31 ms·

Ask HN: What feature did you find after years of using macOS?

• nicoburns 6y ago
  Wait until you find out you can change which directory screenshots save to. I have a dedicated "screenshots" directory in my home directory. And then a stack in the Dock for it similar to the one for the Downloads folder.
  • Operyl 6y ago
    Even better, you can just have those screenshots save to only your clipboard. Just add ctrl to your combo, _or_ you can remap it in Keyboard under System Preferences.
    • davidivadavid 6y ago
      Whoops, just posted that too. Definitely one of the most time-saving shortcuts I found in the last few years.
  • Roybot 6y ago
    I need this.
  • etimberg 6y ago
    Any idea if there is a way to remove the preview that shows up in the bottom right corner? OSX doesn't write the screenshot until after that disappears which is annoying
    • js2 6y ago
      https://osxdaily.com/2019/08/02/disable-screenshot-thumbnail-preview-mac/ https://osxdaily.com/2019/08/02/disable-screenshot-thumbnail...
    • rileytg 6y ago
      > Another good tip for screenshots is disabling the floating thumbnail. Just open the screenshot app and disable it in the options menu.
    • deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    • jdub 6y ago
      Shift + Command + 5… click "Options" in the bar down the bottom of the screen. (Also, try hitting space a couple of times in that mode.)
      • moralestapia 6y ago
        Wait ... you can RECORD !
        • chadcmulligan 6y ago
          Since Mojave https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208721 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208721
        • roryokane 6y ago
          While recording your screen, you can also record your microphone by choosing it in the Options menu. However, there is no way to record audio that is output to your speakers unless you first create a custom audio source using Soundflower (https://github.com/mattingalls/Soundflower https://github.com/mattingalls/Soundflower) or Loopback (https://rogueamoeba.com/loopback/ https://rogueamoeba.com/loopback/).
    • logicuce 6y ago
      You can also do it using commandline `defaults write com.apple.screencapture show-thumbnail -bool false`
    • nxpnsv 6y ago
      Found out the other day that you can drag and drop this into a document...
      • etimberg 6y ago
        Hmm, it must be something special in certain apps. I've tried that into the Slack desktop app and it didn't accept it
        • nxpnsv 6y ago
          That’s odd that was my exact learning example
    • mattkevan 6y ago
      The preview thing is really handy as you can directly drag and drop it into a document or chat window or whatever. After you’ve done that it won’t be saved, which is great as you can quickly snap and use a screenshot without having to switch to the Finder - and the desktop doesn’t get cluttered with hundreds of images.
      • freetonik 6y ago
        A huge problem with this is that some apps don't "accept" this drag and drop, and the preview just disappears without saving the screenshot file. I can't remember the exact apps which behave that way, but I've been burned and irritated multiple times because of this. As a result, I disabled the preview feature and added the screenshot folder to the dock just like OP did.
        • statictype 6y ago
          I’ve seen this with most cross platform apps - like Slack and Skype. What I found you can do instead is use Cmd-C to copy it and then paste it into the app. That generally works.
        • monocularvision 6y ago
          And folks wonder why people get annoyed with non-native apps on Mac.
  • nemosaltat 6y ago
    Onyx, and some other utilities from Titanium centralize some handy tweaks like this in a simple GUI.
  • cel1ne 6y ago
    Shift + Command + 4, then space-bar -> capture windows.
  • davidivadavid 6y ago
    Wait until you find out you don't even have to save screenshots (most of the time) and can copy them straight to clipboard, and Cmd-V them where you need them. Cmd-Ctrl-Shift-3/4.
    • stjohnswarts 6y ago
      Yeah this is what I do 98% of the time. I'm usually not taking a bunch of screen shots. Just 1 or 2, usually because copy/paste from slack is such a PITA
  • sumedh 6y ago
    Thanks, I did that now. I hate all the screenshots on my desktop.
• yarsanich 6y ago
  Creating one-file pdf from large pdf file with simple page drag to the home screen using Preview.
  • clairity 6y ago
    yes, and you can compose all sorts of decks by showing the sidebar and dragging images/pages between window sidebars. i sometimes compose quick-and-dirty UX flows from mockups this way.
• blaesus 6y ago
  Preview can modify images. There's a button with a pencil icon that toggles a toolbar for simple image editing, such as adding lines, shapes, or texts.
  • snowwrestler 6y ago
    There’s a little prism icon too which opens a panel for Lightroom-type modifications like exposure, shadows, highlights, levels, sharpness, etc.
    • crazygringo 6y ago
      I mean I thought I was a Preview power user, but had never clicked that little toolbar button. Blows me away I can do that stuff in Preview. Wow.
  • moralestapia 6y ago
    Cmd + Shift + A : To show the bar.
  • jjoonathan 6y ago
    It's got a good solid-color-to-alpha tool too!
  • mistersquid 6y ago
    I've been using the Markup in Preview since they went system-wide in macOS Mojave. (Today I learned that Markup debuted as an extension in Mac OS X 10.10 Yosemite. [0]) This comment and its children sent me on a spelunking mission and the treasures I found. Markup has a Loupe tool and Speech Bubbles.! Such features are many, various, and somewhat obscure, akin to Easter Eggs. (Both undiscoverable and handy to know.) [0] https://tidbits.com/2018/11/19/macos-hidden-treasures-the-macs-hidden-markup-tools/ https://tidbits.com/2018/11/19/macos-hidden-treasures-the-ma...
• gentryb 6y ago
  Cmd + Shift + ? = Easy way to access menus via keyboard
  • Roybot 6y ago
    dope. thank you.
  • eddyg 6y ago
    or Ctrl+F2 if you prefer to start at the Apple menu
  • tgv 6y ago
    For me, it just opens the application's "Help".
    • JMTQp8lwXL 6y ago
      From there, you can use the arrow keys to navigate to the menu option you'd like.
      • tgv 6y ago
        No, it opens the actual help window or link. The menu doesn't get selected.
• corytheboyd 6y ago
  The keyboard shortcut in finder to take you to your home directory, cmd + shift + h if I recall correctly. Makes it trivial to keyboard navigate to anything when you can easily start from the same place every time!
  • hooda 6y ago
    You can also set which folder (downnloads/documents/desktop) to open by default when you open a new Finder Window.
  • NaOH 6y ago
    If you don't know, that shortcut also works in Open/Save dialogs. The same is true for nearly all the shortcuts in the Finder > Go menu (go to Desktop switches to Command-D in those dialogs).
  • house9-2 6y ago
    cmd + shift + h = home directory cmd + shift + a = applications directory cmd + shift + d = desktop directory Semi-related, type `open .` in terminal to open that directory in Finder
    • ramses0 6y ago
      `xdg-open .` is the Linux equivalent.
    • haddr 6y ago
      And when you are in terminal and want to change dir to some different path, just drag and drop it from finder (either a file or just a icon from the title bar)
      • donarb 6y ago
        If you cmd-drop a file icon into Terminal, it will automatically cd into the parent directory, it prefixes the path with cd and appends ; at the end and executes it. If the icon is a folder, it will automatically cd into that directory. If you shift-drop a file icon into Terminal, it will paste the file path to the command line without escaping spaces.
• throwaway333444 6y ago
  Setting most (but not all) system preference using the terminal. It made doing clean installs every year so much easier. https://github.com/mathiasbynens/dotfiles/blob/main/.macos https://github.com/mathiasbynens/dotfiles/blob/main/.macos
  • muli_d 6y ago
    This is gold. Thanks!
  • ta1234567890 6y ago
    Super curious about your yearly clean installs. Could you do a short breakdown of your process and the tools you use to manage it? Also, what do you use for backups? Thank you.
  • TaqPolymerase 6y ago
    Do you have a good way of discovering these keys / syncing them with the UI? I like to do the same thing but sometimes change a setting in the UI and don’t know what to update in my script without diffing the entire prefs directory before and after the change.
    • niteshade 6y ago
      AFAIK diffing is the only way, I'd love to hear if anyone has a better technique
  • SPBS 6y ago
    are you mathiasbynens? If so, thank you. I've been using that script as a reference for my own clean install script. Not sure where else I could have found the information, seems like Apple themselves are against documenting it and have in fact deprecated some of the settings in later macOS versions.
  • juancn 6y ago
    Why do you do clean installs? I've been moving the same MacOS image since 2006. Four machines, without any issues using whatever MacOS provides at the time.
• bryceneal 6y ago
  I solved the screenshot on the desktop problem by using a program called Hazel. It can automatically move and sort files based on any number of criteria. I set it up to move all screenshots on my desktop to a ~/tmp directory. This has worked pretty well for keeping my desktop completely empty which is my preference.
  • donatj 6y ago
    You can actually just change where they go in the Command-Shift-5 option menu.
• Roybot 6y ago
  Dictionary word lookup with a single gesture. https://media.giphy.com/media/Vg5tebSFuj1DFtHwrd/giphy.gif https://media.giphy.com/media/Vg5tebSFuj1DFtHwrd/giphy.gif
  • hooda 6y ago
    Tap on a word with 3 fingers.
  • donatj 6y ago
    You can also hover over the word and hit Command-Shift-D for people not using a trackpad.
  • GolDDranks 6y ago
    Sadly, that used to work better than it does now. From some versions ago, it was upgraded to be "smarter" and do google searches and link lookups and whatnot. I'm nowadays struggling to get the dictionary lookup shown. That's a shame; as a non-native speaker it's a super helpful feature. I've been trying to disable the other shenanigans, but without much success.
    • GolDDranks 6y ago
      Woah, I found a way to fix it! You need to remove the checkbox "Show Spotlight results in <whatever the feature's name is in English>" in Spotlight settings. I wouldn't thought that I need to go look for settings elsewhere to fix that.
  • sneak 6y ago
    That used to send whatever word (possibly a password, or some other confidential thing) you deep-clicked on out to the lookup server unencrypted. If you happened to be on open wifi (like in a coffeeshop), it would broadcast it totally unencrypted to everyone within radio range. I reported it and now it uses TLS. :)
• hamiltont 6y ago
  Show hidden files (dotfiles) inside any finder window or file open dialog: Cmd + Shift + . Discovered after ~10 years
  • Roybot 6y ago
    This is awesome.
    • nemosaltat 6y ago
      I’ve been using `defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles YES; killall dock` for at least 15 years. A quick DDG search, indicated this shortcut arrived in High Sierra. Has it been around longer?
