37 ms·

Hard to discover tips and apps for macOS

346 points by trishume 6y ago

mcraiha 6y ago
My tips: 1. Forget Finder, it is just bad for any power user scenario, and IMO worst part of Mac OS. Use Forklift or other similar app for all GUI file management operations. 2. Never drag and drop (this applies to any OS). Early release can cause all kinds of issues. 3. Make sure that you have fast access to Activity Monitor, since some GUI applications do not show any reasonable progress indicators when they start long lasting compilation/export operations.
- Normille 6y ago
  I've recently gone back to using Finder after a very brief dalliance with PathFinder [terrible processor and memory hog] and a fairly longer dalliance with ForkLift3. Although I like a lot about ForkLift3, I had to ditch it eventually because its inability to set different view settings for different windows drove me insane. Finder does allow this so, for example, I can have my ~/Downloads and ~/Pictures/Screengrabs folders set to always display in list view sorted by most recent [so the latest download or screengrab ia always at the top] whilst displaying other folders, such as /Applications in column view and alphabetically because I look for things in there by name. My favourite Finder tip: when saving a file and you want to base its name on an existing one, eg: myimage01.jpg, myimage02.jpg, myimage03.jpg... etc. Click on one of the existing files in the save dialogue and the untitled one you're about to save will adopt that name. Then you just change the last digit [or whatever] and save. Favourite not particularly OSX specific tip: When including a date in your filenames, put it at the start in YYYY-MM-DD somefilename format. that way, sorting the column of files by name, also correctly sorts them by date. Favourite not yet mentioned OSX utility: A Better Finder Rename [0] --bulk file renaming with more options and combinations than you can shake a stick at. Favourite not yet mentioned OSX app: TextMate [1] --what Sublime Text hopes to be when it grows up! [0] https://www.publicspace.net/ABetterFinderRename https://www.publicspace.net/ABetterFinderRename [1] https://macromates.com https://macromates.com
- mekster 6y ago
  1. This. The only thing I miss from Windows is Explorer. I just can't understand how macOS dev feels Finder would work like that for 20 years without much change. It resets the config and the window size for a folder at every random occasion, creates .DS_Store garbage all over, you cannot even cut files and just feels uneasy. I even enable "Quit Finder" menu and get it out of my app cycle list but it randomly resurrects itself... ForkLift is something that keeps my sanity.
  - reaperducer 6y ago
    creates .DS_Store garbage all over Has Windows stopped polluting the world with Thumbs_db files? I hate when I see those things on a server.
    - joan_kode 6y ago
      Yes, ever since Windows Vista thumbnails are in a central per-user directory. Old thumbnails are removed automatically. Definitely an improvement over previous behavior, at this point I would say it just needs easier configurability.
  - saagarjha 6y ago
    > It resets the config and the window size for a folder at every random occasion, creates .DS_Store garbage all over I suspect you might be deleting the .DS_Store files, which would have a side effect of resetting your configuration. Also, Finder doesn't do cut, you hold down ⌥ when pasting to move it rather than make a copy. And since it draws your desktop icons, it's supposed to stay running–that's why "Quit Finder" menu is hidden by default.
  - bartvk 6y ago
    > I just can't understand how macOS dev feels Finder would work like that for 20 years without much change I do a lot of stuff on the commandline, I don't really need an advanced graphical file manager. If necessary, I open an additional Finder window for more complex manoeuvres. I wonder if there are people who, like me, come from Desktop Linux to macOS and kept working like that.
- JadeNB 6y ago
  > 1. Forget Finder, it is just bad for any power user scenario, and IMO worst part of Mac OS. Use Forklift or other similar app for all GUI file management operations. The author mentions this among several other Finder alternatives, of which they prefer Path Finder.
chime 6y ago
Author says Alfred is marginally better than Spotlight but I use it for so many different things. Doing quick math is a very common function for me. My favorite hidden trick is cmd+L which displays the typed text in HUGE fonts, so someone across the room can read it.
- trishume 6y ago
  Yah it's perpetually on my todo list to learn to use Alfred for more things, like using its built in file browsing more. It would be nice to have Alfred workflows set up for more things like switching Chrome tabs and Discord channels. I do use it a ton for launching apps and quick calculations, but Spotlight can do that with a bit less polish.
