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No, dear readers, as the Internet might have you believe, none of these things work on a 2017 Macbook Pro, the kind with the touchbar:

  • Fn+Enter
  • Fn+M
  • Fn+.
  • Fn+Option+Enter

Somehow, someway, when I was pasting some text I ended out getting into overtype mode in Slack and now it's stuck that way.

Internet documentation might work if I had an older computer or one with keys that I don't have, but there's nothing I've been able to find that will tell me how to turn off this dratted overtype mode. And it's seriously annoying.

Any clue how to turn it off?

IconDaemon
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Wayne Werner
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8 Answers8

81

My original solution (crossed out below) no longer works. Things that do work:

  • If you have a Mac keyboard, press the Help key to toggle between insert and replace mode
  • If you have a Windows keyboard, press the Insert (or Ins) key to toggle between insert and replace mode
  • Restart Slack (quit and relaunch); refreshing no longer works

I contacted Slack support and was told to use ⌘+R to do a quick refresh and reset the mode from overwrite to insert.

From Slack support team:

> Thanks for writing in about this! We've seen this occur on Mac computers recently as well, and the good news is there is an easy way to switch! To reset the mode from overwrite to insert, this should be possible with a quick refresh using Cmd+R

Explanation: This is because slack is using electron, which is essentially a wrapper around a browser to create a desktop app. Other "web" commands work like ⌘+[ and ⌘+] to traverse your "browser history" backward and forward, respectively.

Pokermike
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  • FYI this workaround also works on Ubuntu using Strg+R – ATN Aug 22 '18 at 07:39
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    Just a refresh didn't work for me. I had to close the chrome tab and reopen it. – Semimono Dec 17 '18 at 23:52
  • +1 This worked for me! I had the same problem, but it didn't originate in Slack for me. It was affecting other apps, including IntelliJ. It happened at home when I accidentally pressed Ins on a windows keyboard. At work I have an Apple keyboard with no Ins key so I couldn't toggle it off. After reading this answer, I was able to use ⌘+R in Slack to toggle it off though. Thanks! – tune5ths Dec 10 '19 at 22:14
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    As of Slack version 4.6.0 / Catalina, the ⌘+R fix no longer works. It used to for me, but that was on older versions of MacOS and Slack, so I don't know which upgrade broke it. Closing & restarting the Slack app was the only thing that worked. – JESii Jul 01 '20 at 17:27
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    ⌘+R, restarting all did not work. I have Ubuntu 20.04, the Slack app (Snap 4.9.1 64-bit) and an apple keyboard (don't ask), so pressing the help key is what worked for me. – iggie Oct 02 '20 at 21:46
  • Ubuntu 19.04, overtype started suddenly and refresh also don't work for me. – bncc Feb 22 '21 at 11:15
48

Closing and restarting Slack worked for me... But yeah, super annoying!

Harlan
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    Just had this happen to me, had to restart Slack as well - it's like the old Windows days, just reboot to fix.... – ckm Nov 29 '17 at 18:50
  • It kills me that this is still a problem and I still have no idea how it happens or how to fix it other than restarting Slack. – user24601 Mar 11 '20 at 19:15
  • On Windows I killed all Slack tasks in Task Manager, then opened Slack again. Done. – Jono Sep 14 '20 at 12:20
13

NOTE: Keep in mind that if you're using a PC keyboard with your Macbook, then this solution can be used.

Press insert on your keyboard. Fixed.

slm
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Mark
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8

I am using an old Apple keyboard. The 'help' button turns on/off the overwriting function on the computer.

Bluejay511
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4

Ctrl+R for you windows users out there.

slm
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Timothy Girard
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3

I was trying to figure this one out too and couldn't find anything that worked. What I did, ultimately: Run the On-Screen Keyboard in Windows and click the INSERT key.

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Shawn P.
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1

I know this an apple SE, but some of us use Mac and Windows. In my case, using a Windows laptop in a docking station, pressing the Insert key from the external keyboard didn't solve the problem, but pressing the Insert key on the laptop's built-in keyboard solved it.

TL/DR: If you use an external keyboard, try clicking Insert key on the built-in keyboard.

Leatherwing
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    I'm using a kinesis + Mac, and the opposite was the case for me. I'd accidentally toggled Keypad on my keyboard, and didn't know there was an insert key on the left-hand-side under \ | – wrhall Jun 08 '20 at 21:19
0

I'm using it on a windows 10 machine in chrome. Control-r doesn't seem to work here. Even though I had closed the chrome browser and shut down the machine, when I brought it back up the next day it was still in overtype mode. I had to close that tab in the browser and then open slack in the browser again to go back into insert mode.

Henry Will
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  • Try Pressing: fn + 0 NOTE: 0 of the right number keypad

    or

    Try Pressing: shift + fn + 0 . NOTE: 0 of the right number keypad

     – sgupta May 02 '22 at 03:32