      • nguyenkien 6y ago
        No, this new added recent years. Before that I have to use software like xtrafinder (Cmd+Shift+/) --- https://www.macworld.co.uk/how-to/mac-software/show-hidden-files-mac-3520878/ https://www.macworld.co.uk/how-to/mac-software/show-hidden-f... added since sierra
      • uranusjr 6y ago
        It has been around for as long as I can remember, and I have been using Mac since 10.3. — Edit: Thinking about it a bit more, it might not be that long since I wasn’t into programming back then and hidden files meant little to me. The first time I used it was probably around Leopard. — Edit 2: It seems like the feature debuted in Lion (10.7). This would make sense since Finder was overhauled in that version to add several features.
  • house9-2 6y ago
    Thank you!
  • manmal 6y ago
    Not even temporarily, it’s a permanent, system-wide setting.
• nikivi 6y ago
  You can write low level code to interject all keystrokes and program keys. https://github.com/yqrashawn/GokuRakuJoudo https://github.com/yqrashawn/GokuRakuJoudo
• kjakm 6y ago
  I believe desktop Stacks is only a version old (10.14) so you probably haven't been missing it for too long fortunately. Another good tip for screenshots is disabling the floating thumbnail. Just open the screenshot app and disable it in the options menu.
  • dagmx 6y ago
    On the topic of screenshots, one I didn’t know was hitting space before you take a screenshot will make it capture an entire Window, including the shadow instead of having to drag a region
    • untog 6y ago
      Plus holding option while you click takes a screenshot without the shadow, which I find vastly preferable. I only found out about that a couple of months ago, after a long time being annoyed.
      • chadlavi 6y ago
        This one is a true pro tip
• Solstinox 6y ago
  Double click text to select a word. Triple click text to select the whole paragraph. For decades I assumed that there’s some weird fluky behavior when trying to select a word and accidentally selecting the paragraph.
  • tonmoy 6y ago
    This is same in Windows and Linux as well
  • ffpip 6y ago
    This feature is present everywhere. Windows, Android, all browsers I use, inside apps, etc
  • danthewireman 6y ago
    You can also double click a word, keep the mouse button down, and drag. This will select whole words. I use this a lot.
    • Solstinox 6y ago
      I didn’t know that either, thank you! It works with triple-click paragraphs too.
  • tksb 6y ago
    Along the same lines for text navigation and manipulation: opt + [arrow keys]: To move through text respecting word boundaries. cmd + [arrow keys]: To move through text respecting line boundaries. Add shift to either of those and now instead of navigating, you're selecting the text. opt + delete: deletes full word behind cursor cmd + delete: deletes full line behind cursor
• bredren 6y ago
  Has anyone found a way to name desktop spaces anything other than Desktop 1, Desktop 2 etc?
  • house9-2 6y ago
    Not a built in feature: https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/211954/how-can-i-name-desktops-spaces-in-el-capitan https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/211954/how-can-i-n... Some people on this post are using ‘Stickies’ app to put a label on each one? Otherwise, there are 3rd party apps that do it.
    • bredren 6y ago
      Thanks for this. I did look into this a while back and both Total Spaces and the github project require at least temporary disabling SIP. I may go for that commercial app anyway because it really is costly to lose context built up in a space. Especially when you have a lot of completely unrelated projects you want to task switch between. I’d go so far as to say lack of Spaces feature polish in MacOS is impacting my ability to efficiently maintain open source code. Because those projects only get special extra time from me these days. Apple should make more spaces API open to developers if Apple won’t improve this important macOS feature.
      • egypturnash 6y ago
        This may or may not work for you: each space dedicated to a project has a desktop image related to the project - a logo, an important visual asset, etc. It mostly works for me. Wish you could name the damn things out of the box though.
        • bredren 6y ago
          This is a good idea. I started testing this previously by just choosing different wallpapers, but didn't take a step further to photoshop in some text. I may yet in addition to the space naming. It feels like it would be helpful to see on the wallpaper using expose, and also from the three finger swipe up. Really, Apple should allow this meta to be overlayed on a wallpaper instead of having to photoshop it in. I'm perplexed on why Spaces has gotten zero improvements for so long.
• NateEag 6y ago
  Focusing the menubar with Control-F2. You can then navigate by arrow keys or typing. Space bar activates the highlighted menu/submenu. It makes life so much better. Control-F2 itself was slightly broken in 10.14 (IIRC), so I hacked up a dumb workaround in my Hammerspoon config: https://github.com/NateEag/dotfiles/blob/99f6b641151f85f6f781df3a17c15c5c4b4bba51/src/.hammerspoon/init.lua#L44 https://github.com/NateEag/dotfiles/blob/99f6b641151f85f6f78...
  • donatj 6y ago
    Command-Shift-? is the better version of this imho, directly opens the help menu and you can just type the name of the menu item and hit enter. Way quicker than navigating to it.
    • hobs 6y ago
      Yep this is what I came to say - OSX's help menu automatically searches all menu commands and if you hover over them it will open up the menu, show you the location, and if you hit enter just use it for you. This is also something you can generally call from Applescript as well, if you want to automate application behaviors.
      • IggleSniggle 6y ago
        Mind sharing an example AppleScript of that? Every time I’ve dug in there, it’s never had quite what I wanted. But this seems like an especially leverage-able idea.
        • hobs 6y ago
          It's been about 10 years since I touched that code, so apologies if these are all things you know. I am pretty sure most of the work was just extending the documentation in https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/documentation/LanguagesUtilities/Conceptual/MacAutomationScriptingGuide/AutomatetheUserInterface.html https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/documentation/La... with looking up application "dictionaries" (iirc, a box of supported commands) and all menu items being accessible by default. https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/documentation/AppleScript/Conceptual/AppleScriptLangGuide/conceptual/ASLR_about_handlers.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/TP40000983-CH206-SW1 https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/documentation/Ap...
• shrumm 6y ago
  my favourite feature is how the title bar icon in any app that’s editing a file (textmate/ word etc) is a pointer to the actual file unlike windows. - you can drag that file anywhere to move it. - CMD click it to see a breadcrumb menu showing where it is and navigate to the folder on a similar vein, dragging a file into an open file modal box makes it browse to the containing folder. In windows, dragging a file would move the file into that folder. I combine the above two quite a bit. Editing a file in app A, need to upload it somewhere via browser. Drag file from title bar into open dialog box, done.
  • robertoandred 6y ago
    I hate hate hate that they're hiding proxy icons in Big Sur.
    • jooize 6y ago
      Proxy icons?
      • js2 6y ago
        The icon in the window title bar is often referred to as the proxy icon. I thought this was Apple's official name for it, but I can't find any evidence to support that in Apple's documentation.
    • djxfade 6y ago
      Damn, what a bummer. Is there any way to re-enable it?
      • donarb 6y ago
        I've read that you can hover over the spot and it'll appear.
      • Sirened 6y ago
        It appears almost instantly when you mouse over where it used to be. I've been living on it for the past few weeks and haven't changed my muscle memory at all.
• nthState 6y ago
  You can hover/long press on the green traffic light item to tile your screen.
  • throwaway413 6y ago
    literally just discovered this yesterday myself for the first time - still prefer Spectacle, but nice that it’s there.
    • delgaudm 6y ago
      Spectacle is no longer being maintained. Rectangle [0] offers the same functionally and is OSS [0]https://rectangleapp.com/ https://rectangleapp.com/
      • throwaway413 6y ago
        Oh nice, it looks good! Gonna try it out. I’ve never had even a single issue with Spectacle so not really a big deal to me that it’s no longer maintained. It Just Works, from my experience - with that said who knows for how long, I guess.
      • prh8 6y ago
        When I first saw Rectangle, I thought I saw there was one Spectacle feature it was missing due to APIs. I'm looking now and it looks like it has everything I use, which is great.
  • deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  • deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
• muli_d 6y ago
  You can delete files immediately (i.e., skip moving to the trash) in Finder by holding the Option key in addition to Command + Delete (or Backspace).
• randomdata 6y ago
  That you can hold down certain keys, like i and o, to access a list of similar characters that aren't found on the keyboard. My 1 year old taught me that one.
  • JadeNB 6y ago
    One can be forgiven for finding this after long years of useage, because it didn't used to be the case. I'm not sure when it was introduced, but it was in a (to this oldster) recent version.
    • fedorareis 6y ago
      It was introduced sometime after that feature became standard in the iOS keyboard. So yes, it is a relatively new feature.
  • frereubu 6y ago
    I actually turn that off - https://osxdaily.com/2011/08/04/enable-key-repeat-mac-os-x-lion/ https://osxdaily.com/2011/08/04/enable-key-repeat-mac-os-x-l... - so it's easier to write things like noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!
    • m463 6y ago
      It's one of the first things I turn off. annoying. I also have repeat set to fastest and delay until repeat the shortest.
    • jooize 6y ago
      May not produce the same feel, but there is: defaults write -g NSRepeatCountBinding -string "^u" > This default controls the numeric argument binding. The default is for numeric arguments not to be supported. If you provide a binding for this default you enable the feature. This allows you to repeat a keyboard command a given number of times. For instance “Control-U 10 Control-F” means move forward ten characters. — https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/documentation/Cocoa/Conceptual/EventOverview/TextDefaultsBindings/TextDefaultsBindings.html https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/documentation/Co...
• david422 6y ago
  Hold down the option key when selecting text (in some editors) and it enables columnar selection. Can be very useful for certain editing tasks.
  • nguyenkien 6y ago
    This depend on softwares not OS features. Vscode can do that in all OS
• GolDDranks 6y ago
  Cmd-R (R for "reveal") in the open/save file dialog opens the present directory in Finder. This is useful as I commonly want to do some additional janitory tasks in the directory.
  • mikehollinger 6y ago
    A complimentary feature: when you want to “open” a file from some file open dialog box, instead of navigating through the dialog, go find the file some other way and drag-n-drop it onto the dialog. The file won’t open, BUT it’ll pop over to the directory and select the file for you to then open in the context of the application. I use this all the time when I either have something handy in Finder or can find it more quickly with alfred.
  • TaqPolymerase 6y ago
    This works in Spotlight too!
• Vincenttermini 6y ago
  Marking a file as "Stationary Pad" will create and open a copy every time you open the original. Good for templates or any other file you don't want to accidentally save changes to. - Get Info on file. - Check Stationary Pad box.
  • browningstreet 6y ago
    That's a strange name/label for an awesome feature.
    • Vincenttermini 6y ago
      I know, right? Been using Macs for 25 years and discovered it a few months ago on accident. Not sure how long it's been there, but definitely a dumb name!
      • cefstat 6y ago
        I remember this from the classic Mac OS days (i.e. System 7) circa 1994. It’s probably even older than that.
        • jonpurdy 6y ago
          This is so incredibly useful! I also remember it from those days as a kid. I wish I knew it was still a thing all this time!