  - spurgu 6y ago
    Once you start using the snippets and clipboard history there's no going back...
- scarlac 6y ago
  A few tips for Spotlight that made me stop using apps like Quicksilver and Alfred: 1. Typing something and pressing CMD+B will open a browser and do a Google search for that 2. Typing math works now 3. You can change your Spotlight preferences to not include files you don't wanna search on, essentially always showing apps (if you just want it do be an app launcher) Alfred does a lot more than this, but for me these were the key automation features I needed to stop using it.
  - mekster 6y ago
    I just don't see the need when I can just open a new browser tab and type to search or launch the calculator app?
    - reaperducer 6y ago
      Because you don't need to open a new browser window or launch a calculator app. You just press a hot key and it's there.
macinjosh 6y ago
My favorite is this: You can drag the Spotlight search bar anywhere on your screen. But if you want to restore it to the default position long tap/click on the Spotlight icon in the menu bar and it will snap back.
- antipaul 6y ago
  Wow, how did you discover the long tap/click to restore it...
- saagarjha 6y ago
  If you have a Force Touch trackpad, it will also click to let you know you've aligned it back to where it was originally.
missing_paren 6y ago
> cmd+backtick is like cmd+tab but between windows of the same app. Well, I wish that were completely true, because cmd+backtick only cycles through the windows of the application, while cmd+tab lets you select the application you want. From Ubuntu (or maybe rather Ubuntu's default desktop environment?) I am used to cmd+backtick allowing me to select the window - I did find an application that does enable this behavior [1] but I wonder what else is out there. I used to use Hyperswitch but it doesn't seem to work on Catalina [1] https://contexts.co https://contexts.co
- trishume 6y ago
  Wow Contexts looks incredibly well designed. I'm not sure I'll actually use it over my current Hammerspoon setup, but they combine all my favorite quick selection techniques like smart ordering, fuzzy matching, providing two-character hints which will definitely select a certain item, persisting things to keep hints consistent, shortcuts where you press a modifier type and then release to activate ... What I really want now is for Alfred to copy all of Contexts search features so that I can use them for generic search matching in Alfred workflows.
  - sa1 6y ago
    It seems to be unmaintained.
    - trishume 6y ago
      Oh I hadn't noticed, that's real sad. Their "upcoming" feature of showing window tabs is something that would be necessary for me.
- JadeNB 6y ago
  > > cmd+backtick is like cmd+tab but between windows of the same app. > Well, I wish that were completely true, because cmd+backtick only cycles through the windows of the application, while cmd+tab lets you select the application you want. I'm having trouble distinguishing between these two descriptions of the behaviour. What is different between what you say and what the author says?
adamnemecek 6y ago
I'll add another one, if you have a file dialog open, hit Command+Shift+G to open a dialog that let's you type in the path. Useful if you are going back and forth between terminal and some GUI app and some path is in your clipboard.
- saagarjha 6y ago
  You can also use tab completion in said dialog.
  - layoutIfNeeded 6y ago
    And tilde also works for your home.
newsbinator 6y ago
Spotify flashes non-stop (the left sidebar and the bottom control strip, but interestingly not the main app window). > Quartz Debug: There are some apps that reduce your battery life in an insidious way where it doesn’t show as CPU usage for their process but as increased WindowServer CPU usage. If your WindowServer process CPU usage is above maybe 6-10% when you’re not doing anything, some app in the background is probably spamming 60fps animation updates. As far as I know you can only figure out which app is at fault by getting the Quartz Debug app from Apple’s additional developer tools, enabling flash screen updates (and no delay after flash), then going to the overview mode (four finger swipe up) and looking for flashing. This same problem can also occur on Linux and Windows but I don’t know how much power it saps there.
- trishume 6y ago
  An app that was going to make it on my list was Anesidora, which is a native macOS Pandora player which of all the many music streaming apps I've tested including Apple Music, is the only one which uses less than 10% CPU total including on WindowServer and coreaudiod. Unfortunately since I got it the author seems to have removed it from the app store. There's some other native Pandora apps that might have low resource usage but I haven't tested them. I switched to Pandora for my music streaming mainly because of Anesidora, and luckily I still have it downloaded. Anesidora still redraws when it's hidden, but only once every second, and it uses lower CPU itself and in coreaudiod than other players.
  - password4321 6y ago
    Have you tried https://hermesapp.org https://hermesapp.org?
