change it, and there haven’t been that many, so hopefully we’re not totally crazy.
Ha ha, well it’s good to know it works for those who don’t share my taste at least!
I had it set to 2 px in Scrivener before, but now it blinks more… relaxed?