        • throwanem 6y ago
          I think it originated with the Lisa. It's mentioned in that context on folklore.org (1): > Lisa users never dealt with Lisa applications directly (these were called tools in Lisa parlance) but instead always manipulated stationery pads which produced documents. (1) https://www.folklore.org/ProjectView.py?project=Macintosh&index=120&sortOrder=Sort+by+Rating&detail=Show+Everything https://www.folklore.org/ProjectView.py?project=Macintosh&in...
        • ingorichter 6y ago
• monokh 6y ago
  Mac has a storage explorer called "Storage management app". I found it great for making space as it can sort by categories and file size. Before realising this, it was a pain to find decent software for the MacOS. I imagine this was added recently.
  • donarb 6y ago
    The Omni Group has had a free storage space app on the Mac for a long time called OmniDiskSweeper. https://www.omnigroup.com/blog/omnidisksweeper-catalina https://www.omnigroup.com/blog/omnidisksweeper-catalina
  • roryokane 6y ago
    I’ve long used GrandPerspective (http://grandperspectiv.sourceforge.net/ http://grandperspectiv.sourceforge.net/) for this. It shows you how big each file and folder is visually, so you can more easily estimate the impact of deleting those files.
• GavinAnderegg 6y ago
  Cmd-Ctrl-Space (⌘⌃␣) for the character/emoji picker. Also, under Keyboard in preferences, check the "Show keyboard and emoji viewers in menu bar" option to get it as a menu-bar icon. This also includes the keyboard viewer, which is handy to figure certain Shift-Opt-Whaterver combos for seldom-used characters. EDIT: Updated with the actual default command.
  • JadeNB 6y ago
    > Ctrl-Opt-Space for the character/emoji picker. I think this may not be the default; it doesn't work for me. While speaking of the character picker, does anyone know a way to get less broken search in the picker? For example, I frequently find myself looking for math italic characters in Unicode. Despite the description being, say, "MATHEMATICAL ITALIC SMALL A", it doesn't come up when I search for 'small'. In this case searching for 'mathematical' or 'italic' works, but there are other cases where I just have to guess search terms randomly (or go look up Unicode tables elsewhere).
    • GavinAnderegg 6y ago
      Oops! Sorry! I meant Cmd-Opt-Space here. Also, yeah, the search is pretty janky in my usage as well.
      • JadeNB 6y ago
        > Oops! Sorry! I meant Cmd-Opt-Space here. Also, yeah, the search is pretty janky in my usage as well. Indeed, I thought that might be what you meant … but that opens the Finder search window for me, so I think that that shortcut also is not universal. Probably some of these differ depending on whether you've got a fresh install or an updated system that may carry along shortcuts from an older release. EDIT: adsche (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24092377 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24092377) suggests ⌘⌃␣, and that works for me.
        • elliekelly 6y ago
          If you go to the Edit menu in finder (or any application) all the way at the bottom of the dropdown menu you’ll see “Emoji & Symbols” and to the right it should tell you the shortcut keys.
• dawnerd 6y ago
  If you took a screenshot to your clipboard but want it saved as a file you can open preview and hit cmd N.
• donatj 6y ago
  You can drag the folder icon from the top of a finder window into an apps open/save dialog and the dialog will navigate right to it. This also works with files.
• tiborsaas 6y ago
  If you are taking a partial screenshot but you want to change the position of the selection then press and hold space to pan the selected area.
• jacknews 6y ago
  shift-ctrl-command-4 to crop a section of the screen to the clipboard. Then "File"->"New From Clipboard" in Preview to be able to save it as a file.
  • lysium 6y ago
    If you omit 'ctrl', macOS will save it as a file right away. I've changed the destination to the downloads folder, so I can drag the file from the dock where I want it to be.
  • tgv 6y ago
    Cmd-shift-5 does this even better: it allows you to select a part of the screen with 4 drag handles, and gives you the option to capture to disk, clipboard, mail, with a timer, etc.
    • jacknews 6y ago
      sounds great but doesn't work for me on 10.12.6
• pcr910303 6y ago
  While this isn't a generic feature, I want to say that everyone should try embracing the non-keyboard nature of macOS (as it always has been done), not just complaining that some of the elements are not reachable in the keyboard.[0] Try using the mouse, trackpad (which is top-quality), and the Touch Bar (which I guess will be the most controversial?). Especially drag-n-drop. I'm not sure if it's already mentioned, but the proxy icon (the icon in the title bar) is super-useful in situations when you need to find (e.g. upload/attach the file in Safari, opening the file with another app) the file somewhere else. Just drag the proxy icon and drop it to the destination, and it usually will do what you want. Also the Touch Bar. Everybody complains about it while not even trying to take advantage of it...[1] Customize your Touch Bar so that the buttons are in a consistent way, e.g. I always put the new tab button (if it exists) in the far right, where I can reach without looking, and I put the most useful actions (like getting information, trashing files in Finder, tab switching in Safari, text suggestion, etc...) in the middle, and put the less-useful but somewhat frequent actions (like toggling the sidebar, emojis, etc..) in the left. If you consciously try using them for a week or two, you realize you're much productive using the Touch Bar than using obscure shortcuts or moving the mouse. [0]: BTW, good news for people who were complaining - macOS Big Sur greatly increases the amount of controls reachable with the keyboard, although I dislike the fact that I have to bang more tabs to reach some button. [1]: There's definitely Apple's fault here too, if you're using a Touch Bar equipped Mac, 'brew cask install haptickey' so that you get haptic feedback on your Touch Bar touches.
  • wildrhythms 6y ago
    Isn't the touchbar explicitly a "keyboard nature" type of interaction? You mentioned Mac OS having a non-keyboard nature, and then tout the touchbar?
    • 1penny42cents 6y ago
      I know what they meant here. The touch bar seems like a keyboard but it's not, because of the sliders and customization. My original touch bar layout mirrored the pre-touch bar layout out of familiarity. Recently I've learned how to use it as intended (sliders instead of up and down buttons, using application-custom buttons). I realized that I was just being an old man about the touch bar before.
• jiripospisil 6y ago
  Smart Folders (Finder -> File -> New Smart Folder). It's not exactly hidden but I never paid too much attention to it. It's essentially a way to create a folder whose content is dynamically updated based on your search conditions. For example, you can create a smart folder that contains all PDF files matching a certain name pattern within a given directory (or the whole disk) [0]. You can get really advanced, there's a ton of different parameters you can use [1], and you can even create more complicated conditions by holding Option and clicking the plus sign (now changed to just three dots). And of course you can drag these folders into the sidebar's Favourites section. [0] https://i.imgur.com/lD2zaSd.png https://i.imgur.com/lD2zaSd.png [1] https://i.imgur.com/SKsQRnQ.png https://i.imgur.com/SKsQRnQ.png
  • jiripospisil 6y ago
    Oh and I almost forgot - there's also a similar concept of Smart Playlists within iTunes (Command+Option+N) [0]. [0] https://i.imgur.com/eXmwb42.png https://i.imgur.com/eXmwb42.png
    • hjnilsson 6y ago
      And in Photos. I use it to create albums for different cameras and lenses I’ve had / have, very useful!
      • iscrewyou 6y ago
        This is how I organize albums. You can create a smart album that “is not” in “Any”. Now this smart album has all the photos that are not in any album.
    • samelawrence 6y ago
      As a DJ, I use Smart Playlist very heavily in iTunes. I genre tag all my music as it comes in, and then let the logic take over from there.
  • donatj 6y ago
    I’ve been sad since they were introduced that they don’t work at the file system level, hence not in CLI applications. Support for them in desktop apps that open directories is also spotty. I would LOVE them if they were reimplemented as a fuse style file system instead of a userland macOS trick.
• PascLeRasc 6y ago
  For anyone who hasn't already rebound Caps Lock to Ctrl - try to accidentally hit Caps Lock really quickly, and it won't activate. Press it normally and it will activate.
  • IggleSniggle 6y ago
    Psh. Caps Lock is to be mapped to Esc.
    • dividedbyzero 6y ago
      It's also a great fn key on external keyboards that lack it.
• ed25519FUUU 6y ago
  Change the cursor movement speed (repeat rate) in the terminal. On the CLI you can go higher than the menu. defaults write NSGlobalDomain KeyRepeat -int 5 https://stackoverflow.com/questions/4489885/how-can-i-increase-the-cursor-speed-in-terminal https://stackoverflow.com/questions/4489885/how-can-i-increa...
• jacknews 6y ago
  Hold Option key while clicking to unlock all kinds of more detailed informtion and options eg, Option-click the menubar wifi icon and you get all the details of your wifi connection including BSSID of the router you're actually connected to, RSSI, your assigned IP, etc.
  • frereubu 6y ago
    For those with older Macs, this is the Alt key. There's this symbol on both: ⌥ Always have to think about that one!
• iaml 6y ago
  You can use image capture app to copy pictures when you connect camera via usb. If you create a "Developer" folder in your ~ it's gonna have a different icon and is canonical place to put all your code in mac world. Clicking wifi tray icon while holding option is going to give you a lot more info and some hidden tools.
  • mojuba 6y ago
    > Clicking wifi tray icon while holding option is going to give you a lot more info and some hidden tools. Same for the Bluetooth icon: you can see for example your BT audio codec used, signal levels, MAC addresses and other info.
  • evan_ 6y ago
    Most of the the system icons give you extra info if you hold option- dock icons as well.
  • IggleSniggle 6y ago
    Damn that option-click one is HUGE. Thank you. Where are these things enumerated? Everything in this thread is such tribal knowledge. I’ve gone looking for this information in the actual help docs and it frequently isn’t there. Is there a canonical source for Apple shortcuts/gestures in any of their ecosystems? Many of these things make life so much better.
• jakkals 6y ago
  I usually have multiple Bash tabs open in Terminal, and I needed a quick way to see what each tab contained. The following bash script will set the Title of the tab. #!/bin/bash # Sets the title of the Terminal Window / Tab. # title foo => Sets the title of the Terminal Window / Tab to foo. echo -n -e "\033]0;$1\007"
  • dividedbyzero 6y ago
    Should anyone be wondering why this doesn't work in fish, it seems it overwrites the title back to the default pretty much instantly. So no custom tab names with fish, it seems!
• polymonster 6y ago
  Command + double click a search item in spotlight to open the containing folder in finder.
  • clairity 6y ago
    neat, just pressing cmd while a search item is focused gives you a little path preview popup as well. something i want often enough to be slightly annoyed but not often enough to have wanted to seek out specifically before. =)
  • haddr 6y ago
    Press Cmd to reveal the path
  • kristjansson 6y ago
    Cmd + Enter opens the containing folder too - no clicking required!