    - trishume 6y ago
      No I hadn't seen that. It appears to have been unmaintained even longer than Anesidora but at least it's open source.
- WD-42 6y ago
coldtea 6y ago
>iTerm2: An alternative Terminal with just so many features. I particularly like the ability to split windows into panes, which Apple’s Terminal does not have. Terminal actually has it, View -> Split Pane or Command-D - and has had it for ages (as well as tabs).
- trishume 6y ago
  Terminal's split panes are a totally different thing than iTerm2's and IMO not very useful. Terminal can have multiple panes that all show different places in the same scrollback buffer, not different terminals. iTerm2 can have many different terminals within one tab, which I use for example to have a tab for a project with one pane ssh'd into a VM/server and another pane on my local machine for file munging and syncing.
  - mercer 6y ago
    The tmux integration is amazing too! When I ssh into a server, whatever window/pane setup I last had (tab colors, names, and all), are restored. On one server I run a few 'production' apps, but I also have a tab for 'random shit' and a tab for 'nginx config'. the production tabs are bright red, and are usuall split pane with the left showing logs, and the right giving me a terminal with app-specific commands (and in the current app home dir). But then on another server I have two separate windows, and each window deals with one of the two 'concerns' on that server. It's a massive help in managing all my panes/sessions.
LanceH 6y ago
When I turn off my bluetooth headphones osx switches my speaker to my microphone. Is there some hidden menu to disable this as an output device?
- cawlin 6y ago
  You might try the Audio MIDI Setup utility. This allows you to add/remove devices which might work to remove the microphone as an output device. If you're looking for a fix and more advanced customization you could try Soundsource: https://rogueamoeba.com/soundsource/ https://rogueamoeba.com/soundsource/
- adav 6y ago
  I'm not sure about speakers becoming microphones, but you can quickly select input and output devices by option+clicking the volume icon in the menu bar.
evadne 6y ago
I have a few favourites ControlPlane https://github.com/dustinrue/ControlPlane https://github.com/dustinrue/ControlPlane Divvy https://mizage.com/divvy/ https://mizage.com/divvy/ Stay https://cordlessdog.com/stay/ https://cordlessdog.com/stay/
- ViViDboarder 6y ago
  +1 for ControlPlane. I’ve got a lot of automations set up for things like muting my speakers when I get to the office (remember those days?), when I use an app that listens to my microphone, automatically turning on a Hue light Red and toggling Do not Disturb so I don’t get interrupted is my latest and favorite though.
- AnonHP 6y ago
  Looks like ControlPlane is not actively maintained now. Last pull request merge was a year ago, with many issues and some more pull requests open.
  - mikewhy 6y ago
    Someone has a fork that gets it working with later versions of macOS, but it still has some worts. Very sad cause it's a brilliant little tool. https://github.com/PBMacDev/ControlPlane/tree/mojave https://github.com/PBMacDev/ControlPlane/tree/mojave https://github.com/dustinrue/ControlPlane/issues/501 https://github.com/dustinrue/ControlPlane/issues/501
- luizfelberti 6y ago
  I used to use Moom and then Divvy, but switched over to a lighter weight and OSS alternative: Rectangle [0], which is a successor to (now unmaintained) Spectacle Easier to automate setup through Homebrew, no need to store/activate the license or anything, doesn't have the "draw the window position" popup thingy, but I don't really care about that and gotten used to the (very simple) default shortcuts. I highly recommend it, give it a try if you're interested! [0] https://rectangleapp.com https://rectangleapp.com or https://github.com/rxhanson/Rectangle https://github.com/rxhanson/Rectangle
mekster 6y ago
There are better tools than a hex editor or system monitor (why do you want to constantly be bothered how well your hardware is performing?). Unclutter - This gives you a nice non intrusive "memo zone" as well as manage your clipboard, so that copying password won't lose your user name into limbo. BetterTouchTools - Who'll live without this one? Just give "three fingers swipe down" mapped to cmd-w and your life will be quite that much better. No more click at the upper corner tiny button to close a window which is an insanely dumb usability. Add several more to your likings and your life is even rosier. And use a password manager, so that a new login made from your phone will be on your mac without effort and nothing gets lost on clean install even if you forget to export them if they're saved in the cloud, not to mention you can have randomized password for every site, but make sure to secure the master password with 2fa.
