The spacebar isn't working for the select tool on my iMac

I recently started to use my iMac for Sketchup but the space bar isn’t working for the select tool. I assigned the select tool to another key and it worked. I was wondering if there is another setting that have to change. I tried using 2021, 2022, 2023 it doesn’t work on any of them. I used a different keyboard and it didn’t work. My iMac about 1 1/2 years old with an M1 microprocessor. I’m now back using my PC but I would rather use my iMac. I would appreciate any advice.

That’s weird I use Mac and windows and the space bar works fine on both machines. Do you have a mouse or some peripheral that lets you assign keyboard shortcuts to buttons? If so try to assign the space bar key to a button

I don’t know a solution off hand, so some investigation is in order. I’m assuming that the spacebar works properly in all other situations, that is, the keyboard isn’t the source of the issue.

As a first step, please verify that you installed SketchUp correctly by opening the installer dmg file, dragging the SketchUp icon onto the Applications folder icon in the installer dialog, and when it finishes, eject the dmg. Never run SketchUp directly from the dmg or install it directly on something other than your home drive, as that can cause strange errors due to macOS security protections.

Then check in SketchUp Settings (formerly Preferences) → Shortcuts. You can quickly find how the select tool shortcut is set by typing Tools/Select in the search bar at the top. The entry should say “Space” (without the quotes). If it doesn’t, the shortcut has somehow been changed and you can try to assign it back to the space bar by selecting that shortcut target and pressing the spacebar. Unless the spacebar has been assigned to some other shortcut target, you should see the text in the bottom of the dialog change to “Space”. If it has been assigned to some other target, you should see a popup saying “The shortcut [Space] is already assigned to [something]” and asking if you want to reassign or cancel. You should do the reassign.

If the above fails, the next step is to verify that SketchUp is ever seeing a space. Try creating a text label that includes a space. If the text is correct, that shows SketchUp is seeing the space and something else is wrong.

As a last resort, you could quit SketchUp and then delete the SharedPreferences.json file from

/Users/yourid/Library/Application Support/SketchUp 2023/SketchUp

SketchUp will regenerate the file the next time it is launched and should restore the default shortcuts, which include using space for the selection tool. Unfortunately, erasing the json file will also lose all of your other shortcut settings.