• elg75 6y ago
  Smart Folders + Tags = you move a file between folders by (un)tagging it. Very handy i. e. for project management (Kanban…)
• jdxcode 6y ago
  Here is mine: https://twitter.com/jdxcode/status/1268208784972951554?s=20 https://twitter.com/jdxcode/status/1268208784972951554?s=20
  • deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  • fedorareis 6y ago
    You can also just long press
• michens 6y ago
  Control + two finger swipe/mouse wheel to smoothly zoom in and out.
• eddyg 6y ago
  Using the Touch Bar to adjust volume, brightness, etc. doesn’t have to be a two-step process... no need to tap, lift and re-position your finger to the slider that appears. Instead, just touch-and-hold the icon of the thing you want to adjust, and slide from there.
  • tgv 6y ago
    Nice touch (sry, pun was unintended).
  • a-p-o 6y ago
    You can also increment/decrement by one by quickly swiping your finger to the right or left.
  • roryokane 6y ago
    Be warned, though, that if you slide your finger before the slider finishes animating in, that movement is ignored. Too many times I tried a quick adjustment like that only for the volume to remain the same after my movement. It’s why I added separate volume buttons to my Touch Bar and switched to using those primarily. The sad thing is there’s no good reason for the slider to ignore your input during the animation. I think Apple just didn’t care enough to test it thoroughly. They only tested the Touch Bar with computer newbies who press every key slowly.
• eddyg 6y ago
  If you run: defaults write -g NSWindowShouldDragOnGesture yes then when you hold ctrl-opt-cmd (the three keys to the left of the space bar, so easy to remember) you can click-and-drag a window from anywhere, not just the title bar. (Note: need to restart app first)
  • mcnichol 6y ago
    We call these three button cmds "smash" e.g. "smash"+h moves the window left with shiftit
  • mattalbie 6y ago
    My goodness, I could kiss you. I never wanted to run a separate app just for this but have always loved it. Had no idea it was available system-wide.
• DamnInteresting 6y ago
  I have long used Shift-Command-4 to take screenshots, but I only recently discovered Shift-Command-5, which provides finer control (and it's much easier to use when I'm working at my treadmill desk). Also, Command-K to clear out a terminal window (also often works in similar places, such as the MAMP error log viewer).
  • cmehdy 6y ago
    You can configure that to whatever you want, by the way. Just check out the System preferences -> Keyboard shortcuts[0] [0] https://i.imgur.com/jCHL2Pb.jpg https://i.imgur.com/jCHL2Pb.jpg
  • atombender 6y ago
    My favourite hidden function: Pressing space after Shift-Cmd-4 toggles window mode. In window mode, only the window you select will be captured.
    • donarb 6y ago
      Note also that menus are treated like windows, so you can screenshot a menu as well.
    • m463 6y ago
      that is awesome. So awesome maybe it should be the default.
  • johnwalkr 6y ago
    The various screenshot features are good, and also one of the best uses of the touchbar I've seen. Use any of the variations on taking a screenshot, and you will get a menu to take a screenshot of an area, window, full desktop, etc.
• maxioatic 6y ago
  Cmd + tab to quit applications Instead of releasing cmd to switch to the application, you can press q to quit it.
  • 27182818284 6y ago
    Command+q is the standard to quit in all well-behaving macOS apps. No need for tab.
    • maxioatic 6y ago
      Obviously. This lets you quit an app without switching to it or right clicking it on the dock -> quit.
  • ninkendo 6y ago
    You can use the mouse to hover over entries while keeping Cmd held down, and q will quit whatever your mouse is over. Useful for "I just want to quit every app": just move the mouse left and right over the icons while pressing Q repeatedly until everything's dead.
• marosoaie 6y ago
  Drag and drop a file to the terminal to get its path.
  • nguyenkien 6y ago
    Right click then hold down option key, no need terminal
• frereubu 6y ago
  Three-finger dragging on laptops with touchpads: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204609 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204609 It says it's for dragging windows, but it works for all dragging, including files in Finder etc. Couldn't do without it now. Increase Contrast, which I prefer not just for aesthetic reasons (it gives a slightly old-school feel to the interface), but because it delineates areas of windows / apps more clearly: Preferences > Accessibility > Display > Increase Contrast. This will automatically turn on Reduce Transparency, but I used that setting anyway, to reduce distracting detail.
  • IggleSniggle 6y ago
    You can also get this behavior with “double tap to grab”, which allows you to pick up your finger and put it back down repeatedly as you are dragging something around. Same idea, different (turned-off by default) gesture.
• cmehdy 6y ago
  Three-finger drag is the one thing I just can't live without.[0] Finder: Cmd+Shift+G to navigate wherever I want (with autocomplete) Text input: Control+Command+Space for the emoji list and search Text input (switching keyboards for Japanese input): Control+Space for quick toggles Text input (accents in my native language): all the accents and letters of various European languages are usually made by using Option+[key] for the accent, and Option+[key]+letter for the proper letter. The [key] maps are e -> ´, `` -> `` (I'm messing up the rendering of the quotes here despite my best efforts), i -> ˆ, u -> ¨ and some keys Option+[key] directly give a character when it's unique, such as Option+a=å and Option+o=ø, and Option+1=¡ (because it's the key for ! otherwise, which makes sense - and can help with Spanish) For the longer examples, Option+e+e = é, Option+e+a = á, Option+`+a = à, Option+u+u = ü, Option+i+u = û, Option+n+n = ñ, etc. Holding Option in menus also shows extra options and their shortcuts (although this is less and less the case outside of the Apple apps themselves). An example using Finder -> Edit and pressing/releasing the Option key[1] Oh and one more: the app "Stickies", which allows you to have "post-it notes" with color coding and collapsing the note by double-clicking on the title, saving to file, etc. I use it to take quick notes or set casual reminders. Last but not least, not an Apple app but a very helpful tool I've used to make the gif in this post: Kap is incredibly convenient to records bits of the screen and save to various formats, and it's been improving a lot since its early releases[2] (I have no stake in this, I'm just thankful for such a cool piece of free software) [0] https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204609 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204609 [1] https://i.imgur.com/feRhErF.gif https://i.imgur.com/feRhErF.gif [2] https://getkap.co/ https://getkap.co/
  • rzzzt 6y ago
    Three-finger drag is waaay better than drag lock. I wish it was available on Windows as well.
  • tgv 6y ago
    > all the accents and letters Nowadays, holding down a key will show a pop-up with all the accent options, which you can then select by mouse or by typing the number under it, much like on iOS. The option route is my preferred one, as it's faster, but the new one is much more accessible to people without keyboard prowess.
• raverbashing 6y ago
  pbcopy / pbpaste (command line tool to access the clipboard) Not builtin on macOS but iTerm2 is a must (together with oh-my-ZSH it's been a game changer) The "time machine" on apps has been useful as well, rolling back to a previous version of a doc is great. Some "unexpected feature" I found the other day. I accidentally dropped my MBP (and it seems it is engineered to close itself on drops but I knew that already ahem so it fell shut and upside down) and it started making a siren-like noise, as I began to get worried, I opened the screen and it was showing only glitches and it restarted (well sh1t). But then it restarted just fine and crisis averted.
• tptacek 6y ago
  You can assign a folder full of images to the background of Terminal.app, and it will choose background images at random, so a folder full of dark solid colors gives you random dark backgrounds, enabling you to tell your terminal windows apart easily.
  • cpach 6y ago
    Oh. That’s really neat. I have used macOS for seven years and I had no idea that this feature exists.
  • dividedbyzero 6y ago
    This does not seem to be supported in iTerm, if anyone else is wondering.
    • tptacek 6y ago
      In fairness, it's barely supported in Terminal.app --- in that I had to make a bunch of solid-colored images to make it work! It should be a first-class feature of all terminal applications. I had no idea how much I want this feature day-to-day until I got fed up with a 27" monitor display crammed with overlapping identical-looking tcpdump windows a few weeks ago.
    • eddyg 6y ago
      You can likely achieve something similar using iTerm's Python API. For example, this script[0] picks a random color preset each time a new session is created, and this one[1] picks a preset based on the hostname. [0] https://www.iterm2.com/python-api/examples/random_color.html https://www.iterm2.com/python-api/examples/random_color.html [1] https://www.iterm2.com/python-api/examples/colorhost.html https://www.iterm2.com/python-api/examples/colorhost.html
• jiripospisil 6y ago
  You can tell Finder to show actual folder sizes instead of just "--". Right click in a folder -> Show View Options -> Calculate all sizes. I'm not sure why it's not the default, it's not like Finder needs to traverse the folders hierarchy to calculate the size (I hope!).
  • tgv 6y ago
    It does traverse the folders to do just that; look at your CPU usage with that option on.
  • oneplane 6y ago
    It does have to traverse the complete filesystem to calculate the sizes. That is how most filesystems work (files have sizes, folders do not - so a folder size doesn't exist and is just a sum of whatever it contains)
    • jiripospisil 6y ago
      Interesting, I thought it uses the Spotlight index to get this information and that the index already contains these aggregates, but you're probably right considering that it works even in folders that I've explicitly excluded (I wonder how many millions of node_modules folders are indexed for no reason).
  • m463 6y ago
    What I like better than this is the free OmniDiskSweeper https://www.omnigroup.com/more https://www.omnigroup.com/more I'm a big fan of the Omni group, and run my life on omnifocus
• cordite 6y ago
  My favorite anti-feature is copying a screenshot from the desktop with cmd+c, then pasting into gimp gives a high resolution png of the mac mime-type icon for pngs.
• cawlin 6y ago
  I recently discovered the Bluetooth device debugging menu. Hold Shift + Option and click on the Bluetooth icon in the menu bar.
  • blablabla123 6y ago
    That's really useful, I didn't know that! BTW, there's a similar one: holding Option while clicking on the Wifi icon reveals some extra information about reception
  • fedorareis 6y ago
    I don’t believe you need the shift. You just need to Option + click
    • cawlin 6y ago
      Shit + Option gives you the extra debug option that option + click does not.
• bluthru 6y ago
  The picture-in-picture window can be precisely placed by holding down the Cmd key while dragging. If a web site doesn't have a PiP button, press and hold the speaker icon.
• cauthon 6y ago
  You can also change the default directory where screenshots are stored, so they never end up on the desktop in the first place. I have mine set to ~/Pictures/screenshots
• ractive 6y ago
  I recently discovered some nice helpers to resize windows: - Hold down the option key while resizing a windows (with the mouse) to also resize the opposite side. This also works when resizing the window on a corner to resize all edges at once. - Double click a window border to enlarge this side of the window up to the edge of the scereen. Hold down the option key to enlarge also the opposite site. - Double-click the title bar of a window to maximize it
  • ocbyc 6y ago
    Try divvy. Works for both Mac and Windows. It's the first app I install on any fresh box.