- arafsheikh 6y ago
  A free alternative to BTT trackpad gestures is jitouch2 (https://www.jitouch.com https://www.jitouch.com). It's not as versatile and no longer maintained, but works well for most use cases even in the latest version of MacOS.
  - mekster 6y ago
    I just don't get why custom gesture mapping isn't implemented in macOS itself.
    - srtjstjsj 6y ago
      "custom" violates Apple's UX philosophy.
      - mekster 6y ago
        It's as custom as keyboard mapping which it already has.
  - reaperducer 6y ago
    Thanks for the recommendation. I paid for BTT, and find it very unstable. More often than not the custom snap windows function just doesn't work. That's the only reason I bought it. I used to be able to restart BTT and snapping would work again, but that is no longer effective in the latest version. I guess the fact that it even has a "restart" option in its drop-down menu should have been a hint.
doctoboggan 6y ago
> cmd+shift+4 pops up a crosshair to take a screenshot of a region. If you hit space at after invoking the crosshairs then you can take full window screenshots. This mode is nice for marketing material as it also captures the drop shadow and rounded corners rendered properly as a transparent png.
- hibbelig 6y ago
  After cmd-shift-4 and space, a simple copies the window with its shadow. Some modified allows to copy just the window. But I forgot which modifier.
  - jasomill 6y ago
    Hold down Option while clicking the window to exclude the drop shadow from the screenshot. As a vastly more general rule, hold down Option while clicking anything on a Mac to get the alternate/advanced form of the click action (e.g., try Option-clicking the various status icons on the right end of the menu bar).
    - lostgame 6y ago
      >> Hold down Option while clicking the window to exclude the drop shadow from the screenshot. You just taught an exclusively-MacOS user of 15+ years a new trick! Thank you! :) I often marvel at how fantastic this OS truly is.
  - phodo 6y ago
    Is there a way to make it NOT make that camera shutter sound when you do the screenshot ?
    - hibbelig 6y ago
      In System Preferences, under Sound, select the tab Sound Effects. There is a checkbox to play user interface sound effects.
- 6y ago
bhaskara2 6y ago
Add a “folder..noindex” to disable files in the folder from getting indexed
AnonHP 6y ago
> You can select multiple images in Finder and drag them onto the Preview dock icon to open them in one window with a Sidebar where you can quickly flip between them with arrow keys. Instead of wasting time dragging and dropping, just press Cmd+Down Arrow to open the files (usually images are associated with Preview.app as the default application). Cmd+Down Arrow in the Finder opens (navigates one level down) whatever is selected: folder or single file or multiple files. Cmd+Up Arrow goes one level up from the current folder. > Path Finder: A fancier version of Finder with multiple panes and various other advanced features. Path Finder has a few nice features, but its updates and update schedules haven't been great. A cheaper alternative that also supports network transfers is Forklift.
- JadeNB 6y ago
  > Path Finder has a few nice features, but its updates and update schedules haven't been great. A cheaper alternative that also supports network transfers is Forklift. It is mentioned in the article immediately after Path Finder. The author says they prefer Path Finder for its good column view, which they find no alternative offers.
- derefr 6y ago
  > Instead of wasting time dragging and dropping, just press Cmd+Down Arrow to open the files I believe this does something different: it opens each photo in its own Preview window. It’s basically the difference between passing multiple arguments to one “Open” invocation, and passing one argument apiece to multiple “Open” invocations. If the images are in a folder, though, you can “Open With” the folder with Preview.
ViViDboarder 6y ago
I’ve been a long time user of Dash. There is a Linux alternative called Zeal for those that use multiple platforms. I use Alfred quite a bit as well, though not as an alternative to Spotlight. I use it for automations via workflows instead. Turning on or off VPNs, sending files, converting date times, reading 2FA codes off my Yubikey, etc. I haven’t found a great Linux alternative for this. Ideally I’d have something that lasts me reuse my workflows that I’ve written. Not mentioned in the article is Better Touch Tool[1]. I’ve had this since the original Intel MBP and it’s been incredible for making the fancy trackpads and touch bars actually useful. I’ve got a Pomodoro timer, Dark Mode toggle, Do Not Disturb toggle (also automated by ControlPlane), and lots of simpler app shortcuts. I responded to someone else about ControlPlane a bit further down, but I have it automate things like DND when I start a call from my Mac. [1] https://folivora.ai/ https://folivora.ai/
hardwaregeek 6y ago
Having emacs commands by default on native apps is a really nice detail. It's nearly impossible to do on Windows since there's already a bunch of shortcuts using control. On Linux it's definitely doable but you have to install a keyboard shortcuts app, get an emacs profile, etc. If only reddit didn't use C-b to insert bold text, it'd make navigating in text boxes a lot easier.
