Using `apropos` on macos rebuilds the whatis database every time. Fish shell uses apropos for command completion.

apropos.fish

# Fixes extremely slow apropos command on macos
# Using `apropos` on macos rebuilds the whatis database every time.
# Fish shell uses apropos for command completion.
# Simply add the file below to `~/.config/fish/conf.d` to fix the issue

set db ~/.whatis.db

function apropos_update
    echo "Updating apropos / whatis database at $db"
    man --path | tr ":" " " | xargs /usr/libexec/makewhatis -o $db
end

function apropos
    [ -f $db ] || apropos_update
    /usr/bin/grep -i "$argv" $db
end

function whatis
    [ -f $db ] || apropos_update
    /usr/bin/grep -i "\b$argv\b" $db
end

Thanks a million!

@montaro a better fix has been merged into the fish code base, but hasn't been released yet.

For now, you can copy the following files into your .config/fish/functions directory:

• https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/blob/master/share/functions/__fish_apropos.fish
• https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/blob/master/share/functions/__fish_describe_command.fish
• https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/blob/master/share/functions/__fish_complete_man.fish

Thanks again @folke you saved me from migrating to Zsh :)

Yeah, same. Thanks @folke!

Thanks !

👍 ta!

Works! Thank you @folke!

@rodrigobdz this has been merged a while back and has since been released, so you should no longer need this if you're using the latest version