    • samelawrence 6y ago
      +1 for Divvy.
    • bredren 6y ago
      Here are some divvy shortcut ideas for the XDR Pro display: https://i.imgur.com/Tf4c6yo.png https://i.imgur.com/Tf4c6yo.png
  • kreeble 6y ago
    I have saved days and much effort by using `SHIFT + ALT + CMD + X` to resize my windows. https://github.com/kreeble/SimpleWindowResizer https://github.com/kreeble/SimpleWindowResizer
  • fedorareis 6y ago
    I didn’t know about the first one. But I learned about the last 2 within the last year because I can’t install software on my work computer. On my personal computer I use Better Touch Tools.
  • mattalbie 6y ago
    Had no idea. This is great, thank you.
• tln 6y ago
  Mouse keys -- as an anti-feature. (press option 5 times) My daughter enabled it while I wasn't at the computer and then thought my keyboard had died. Even took it in to get repaired, and got a new keyboard. There is no permanent indicator that it's enabled, and it persists after reboots (once logged in)... when I figured out my brand new keyboard still had several broken keys I started looking for S/W level issues. Hard facepalm. It didn't help diagnosis that I did have some physically affected keys too. At least I got a new keyboard out of it...
  • m463 6y ago
    Years ago, my nephew somehow stumbled across the accessibility shortcut for invert colors and "broke his computer" I think it was either persistent, or he only sleep/woke his computer and never tried rebooting it. Looking at my keyboard shortcuts it's cmd-alt-ctrl-8, and it is presently disabled.
  • MaxBarraclough 6y ago
    What happened? What does mouse keys do?
    • jk563 6y ago
      It lets you use keyboard keys to move the cursor.
    • wila 6y ago
      See [1] In short, it makes the keys on a numerical keypad allow you to control the mouse (move up/down/left/right and click) [1] https://etc.usf.edu/techease/4all/input-devices/what-are-mouse-keys/ https://etc.usf.edu/techease/4all/input-devices/what-are-mou...
• fnord77 6y ago
  Fn-Fn turns on speech dictation (if you have it enabled in settings). It is pretty accurate. Ability to remap the Caps Lock key to Control Shift+control+command+4 = screen capture to clipboard
• sneak 6y ago
  Option-clicking the sound menubar item to adjust input/output devices, or option-clicking the wifi menu to see additional wifi info.
• rorykoehler 6y ago
  Mine is not a core os feature but rather a 3rd party add on. A window manager with keyboard shortcuts. Life changing and perplexing it's not the default that ships with the os.
  • unvs 6y ago
    Would be great with better builtins for this. I use yabai and skhd, but have to disable SIP to utilize fully. The instant spaces switching with no animation is so good!
• haddr 6y ago
  Oh, press alt when minimising/maximising a window for an additional surprise.
• ftk 6y ago
  When Cmd+Tab'ing press and hold the Option key before letting go of Cmd to unminimize/create a window for the selected application (assuming it doesn't already have unminimized windows open).
  • kreeble 6y ago
    Not doin anythin for me
    • ftk 6y ago
      Make sure you release Cmd after pressing the Option key. https://superuser.com/a/325530 https://superuser.com/a/325530
• amelius 6y ago
  That you can install Linux instead.
• amacneil 6y ago
  Double clicking the title bar of a window to maximize it (without going into full screen mode). I used to install Spectacle on every computer, but this was really the only feature I needed from it. Somehow it took me 12 years of using macOS to learn how to maximize windows.
  • beders 6y ago
    Also double-clicking the edges of windows (when the resize cursor shows) will expand the window in that direction.
  • Hamuko 6y ago
    This is settings dependent. You can choose between "zoom" and "minimise" in System Preferences > Dock > Double-click a window's title to…
• WiseWeasel 6y ago
  Re-enable the boot chime on the latest Macs with the following command in terminal: sudo nvram StartupMute=%00 To turn it back off: sudo nvram StartupMute=%01
• rmetzler 6y ago
  My favorite feature is the help menu, where you can search the menu for a command. I'm not aware of any other OS doing this so consistently.
• awinder 6y ago
  I’ve been using windows more recently since my personal Mac bit the dust and I’m trying to decide if there’s really that much reason to own a personal Mac. So now I realize for years I’ve been using this silent feature of macs for years called “not totally jacked up font rendering”. I would never have imagined this was a feature, but apparently there is a collective insanity in windowsland where the quality of font rendering is not just a total and utter failure. So this is my new top Mac feature.
  • IggleSniggle 6y ago
    It’s the little stuff like this that is just so frustrating that we can’t do this better on all platform. macOS has similar sets of flaws, it just does it better than the others. I just wish we could have a few years without new above ground features and more cleaning up quality and consistency of UI/UX features. I’d take more of that on any platform.
  • m463 6y ago
    I think newer versions of mac os x might have messed with your font rendering again. They turned off subpixel anti-aliasing and it looks worse on older displays. (I can't help but think of the "slowing down older iphones" thing) search for "fix blurry fonts mojave"
    • awinder 6y ago
      I’m on a 1440p ultrawide from this year on mojave vs latest windows 10.
    • bengale 6y ago
      I think that’s sorted now. I had some weird issues when the last OS dropped but not seen it for months.
    • cpach 6y ago
      Yep. Mojave really messed up the font rendering of my 2013 Macbook Air.
    • Hamuko 6y ago
• mproud 6y ago
  When typing or editing text, Option-arrow to move the cursor one word to the left or right Command-arrow to move to the beginning or end of the line Combine either of these with the shift key to quickly select text.
  • IggleSniggle 6y ago
    Wow, I use these all the time in VSCode but didn’t realize it wasn’t specific to that application. This works especially well when combined with multi-cursor selection: place whatever 10 cursors for 10 sets of like information, Option-Shift-Arrow to select multiple like-code blocks by word. This experience alone was enough to convince me it was time to learn vim.
  • soylentgraham 6y ago
    Ive always found it frustrating there aren't quite the same number of tricks here as windows/visual studio. Home/ctrl+home (Or end, to jump lines/doc) Ctrl+up (or down, to scroll without moving cursor) I forget these others, but I keep trying to use these in osx.
    • kreeble 6y ago
      This is exactly how I feel in windows coming from a mac, super-constrained due to lack of hotkeys to navigate. Ctrl+A = start of line, ctrl+e = end, ctrl+n = next line, ctrl+v = next page By default, in macOS, this isn't enabled everywhere, but you can do it easily https://forum.keyboardmaestro.com/t/os-x-text-system-keybindings/4929/ https://forum.keyboardmaestro.com/t/os-x-text-system-keybind...
• kart23 6y ago
  Adjust volume by finer increments: hold option+shift while changing volume.
• sonar_un 6y ago
  You can create a screenshots folder and default all of the screenshots straight into it. That’s been a lifesaver for me.
• voodooranger 6y ago
  double click the edge of a window to expand it to the edge of the screen. hold alt while double clicking to get the opposite edge to also expand.
• arein2 6y ago
  Every time you do a screen recordin with quicktime, encode it to h264 to save a LOT of space and make it playable on any device. To do that use Handbrake, whick is open source and the go-to app for any encoding.
  • Sirened 6y ago
    ffmpeg -i <original> -o out.mp4 also a super easy way to do this too since it'll get re-encoded. I don't know why screen recordings aren't handled this way automatically
• lordnacho 6y ago
  CMD + UP to up one dir in finder. Maybe I've got messed up settings or something, I don't know, but when I want to go up a folder I don't see a button or a an item called ".." that can be clicked. Did this drive anyone else nuts?
  • IggleSniggle 6y ago
    I have generally made the 3-pane view my default for this very reason (which has obvious left-right semantics for hierarchy traversal). I think maybe you can also command click the folder-name header? I think I once knew about CMD+Up but my general workflow is in the terminal these days, so Finder is mostly only used for selective-file-move/copy operations, and even then, called from terminal. It’s usually `open path1; open path2` then select and drag.
• astoilkov 6y ago
  ⌘⌃⇧4 – for screenshots that go directly into your clipboard ⌘O – open file/folder in Finder ⌘J in Finder, Set as Defaults — sets default view options for all folders (struggled a lot with Finder inconsistencies before finding this out)
  • sgt 6y ago
    I use the first one so often. So super-convenient to compose emails or Keynote presentations with some additional graphics plopped in directly from another window through the clipboard.
• jlturner 6y ago
  This has been around for a long time but most people don’t know about it: Dragging and dropping files from the finder into an file selector window (ie. Open File in most programs) will navigate to that file and select it. As others mentioned this works in terminal as well to give you a path, but actually this generally works in any text box (unless it specifically handles paths being drag ‘n dropped). This also works with multiple files / multi file selection, and in the case of inserting the path as text, they are space delimited and auto quoted (convenient for shell use). Edit: This icon can include the one at the top of a finder window (the window title). That’s actually interactable and can be dragged and dropped for the directory itself.
  • bonestamp2 6y ago
    > this works in terminal as well to give you a path I'll add that if you want the path of a file and the destination application doesn't support drag 'n' drop, right click on a file in finder, then hold the Option key and you'll see the copy command changes from "Copy" to "Copy as Pathname".
    • Sirened 6y ago
      Oh my god this is so useful! I've known about the 'drag into your terminal' thing for ages but not needing to use the mouse and just doing command-option-c is so much nicer!
  • hjuutilainen 6y ago
    And if, for example, a webpage has a button to select files through the open file dialog, you can just drag and drop a file to the button and not go through the open dialog at all.
  • reaperducer 6y ago
    Dragging and dropping files from the finder into an file selector window You can also drag a file or folder's icon from a Finder window title bar. When it doesn't work, that's a good indication of a program that's using Electron, Carbon, some old framework, or poorly maintained. Adobe and Audacity are both guilty of this.
• WA 6y ago
  Increase Finder window size by dragging (in home directory), then press Cmd + Shift + E to make Finder open new windows with the new size. Works until a reboot. Why? Because those stupid windows are too small by default.
  • mattalbie 6y ago
    You can also do this by opening a new window, resizing/positioning it how you'd like, then immediately closing it. Next time you create a new window it will be exactly the same.
• samelawrence 6y ago
  Yeah... I haven't been using Stacks this whole time from 2006 until today. Thanks for the nudge. It really is an improvement.
• polyrand 6y ago
  After doing cmd + c a file, you can use option + cmd + V to move/cut it instead of copying.
