How do I keep using terminal while qlmanage is running?

Question

I am using the command qlmanage -p (file) >/dev/null 2>/dev/null to open quicklook with a file and send both stdout and stderr to /dev/null. I would like the quicklook to stay up while I keep using the terminal, however, it will only allow you to use the terminal after quicklook has closed. Is there anyway to do this?

Answer 1

You can run your command in background, to start with. You do that by using a & at the end of the command.

qlmanage -p (file) >/dev/null 2>/dev/null &

Alternatively, after you already started the command, you can still put it in background. First press Control+Z, which will temporarily stop the program. Then use the bg command to keep running it in background. Note that the program will be temporarily stopped when using this procedure, which is typically not an issue, but might possibly be in the case of what you're running.