Can't disable fonts in Font Book after fresh Mojave install

Question

I just finished installing macOS Mojave on a brand new 2018 MacBook Pro.

One of the first things I usually do is disable all unnecessary fonts.

This time, the option to disable the font is grayed out for every single font.

In the Finder the file permissions are as follows:

system: Read & Write
wheel: Read only
everyone: Read only

How can I disable fonts in Font Book on OS X Mojave?

Answer 1

It seems like Font Book in Mojave won't let us disable any fonts located in /Library/Fonts, where fonts are supposed to be installed for system-wide use. But I can disable/enable fonts with Font Book if they're located in ~/Library/Fonts (inside your user's home folder).

If you take the other suggestion to make a new folder called /Library/Fonts (disabled) or /Library/Fonts Disabled or /Library/Fonts I Hate etc, moving any fonts into there will just make them disappear entirely out of Font Book. It's not exactly disabling them, it's just putting them into a place where Font Book isn't looking for fonts at all.

Better to move any unwanted system fonts into ~/Library/Fonts, at least they will still be visible to Font Book, and you can easily enable them again if needed.

Answer 2

It turns out that (as far as I know), Font Book in Mojave just does not allow disabling of the default fonts.

There are two main locations where fonts are stored under Mojave:

/Library/Fonts/

/Library/Fonts/ contains all the general use fonts, available to all users. These are the fonts I wanted to disable.

/System/Library/Fonts/

/System/Library/Fonts/ contains fonts that are necessary for the system.

I simply moved all the fonts from /Library/Fonts/ to /Library/Fonts (disabled)/

It went fine and the system has not complained so far.

I did leave copies of the standard web fonts: Verdana, Times New Roman etc.

Answer 3

Select all the fonts you want to remove

and drag the over under Collection in a new folder.

Now you can delete or disable all fonts in that folder !