  • m463 6y ago
    I think you can hold cmd or option when dragging and dropping a file to do something similar. using option will duplicate using cmd will move So the default for dragging on the same disk is move. option+drag will make a copy. The default for dragging to a different disk is copy. cmd+drag will move instead.
• zenexer 6y ago
  - Ctrl + Cmd + Shift + 4 will let you take a screenshot of a region of your screen and copy it to the clipboard. It can then be pasted directly into most applications, from email clients to chat clients. No random screenshots sitting around. If you want to capture a whole window, press Space after the initial shortcut, then click the window. - While a menu is open, hold Option; if you're lucky, you'll get some additional options. This works after right-clicking an item in Finder, for example, or after right-clicking an icon in the Dock. - Magnet for window management. This is a third-party application, but you'll wonder how you lived without it. If you've used Spectacle, Magnet is similar, but I find Magnet to be a bit more graceful. - Sidecar and AirPlay. Want a second screen? Got an iPad or Apple TV? You can effortless treat it as a second screen with very low latency. It "just works." - Cmd + Space to open Spotlight. Most power users are already familiar with this; if you're not, try it. - Cmd + Shift + G in Finder to go to a folder by path. You can also use it to copy the path to the current folder. - Return/Enter to rename the currently-selected file in Finder. If you're coming from Windows/Linux and are accustomed to pressing F2, you might not know about this one. - Similarly, to open the currently selected item in Finder, press Cmd + O. To navigate up a directory, press Cmd + Up. - Ever installed a new drive in your Mac? You don't need to manually download macOS installation media beforehand; with the right key combination at boot, you can install it via the internet. There are a few different related combinations with differing functionality; it's worth looking them up and choosing the right one for your situation: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201255 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201255
  • decasteve 6y ago
    ctrl + cmd + shift + 4 was what first came to mind. For the longest time I did cmd + shift + 3 and did the rest manually. cmd + ctrl + o to open another tab in Finder in the same folder that's current open. In my opinion this should be the default for cmd + t, which opens a new tab but in your home folder.
  • noman-land 6y ago
    After you press Ctrl + Cmd + Shift + 4 and start dragging a region, if you hold the space bar, you can move this region around the screen so you're not trapped with where you originally started dragging.
• heavyset_go 6y ago
  I was able to use software that I installed without a problem for years, but now Gatekeeper makes installing software from outside of the Mac App Store a chore for little to no gain.
  • IggleSniggle 6y ago
    I’m curious what this complaint is about, since the only thing I’ve experienced is an annoying pop up window that you must approve similar to what one gets in Windows.
    • heavyset_go 6y ago
      If the developer didn't pay Apple $99/year and also notarize their software, you need to jump through settings panes to launch the application "for your own good".
• polyrand 6y ago
  You can add blank spaces on the dock using: defaults write http://com.apple.dock http://com.apple.dock persistent-apps -array-add '{tile-data={}; tile-type="spacer-tile";}' Very useful for organizing icons.
  • IggleSniggle 6y ago
    It has been so very long since I’ve used the Dock that it always comes as a surprise when it comes up in macOS UX discussion as I forget that it exists. Can someone explain how it is useful to their workflow?
    • polyrand 6y ago
      I have it hidden on the left so it does not take space. Even though I have shortcuts to open all apps. It is helpful for managing windows when I have many windows of the same app minimized.
• aframe 6y ago
  ⌘ + Down for dbl click to open ⌘ + [, ⌘ + ] to go back/forwards in finder history
  • LolWolf 6y ago
    The forwards and backwards in finder history shortcut also works in a large number of other apps :)
    • aframe 6y ago
      Indeed. The only reason I discovered it was because of the muscle memory from using it with a browser!
      • LolWolf 6y ago
        Same here, actually!
• noman-land 6y ago
  Dragging a file from Finder into the terminal will insert the absolute path of that file.
• samelawrence 6y ago
  After searching for an item in Spotlight, hitting `Return` will open the file, but hitting `Cmd` + `Return` will open a Finder window to the directory where that file lives.
  • jamiek88 6y ago
    Aaaaah! Yes! Wanted this for ages!
  • mattalbie 6y ago
    Command + R also does this.
• baryphonic 6y ago
  Batch renaming files in Finder.[1] It's quite useful and one of the few GUI-based looping operations that takes me less time than fat-fingering the shell incantation. [1] https://osxdaily.com/2015/05/28/batch-rename-files-mac-os-x-finder/ https://osxdaily.com/2015/05/28/batch-rename-files-mac-os-x-...
  • SPBS 6y ago
    what the hell that's really useful. I used to open emacs (I'm a vim user) just for the bulk rename
  • Sirened 6y ago
    What in the world, that's been here the entire time? I've been looking up how to do it in bash every time I've needed to do it. It's so strange how macOS has this appearance of simplicity but just below the surface you have stuff like this
    • K7PJP 6y ago
      No, it was added in OS X 10.10 Yosemite. Before that you needed to either use Terminal or "A Better Finder Rename" which still offers more options than Finder, including the use of metadata to rename your files.
  • stjohnswarts 6y ago
    so awesome for renaming photos.
• jimnotgym 6y ago
  How easy it is to move between various OS's now. I thought a mac user was mac user, but I think it is trivial for most users to swap to Linux and Windows now.
• clairity 6y ago
  i posted mine yesterday[0], about being able to alt-tab between windows of all applications, not just between applications or tabs. i remapped that to opt-cmd-tab for easier access. does anyone know how to turn off wifi on startup via scripting? [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24085803 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24085803
  • IggleSniggle 6y ago
    I found this one annoying enough to install Contexts[0]. The free demo immediately sold me on their approach. [0] https://contexts.co/ https://contexts.co/
• aunty_helen 6y ago
  Cmd-space to bring up spotlight Type whatever you want. Cmd-b Your default web browser with your default search engine will now open and perform your query. I can't stress this enough how much I use this workflow when writing code. Another thing for the OPs issue with the screenshots, (there's a few steps via terminal so maybe try the above shortcut to search for an article on how to do it) you can have all your screenshots redirect to a folder. For example all of my screenshots end up in $HOME/screenshots Also, another cool and sometimes useful shortcut, holding option while clicking is a big thing in osx. Try click the wifi icon in the top right corner whilst holding the option key. It will give you a bunch more details :)
  • beders 6y ago
    I love you too
  • kristjansson 6y ago
    This one is revelatory. I've installed Alfred in the past solely for this workflow.
  • mi_lk 6y ago
    I tried Cmd-b search in spotlight but it went with Firefox+Google when my default is Firefox+Duckduckgo, any chance someone knows how to fix it?
    • Gaelan 6y ago
      Try changing the default in Safari, on the theory that it might use that as some sort of “system search engine”? Failing that, it’s probably just hardcoded.
      • mi_lk 6y ago
        Changed and it's still Google. Yeah the search string is probably hardcoded :(
        • 6y ago
• buzzy_hacker 6y ago
  If you use spotlight and type in a word, you can press command + L, to jump to the dictionary definition
• dragosmocrii 6y ago
  Best feature I found was discovering that software development is much easier on Linux (using Ubuntu). Never looked back, am a happy convert.
  • djxfade 6y ago
    Good for you
• mbrumlow 6y ago
  That I really wanted Linux.
• sgt 6y ago
  I wonder how someone can read this thread and NOT realize that macOS is probably the most advanced desktop operating system out there.
  • asveikau 6y ago
    Uhh... By hiding a bunch of functionality in obscure keyboard shortcuts that professional users don't discover after years, sometimes decades of use? I have thought Macs were pretty cool since I first used system 7. But I would not apply such blinders. This thread could also be taken as criticism even if nobody intends it to be so.
• wila 6y ago
  Right click on Launchpad gives you a start menu.
• decentralised 6y ago
  cmd + k to clear the terminal
  • longnguyen 6y ago
    And cmd + r to just clear the view (keep the current buffer)
• hjuutilainen 6y ago
  Emacs key bindings work in all standard text boxes and views. For example ctrl-A to go to the beginning of the line and ctrl-E to go to the end. Also, damn you Microsoft for using non-standard views in your macOS apps.
• waylandsmithers 6y ago
  Option click on the upper right corner hamburger menu toggles Do Not Disturb mode without having to open the whole right panel notifications section. Helpful for presentations and screen sharing.
  • m463 6y ago
    I have the system volume in the menubar too. Option-click the volume icon will allow you to change your sound input and output devices.
• oweiler 6y ago
  `pbcopy` and `pbpaste` for copying to / pasting from clipboard. Nice time savers!
  • shadowfacts 6y ago
    In a similar vein, I have a shell script (fish, in my case) that combines these to let me quickly modify the contents of the clipboard: function pbedit set tmpfile (mktemp /tmp/pbedit.XXXXX) pbpaste > $tmpfile if vim -c "set nofixeol" $tmpfile pbcopy < $tmpfile end rm $tmpfile end
• dharma1 6y ago
  So many nice things here - and nearly all of them missing from iOS/iPad OS!
• Jakobeha 6y ago
  When typing with fancy characters: - Alt-command-space brings up a window where you can select arbitrary Unicode characters - Go to your keyboard settings in System Preferences and add the “Greek” keyboard. Then you can press ctrl-command-space to switch your keyboard and quickly type in Greek symbols (e.g. “a” becomes alpha). Press ctrl-command-space again to switch back.
• geoffbp 6y ago
  Install Alfred to replace spotlight, such a good utility.
• rrwright 6y ago
  The `say` command line tool. It will cause a synthesized voice to speak out loud whatever follows that command via text-to-speech. This is especially useful for pranking your loved ones for whom you have remote shell access. ssh in and cause the other person’s computer to start talking to them... by name... asking for help... to be let out of the small metal box they’ve been trapped in for SO long... This has been available in Mac OS for at least 15 years, and probably longer.
  • jakeva 6y ago
    It was available on the Apple IIe, I remember loving that feature when I was just a little kid. I'm still amazed Woz was able to synthesize speech with hardware back then.
  • Hamuko 6y ago
    Serial Experiments Lain (1998) used PlainTalk for its title cards. You can still recreate the title card voices in macOS. say -v Whisper "Weird: Layer zero one"
    • dividedbyzero 6y ago
      That doesn't seem to work on the latest Catalina ("Voice Whisper not found.") – do I need to install them separately?
      • Hamuko 6y ago
        Yeah. You can customise the available voices in Preferences > Accessibility > Speech Whisper can definitely be installed on Catalina still. It's a 34 MB download.