- m463 6y ago
  If firefox had a setting, maybe per-site, to prevent text boxes from "helpful" editing key overrides it would be wonderful. I have to use a web application that uses CKEditor for text boxes. And just like you - the most annoying thing in the world - j I get: control-b is bold instead of back one character (one of my most commonly used keystrokes) The other annoying one is control-k pops up a link dialog. I tried to figure out how to override or disable it, but never got very far.
- trissylegs 6y ago
  On gnome, if you open Gnome Tweak Tool there's a keyboard theme setting, select "Emacs" and all GTK applications will use Emacs keyboard shortcuts. (Including M-b M-f, which is a differnt combo on macOS). It's propbably a dconf setting but I haven't checked which one. It tends to avoid running into issues on <input type="text" /> boxes in Firefox. But not more advanced things like Google Docs or embedded text editors. (eg Rust playground)
eyesee 6y ago
Surprised no one has mentioned QuickLook. In Finder, select a file (document, image, movie, etc.) and tap the space bar to bring up QuickLook. You’ll see a full preview of that document instantly. The preview window follows your focus, so you can use mouse arrow keys to navigate between files, etc and see an updated preview. Also works in Open dialogs, Mail attachments and elsewhere.
- trishume 6y ago
  I briefly mention the spacebar shortcut in the article but it does indeed deserve more explanation. One of my favorite macOS file browsing features for sure, miss it all the time on Linux, especially the part where it follows your focus when you use the arrow keys. Great for looking through large folders of poorly-named PDFs for the right thing.
  - read_if_gay_ 6y ago
    If you’re looking for text, pdfgrep works pretty well too.
- markc 6y ago
  thank you thank you thank you!
- speleding 6y ago
  Spotlight is great but by default it will only do extensions it knows about, and will ignore text files like .css and most source code files. There is a plugin called qlstephen that allows you to spotlight all text files (but it's a bit of a pain to install on Catalina due to permissions issues): https://github.com/whomwah/qlstephen https://github.com/whomwah/qlstephen
Austin_Conlon 6y ago
I love how you added Option-2 for ™ as a tip, that's the only shortcut for one of those symbols I've committed to memory before for using in a jokey context.
- saagarjha 6y ago
  I believe "tm" automatically corrects to "™" by default–it's one of the ones that are set up automatically to show you how to make you own autocompletions.
- xenadu02 6y ago
  Option plus many other keys also gives you various language options. For example the umlaut can be added to a letter with Option+u. Option+e adds a diacritic mark.
- longnguyen 6y ago
  Also Option-R for ®
Gys 6y ago
Maybe my biggest improvement: Paste. A graphical clipboard history manager. Still cannot understand that I did not come up with this myself.
- seriocomic 6y ago
  Worth it for the Setapp subscription alone!
Hammershaft 6y ago
Swish, it's a clever window management app designed for speed with touchpads. https://highlyopinionated.co/swish/ https://highlyopinionated.co/swish/
dschuessler 6y ago
To add some shortcuts that I use regularly but don't appear on the list: - Ctrl+Cmd+Space brings up a Unicode-Char-Picker - Shift+Alt+Cmd+V pastes from your clipboard without formatting from the source - Shift+Fn+Ctrl+Power shuts off the display
- spurgu 6y ago
  For shutting off the display (locking) I use Shift+Ctrl+Power (not Fn). Or are the two somehow different?
  - laurent92 6y ago
    Ctrl+Cmd+Q = locks the screen, Cmd+Alt+Power = locks and sleep. It seems there are a lot of variations with slight details.
    - astrocat 6y ago
      This right here is what I've been waiting for all these years...