  • dividedbyzero 6y ago
    This incredibly useful to get alerted to some long-running job finishing or the like, e.g. ./some-lengthy-job | say Done Back when I did lots of Apache Spark on a underpowered cluster, I had a script to lower Spotify volume, tell me the outcome (success, failure), then set Spotify back to original volume. I still use this as a kitchen timer all the time when cooking while on my Macbook with utimer, which is basically a count-down timer for the shell (available via brew install utimer), e.g. utimer -c 10m | say Pasta is done
• ivan_ah 6y ago
  macOS has a very good built-in text-to-speech engine with real voices that sound good (i.e. not annoying to read). It's part of the Accessibility > Speech menu in Settings. I wrote up a little info doc for how to enable keyboard shortcut for it so you can use with any text you can select: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1mApa60zJA8rgEm6T6GF0yIem8qpMmnaBFYOgV32gdMc/edit https://docs.google.com/document/d/1mApa60zJA8rgEm6T6GF0yIem... Use cases: - read blog posts and news articles while doing dishes (basically turn anything into an podcast at the press of a button) - read hacker news comments - proofreading text (you can hear the typos much easier than you can see them in a text you have written)
  • mindfulhack 6y ago
    I'm even creating my own audiobooks from ebook text, as a way to consume books not officially available in audiobook! I haven't tested it much yet but the 'Samantha' voice actually seems listenable and intelligible for long periods.
    • rmrfstar 6y ago
      Do you think there will come a time when audiobooks are generated via sequence model using celebrity voices? I gave it a go with LSTM's. Each sentence is intelligible, but it feels so dry without the emotion of a human voice actor.
• Tempest1981 6y ago
  Is there a method to the modifier key "madness"? I'd like to form a mental model of when to use Shift vs Ctrl vs Option in various shortcuts being mentioned.
  • m463 6y ago
    One way to discover this is to open a menu, then try hitting modifier keys. Some functions will change, and some of the functions with shortcuts will add the modifier. For example, open the Apple menu and press and release Option. Some menu items that say "Foo..." which means they will have an "are you sure" dialog will change to "Foo" which means they will not confirm.
  • donarb 6y ago
    In the beginning there was a sort of hierarchy with the addition of modifier keys, it goes cmd, shift, option, control. Basic commands use the command key with a letter. Adding the shift key usually reverses the command, like cmd-Z in Finder is Undo, cmd-shift-Z is Redo. The addition of the option key is supposed to add an alternative or extension to the basic command like when you see commands whose text contains an ellipsis (which means that the command will bring up a dialog for more information before executing). Adding the option key can remove the ellipse and just execute the command with the last parameters that were set. In the Finder, cmd-W closes a window, cmd-option-W closes all windows. Rarely would you find a command that uses all four modifier keys, it's just hard to press them all at the same time. Of course over the years and the proliferation of apps and developers, these ideas have faded and don't always hold up, but that was the general idea.
• fedorareis 6y ago
  I learned recently that in any terminal you can option click to move the cursor to a specific location in a command. It’s really great when you want to reuse a command but with a small change.
  • nabeards 6y ago
    This is my top discovery this year, been using it for a few months now.
  • hobos_delight 6y ago
    In zsh you can C-x, C-e and it will open whatever is on the command line in $EDITOR. When you save it the changes will be on the command line.
• nshntarora 6y ago
  Option + Click And Command + Option + Shift + Click Works on most default OS things you can click on. Reveals a whole new set of amazing functionality. Example: Doing so on the bluetooth icon on your menu bar, gives you the debug option for you to reset / restart bluetooth module.
  • ja27 6y ago
    Yes. My newest find is that you can option-click on the scaling options in Display prefs and sometimes get more choices.
• msftie 6y ago
  "Reduce Motion" in Settings > Accessibility. At some point in the last 8 years, Apple changed the animation for how a window becomes full screen. The default behavior is to expand while simultaneously shifting the window to the right, or conversely expand while the desktop shifts to the left. Enabling "Reduce Motion" eliminates that behavior, and the full screen window fades in and out instead, which personally I prefer.
• rahimnathwani 6y ago
  Not a Mac built-in feature, but life-changing nonetheless: Amethyst window manager. You can install it with brew cask install amethyst. It's a tiling window manager. If you've used tmux, i3 or awesomewm you'll feel right at home.
• ivanmaeder 6y ago
  OPTION + CMD + V to cut and paste files (found this today here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24080378 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24080378) Hold down OPTION to vertically select text (works in the terminal at least) CMD + SHIFT + . in Finder to show/hide hidden files CMD + CTRL + D on a selected word to open the dictionary I'll sometimes use the `say` command to let me know when a long-running command on the terminal finishes (e.g., `say Done`)
• logotype 6y ago
  If you’re in Terminal and want to open a Finder window with the current path, just type “open .”
  • chadlavi 6y ago
    `open` is really useful in general. You can also use it to open apps! `open ./someFile.foo -a App\ Name` or even just `open -a App\ Name`
    • newtoday 6y ago
      Wow, thank you! I start my day off by launching 10 or more applications and have always procrastinated on my plans to automate this.
• zitterbewegung 6y ago
  I've been using Apple devices for ~25 years now and I think the best feature I have used was the summarizer service (actually I would think that services in general in macOS you should look through). What it does is if you select some text it will summarize it. While I was in Brazilian jujitsu class they had an MMA brand that needed "organic content" based on articles from wikipedia and I bartered with them so that I would receive a Jujitsu Gi for summarizing 150 articles. This allowed me to accomplish the above task in only a few hours.
• aasasd 6y ago
  Forget MacOS, I was practically living on the web for ages before finding out that you can select link text in browsers if you hold down alt.
• werber 6y ago
  Going to the key above tab to switch windows within the same program
• shantara 6y ago
  Option + Command + Spacebar opens a Finder search window. It is a fast way to open a new Finder window from anywhere in the system regardless of your currently active app.
• PaulHoule 6y ago
  I find my mac periodically turns off its WiFi and starts spamming the airwaves on a private channel looking for partners in a protocol nothing else in the house depends on. This makes servers running on the mac unreliable (sometimes it's not listening to the net) and adds interference to other devices.
• kristjansson 6y ago
  Does an app have shortcut you don't like? Go to System Preferences > Keyboard > Shortcuts > App Shortcuts and click the plus. As prompted, enter the exact title of menu action you want trigger and the new shortcut. I use the on all my machines to rebind Quit Safari / Chrome / Firefox /Mail to Cmd + Option + Q to avoid killing the application when I fat-finger Cmd + Q instead of Cmd + W. Others already mentioned: - three-finger drag is indispensable. Anytime I touch someone else's laptop I turn it on and blow their minds - hold Cmd in Spotlight to reavel the path containing the selected item, Cmd + Enter opens that folder in Finder. - readline keys work in basically every text input on the machine. Want to delete a line? C-a C-k. Delete the word preceding the cursor? M-Backspace. - Cmd + Down opens the selected item in finder, Cmd + Up jumps one level up the folder hierarchy Cmd + Left/Right expand/collapse
  • jdm2212 6y ago
    That's a really neat trick! Worth noting: Chrome actually no longer dies when you fat-finger cmd-w. It shows a "hold cmd-q to quit" overlay and only dies if you keep holding the keys down.
    • tbodt 6y ago
      That's a setting you enable in the app menu, not the default
      • jdm2212 6y ago
        Is it? Oh man, must've been a long time since I enabled it. They should make it the default.
        • aheckler 6y ago
          Not built into macOS, but you can use this app to get the Chrome-style quit delay for every app: https://commandqapp.com/ https://commandqapp.com/
• foofoo4u 6y ago
  command + space launches the spotlight search. In here, not only can you search, but you can also do some math to use it as a calculator. Real handy if I need to do a quick calculation. For example, entering in `243*2/4` will spit out `121.5`.
• jjoonathan 6y ago
  Ctrl+Shift+Esc (hold) to force-quit a locked up fullscreen app.
• johnwalkr 6y ago
  I was about to reply that stacks is a new feature, but I googled it and found it's been a feature since 2007. I could have sworn it was announced a year or two ago. Anyone know if there was an improvement announced recently that I seem to be recalling?
• sys_64738 6y ago
  Control-shift+power key to turn display off immediately.
  • adrianmsmith 6y ago
    Be careful of Control-Command-Power which will immediately reboot the computer (losing any unsaved changes, potentially creating FS corruption).
• rcarmo 6y ago
  Toggle Do Not Disturb with a single click: https://taoofmac.com/space/til/2020/06/11/1915 https://taoofmac.com/space/til/2020/06/11/1915 (has animated GIF explainer)
• johnwalkr 6y ago
  I found these after years, although it's been years since I found it. Preview is pretty good for merging PDFs, deleting pages from PDFs, and adding annotations. Whenever I have to do these things on a windows machine, I struggle to find software to do it. Most importantly, preview can add your signature via trackpad, or by holding up your signature to a webcam.
  • juancn 6y ago
    You can also save your signature (draw it with a mouse or take a picture of it) and use it to sign PDFs
  • hanche 6y ago
    I have seen pdf files swell to ~ ten times the original size when I edit them with Preview. Apparently, Preview will reencode images upon saving, often choosing a less efficient encoding than original. The most extreme cases I encountered would be files scanned in black and white, with Fax or JBIG2 encoding. Since I use such files a lot, I use pdfpen instead for all my pdf editing tasks.
    • crazygringo 6y ago
      I've only ever seen that happen when re-exporting using Quartz filters, where the whole point is to re-encode, and saving an e.g. 300-page PDF will take several minutes, with a progress bar. If you're just using Preview to rearrange/combine/etc. pages, no re-encoding happens and file size stays the same. Believe me, I do a lot of PDF management in Preview. Even to the point of creating my own Quartz filters in the ColorSync Utility precisely so that I can intentionally re-encode images when I want to. (Because the Apple-provided Quartz filters are hard-coded to abusrdly high or absurdly low resoltions.)
      • hanche 6y ago
        It’s been years since I stopped using Preview for PDF files, generally using Skim for reading and pdfpen for editing them. Perhaps something changed since then? That is good news, if so.
• dhruvparamhans 6y ago
  Using the space bar to quickly look into the contents of any file: pdf, images, txt files. And this works also within other apps like spark where I can use the space bar to quickly verify what attachements are present. Don’t think windows does this.
• zeckalpha 6y ago
  Not macOS specific, but it took me too long to find out the tab key changed the focused text field in a web browser.
• SebastianKra 6y ago
  Menu-bar search. Press CMD + Shift + / to open a search over all Menubar-actions for the current app. If you're used to action-search in IntelliJ or VSCode, this will feel familiar to you. It's for those countless features that you use often, but not often enough to remember their proper shortcuts. There are Launchbar- and Alfred plugins that provide a nicer interface. (Germans need to reconfigure the shortcut in the settings, because our keyboards are weird)
• longnguyen 6y ago
  You can move other windows without losing focus by holding command and move window's title.
  • mattalbie 6y ago
    It's not just limited to dragging windows around. The mouse-clicks get passed to the background app. You can use it with anything. It's called click-through and has been around for a long time. I first learned about it here: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=click-through+site%3Adaringfireball.net&t=osx&ia=web https://duckduckgo.com/?q=click-through+site%3Adaringfirebal...
• DavideNL 6y ago
  1. Accessibility > Zoom > "Use scroll gesture with modifier keys to zoom" > Ctrl So you press "Ctrl" and then scroll down on the trackpad and it will zoom in anywhere/on anything. Use it quite often and love it :) 2. Accessibility > Pointer Control > Trackpad options > Enable dragging > Without dragg lock This one takes some time getting used to but it's awesome once you get the hang of it 3. Control–Shift–Power button To put the display to sleep
  • Sirened 6y ago
    Scroll zoom is also great for giving live technical demos! I picked this up after watching some WWDC videos and it's so much better for drawing focus during a live demo than using something like a laser pointer.
• ninkendo 6y ago
  When you Cmd-Tab to an application with no open windows, press option as you release Cmd, and it will open that application's default window (as if you clicked on it on the Dock.) Useful when you like to leave apps "open" even with all their windows closed (ie. not using Cmd-Q), but still want to use Cmd-Tab to get to the app instead having to click something.
• prh8 6y ago
  Cmd-` inside the Cmd-Tab modal cycles apps in reverse
• jasoneckert 6y ago
  The caffeinate command: https://brettterpstra.com/2014/02/20/quick-tip-caffeinate-your-terminal/ https://brettterpstra.com/2014/02/20/quick-tip-caffeinate-yo...
• phendrenad2 6y ago
  Hopefully I soon discover how to cut/paste files to move them... Surely there must be a way!
  • Gosper 6y ago
    ⌘C to Copy then ⌥⌘V to Move Item Here. If you open menus on macOS and hold down various modifiers and combinations of modifiers you'll discover tons of hidden gems. Try it with Finder > Edit then ⌥ Option, ⌃Control, and ⇧Shift.
• jbergstroem 6y ago
  tmutil and pbcopy (cli utilities)
• empyrical 6y ago
  Unmounting/ejecting a drive by dragging its desktop icon to the trash. I know you did this in really old macs to eject a floppy, but it's cool they keep that feature around on modern macOS
• kratom_sandwich 6y ago
  This is a neat hack for reducing PDF file sizes. As you may know, macOS already has a built-in filter to reduce file size, but for me, it often results in almost unreadable documents. This stackexchange question shows how to create a custom filter which delivers way better results, i.e. small files and very good quality: https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/297417/how-to-decrease-pdf-size-without-losing-quality https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/297417/how-to-decr...
• darcys22 6y ago
  Cmd + ~ (tilde) Cycles between the windows of the same app. Similar to cmd + tab. Saved me so much when reading multiple pdfs in preview
  • PostPlummer 6y ago
    Oh this is a live saver that I have been looking for since forever. Thank you so much.
• scarlac 6y ago
  In any native text field, try a few CTRL-hotkeys you'd type in Terminal: CTRL + K (delete to end of line) CTRL + D (delete in place aka delete key (not backspace)) CTRL + A (go to start of line) CTRL + E (go to end of line)
• evaneykelen 6y ago
  I once discovered a way to restore a minimized window without using the mouse. It requires a bit of practice: 1. Press Command-Tab to show your running apps. Keep holding Command. 2. Press Tab until you've selected the minimized app. 3. Press the Option key, and let go of the Command key. You must release the Command key after pressing the Option key! The minimized app is now unminimized. Note that this only works for an app with all of its windows minimized. If there is already a visible window of the app you won't be able to get to the minimized one with this trick. I posted it once to Super User where it’s still getting attention after 9 years: https://superuser.com/questions/196141/keyboard-shortcut-to-unhide-or-unminimize-a-window-in-os-x https://superuser.com/questions/196141/keyboard-shortcut-to-...
  • roryokane 6y ago
    Another way to restore a minimized wondow would be to use Ctrl+F3 to focus the dock (Ctrl+F1 to enable that shortcut), press Up repeatedly until the minimized window is selected, then press Return to open it.
• dirtylowprofile 6y ago
  I can do a PIP on Netflix by tapping in volume icon on the Safari search bar.
  • mattalbie 6y ago
    Right-clicking worked for me. Also works with YouTube. Lovely tip.
• IgorPartola 6y ago
  Might be mentioned below but: In the terminal you can use pbcopy and pbpaste to use your clipboard: cat my.txt | pbcopy. In the terminal you can use the open command to open a file or a folder in finder: open . and open foo.pdf. Double tap the window frame to maximize it correctly (not to a new screen and not just on one axis but the way Windows maximize works). Multiple virtual desktops and swiping between them with gestures.
  • Khaveesh 6y ago
    The cat command is unnecessary when all you want to do is copy a file's contents to clipboard. Just do pbcopy < my.txt
• juancn 6y ago
  I think one of the most magical moments was when I sent a job to print to one printer that was out of paper at the office, and it failed. I just used spotlight to open another printer and dragged the job from one printer to the other and it just worked!
• slrainka 6y ago
  open .
• slrainka 6y ago
  [cmd] `
• slrainka 6y ago
  [Ctrl] Right/Left arrows as an alternative to 3 finger swipe, to move across multiple desktop spaces. Especially helpful when when you have multiple editors and layouts
• cel1ne 6y ago
  Open a pdf in preview. Select pages, press Copy, then Cmd + N. You get a new PDF with the pages you copied.
• nojvek 6y ago
  You can change your MAC address. I always thought this was permanent. Regus (OG wework) offices have finicky WiFi and one day it refused to connect to my laptop. Eventually I googled how to change MAC address and there was an ifconfig command. Suffice to say I had to change my MAC address every week to fight their shitty system.
• mindfulhack 6y ago
  I have a meta tip for everybody. I only recently discovered the Youtube channel 'MacMost': https://www.youtube.com/user/macmostvideo https://www.youtube.com/user/macmostvideo As a long-time macOS user, I am astounded at the things I'm currently learning from this guy, they're not just 'cool' things, they're seriously productivity-boosting things! They're small but sometimes impactful. This is the best tip I can give anyone here.
• sheinsheish 6y ago
  The functionality of menu extras hidden in /System/Library/CoreServices/Menu Extras Also, show files / packages on Logic Pro projects which are packed as a file.
  • chadcmulligan 6y ago
    How to use menu extras - I'd never heard of them before https://methodshop.com/gadgets/tutorials/osx-menuextras/index.shtml https://methodshop.com/gadgets/tutorials/osx-menuextras/inde...
• astoilkov 6y ago
  ⌘⇧/ — focuses current application help search field, this is gold
• nisachar 6y ago
  That, in terminal you can move cursor to any position in command by holding Option-key & clicking wherever you want.
• machocam 6y ago
  Some of these are amazing. I'm currently a Windows user mostly, I added the same thread but for windows here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24099633 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24099633
• jw1224 6y ago
  A little late to the party, but hopefully these are useful if anyone sees them: - If you need to make a quick screen recording video, open QuickTime Player. There’s an option to record the screen in the menu. - (This one’s been extremely useful to me, and hardly anyone seems to know about it!) — If you need to provide tech support to another macOS user, open iMessage on your Mac, and start a conversation with the other person’s Apple ID. Click the dropdown caret beside their name in the recipient list, and click “Ask to share screen”. A VNC request will be sent straight to their Mac (with built-in microphone audio, so you can chat to them), plus options to control their computer remotely.
  • m-p-3 6y ago
    I found out lately that you can even record the screen of a brand new iOS device using QuickTime when plugged via USB. You can easily record the initial setup that way, which helped immensely with users working from home getting phone upgrades during the pandemic.
    • jw1224 6y ago
      I didn’t know about that, thanks for the tip!
• niteshade 6y ago
  You can do basic screensharing with Messages on macOS. Open Messages, select a message thread with an existing contact, then from the menu bar, select Buddies > Invite to Share My Screen (or Ask to Share Screen). Doesn't work for groups (last time I tried at least), and hideously undiscoverable.
• thankminim 6y ago
  Scroll with vim keys in Safari Reader Mode.
  • mattalbie 6y ago
    Nice!
• sciencewolf 6y ago
  Digital color meter to get colors from webpages.
• LucasWilliam 6y ago
  I found them Continuity Camera. Dark Mode. Desktop Stacks. Dynamic Desktops. Finder enhancements: Gallery View, view metadata, and Quick Actions. Improved OS and Safari security. Screenshot markup.
• dtgriscom 6y ago
  If you drag a window's corner, the adjoining edges resize. If you hold down Option while you do this, all four sizes resize about the center. Even better, you can press and release Option during a single drag to turn this behavior on and off incrementally, which means you can arbitrarily adjust a window with one drag (if you're persistent enough).
• Imagenuity 6y ago
  To open a Finder window from the command line in the current folder type: open .
• cosmincimpoi 6y ago
  Spaces. Including "Displays have separate Spaces". I kinda knew it was there all the time but never really used it until recently. It fits very nice with the Chrome "People" feature.
• mattalbie 6y ago
  I didn't see this one anywhere. You can use modifier keys in combination with Hot Corners. Go to [System Preferences > Mission Control > Hot Corners] and when you make your selection just press the modifier you'd like to use. I've always found hot corners too easily triggered, for me this strikes the right balance.
• heyvirgil 6y ago
  Using the exposé command to show desktop grab a file from finder then pressing the exposé command to show all windows of the current application and dropping the file I grabbed from the finder into the desired window, saves me a TON of time in photoshop and other design apps, and for attachments in files. I custom map mine the way they were in 10.4 when tis feature was released, f11 desktop, f12 all windows, f13 current applications windows.
• heyvirgil 6y ago
  System Preferences>Keyboard>Text. I use this to create trigger letter combinations that auto complete things I type frequently, particularly for business correspondence- for example if I type "FRA-", in any application, it prompts me with the option to autocomplete "For routing/assignment" I actually have someones difficult to spell's name in there too but have omitted it here. It"s useful to use ALL CAPS as the trigger. You can even stack the triggers, I have several individuals whom I may send a message to with "FOR ROUTING/ASSIGNMENT". to and I have them all triggered by the same capital letter combo, and I am presented with a dropdown list that use the down arrow to select which I want to use.