  - dschuessler 6y ago
    I believe you are right. Shift+Ctrl+Power shuts off the display and it does so more reliably than Shift+Fn+Ctrl+Power. I guess I memorized it wrong.
dwighttk 6y ago
Two apps he didn’t include that I like: Levelator (free): https://apps.apple.com/us/app/the-levelator/id1493326487?mt=12 https://apps.apple.com/us/app/the-levelator/id1493326487?mt=... LaunchBar (alternative to Alfred, free trial): https://www.obdev.at/products/launchbar/index.html https://www.obdev.at/products/launchbar/index.html
- mindfulhack 6y ago
  Side comment: anyone else feel like an app that only is in the MAS is lower quality for some reason? Apps in that quality seem to have a high ratio of junkware. This one looks good though, just giving my reaction to even seeing a MAS link. It's interesting how IMO macOS really doesn't need an app store. It's different.
  - dwighttk 6y ago
    I usually don’t use the App Store unless it is the only option
lunixbochs 6y ago
If you use multiple monitors, and you're frustrated with the cmd-tab app switcher only appearing on the last monitor you touched the dock, this will make it show up on all monitors. defaults write com.apple.Dock appswitcher-all-displays -bool true killall Dock
- jawngee 6y ago
  You're a good person. That's been bugging me for years, but just a tad under bugging me enough that I'd take the time to solve it. Thank you!
  - saagarjha 6y ago
    Have a couple more, although they are purely eye candy: defaults write com.apple.dock mineffect -string suck defaults write com.apple.dock slow-motion-allowed -bool YES
catmistake 6y ago
I recommend macports package management system, similar in function to BSD ports collection. Superior to Homebrew, the johnny-come-lately PMS with all the penguinista-style hype that seems to lean towards binary installs, unlike roll your own from all source in macports. Homebrew also does not honor the default privileges of /usr/local, which is an annoying security flaw.
- lunixbochs 6y ago
  You can transparently run homebrew as a dedicated user, prevent it from accessing your home directory, and only give /usr/local permissions to that user. https://github.com/lunixbochs/meta/tree/master/utils/brew_altuser https://github.com/lunixbochs/meta/tree/master/utils/brew_al... I have been doing this for years. The only thing it breaks for me is casks that try to install applications, and I don't mind.
- beagle3 6y ago
  Or Joyent's "pkgsrc" system, which is also mostly ports-like, works on just about every posixy OS these days (including Linux, NetBSD, Cugwin and more). Capable of installing both source and binaries. Works well in my experience. (No experience with MacPorts so I can't compare; but coming from Linux/apt I didn't feel much was missing, just a little different)
- mdaniel 6y ago
  While it does default to binaries, it accepts a build-from-source option I haven't been involved with macports recently enough to compare, but one advantage of Homebrew's popularity is the depth of package specifications and how quickly they're updated
- talentedcoin 6y ago
  Agreed 100%. No idea why homebrew is so dominant while doing the wrong thing by default. Binaries are nice but not worth the trouble Homebrew gives compared to sane, rational MacPorts.
  - catmistake 6y ago
luizfelberti 6y ago
Does anyone have a tip to keep macOS from phoning home when you run unsigned binaries? I almost locked up my entire computer this week, presumably because of this... here's the story for that: I had setup unbound listening on 127.0.0.1:53 as the only DNS resolver for all network interfaces, so that I hijack several responses that I might want to (e.g. adnet sinkholes) and forward the rest to Google/Cloudflare over TLS. When I rebooted the Mac, the entire computer was so fucked that I panicked cause I thought my SSD was failing. Turns out unbound failed to start so all DNS was down. I suspect it to be the "phoning home" because when I opened the Terminal, running `ps aux | grep unbound` took like 5 seconds to return anything (as did everything else that tried to run), and that behavior has been reported by other users as Gatekeeper's Phone Home checks being at fault. So that's why I was wondering if anyone has found out how to keep macOS from doing this (preferably without disabling all of SIP), cause that'd be one hell of a tip...
- lunixbochs 6y ago
  Edit: removed instructions to disable gatekeeper as sibling comment looks like a much better solution and writeup. I’m also curious if the self signed binaries in Big Sur fix this problem.
  - luizfelberti 6y ago
    I'll test that out later today/tomorrow, thanks! I guess the questions I'd have regarding this that I'd need to validate would be: - Does this setting persist across reboots? - Does it stop phoning-home altogether, or will it still phone-home, but always authorize regardless of answer? - Is there a more granular way to disable just phoning-home, rather than nuking all of Gatekeeper? (Some of its things like disallowing access to personal files by default are still nice to have) Will report back with an update after testing...
    - lunixbochs 6y ago
      I think tcc is separate from gatekeeper, so the granular permissions should still work.
kratom_sandwich 6y ago
Also, check out https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24091707 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24091707
uuuuuuuuuuuu 6y ago
One useful shortcut I've discovered recently is cmd-[ and cmd-] to go forward and back through link history. Works in the browser as well as pdf viewers. With regards to pdf viewers specifically, this has greatly improved my paper reading experience.
AJRF 6y ago
Cmd + Shift + 5 gives you a crop tool and you can choose to create a screenshot or start a video. Little options menu lets you pick between audio inputs and outputs for the video too.
- mindfulhack 6y ago
  It pays to just try things out of curiosity: Cmd + Shift + 6 takes a 'screenshot' of your touch bar! (But let it be said that the touch bar should be deprecated. I want my Fn keys back.)
tanin 6y ago
Shameless plug. You can use a programmable tooltip for macOS, so you don't have to remember all the shortcuts for these workflows. Please see https://github.com/tanin47/tip https://github.com/tanin47/tip
uniqueid 6y ago
Cmd+Shift+Period : toggles 'shows hidden files' in Finder
- seriocomic 6y ago
  was literally looking for this only 2 hours ago...
ladberg 6y ago
I'll add one of my favorite ones: you can do Option-Command-C to copy the path of a file to the clipboard (if you need to use it somewhere that doesn't support dragging to paste a path).
- mindfulhack 6y ago
  This just made me able to de-bloat my macOS by removing the 'PathSnagger 2' app from my system! Thank you! :) To add to this marvellous shortcut I will now be using very frequently: Right click on the file in finder, then hold the Option key and you'll see the copy command change from "Copy [file]" to "Copy [file] as Pathname".
- oarfish 6y ago
  What must I do to enable this? For me I just hear the error sound and nothing gets copied. I am on Mojave; pressing option when opening context menu with right click on a file does show the "Copy as Pathname" option. Maybe the shortcut was introduced later.
jawngee 6y ago
My personal must haves are Yoink for drag and drop, Moom for window sizing/placement, Default Folder X.
diegoperini 6y ago
FinderPath. It makes Finder's title clickable to be able to copy or change the current path, just like Windows' explorer.exe.
- saagarjha 6y ago
  I assume this requires disabling SIP?
shinycode 6y ago
I’ve been searching for a long time a tool that would resize all the windows open on a given space to fill up the entire screen. I open lots of things when working and that would be more useful than doing the exposé and switching back and forth do declutter. It seems to me that this feature is available on Windows and has been for a long time. I tried almost everything that I could google and I even bought apps that I don’t use anymore because I though that the level of customization would enable it. Is there someone that knows a tool or a trick to allow that ?
- travmatt 6y ago
  BetterTouchTool?
- saagarjha 6y ago
  Hammerspoon can do this quite easily, just grab all the windows using hs.window.filter.defaultCurrentSpace:getWindows() and set each's frame to it's screen:frame().
  - shinycode 6y ago
    Thank you for the tip, I'll to code the algorithm to do it myself. That's great ! On an other note: a tip on iOS and MacOS, when you make a voice recording then you can edit it and activate a feature with the top left wand icon which is going to clear up the sound. When it's a voice recording it's pretty amazing how well it works, in particular to remove the echo.
    - shinycode 6y ago
      I guess the topic is buried now ... but I'll update it for posterity. What I want to do actually IS the mission control mode where all the windows are resized to fill up the screen. To close a window while in exposé mode, the easy solution is effectively to use BTT, creating a new gesture for example "3 fingers click" with the ctrl modifier. Then selecting the action "Close Window Below Cursor (Works in Mission Control)". And this effectively close my window. An other tip here, still in mission control while the cursor is on a window, pressing the space bar displays it full screen. One more thing: While doing COMMAND + TAB to show the open apps, pressing the bottom arrow key show all the open windows for this app, regardless of the space they are in. Really useful.
rsync 6y ago
What I miss the most is a workable "focus follows mouse" solution. Circa Snow Leopard, I used "mondomouse" but that is abandonware and does not work. I tried to use "dwellclick" but it's not a good solution. I think there are now some new accessibility settings that actual enable a proper focus follows mouse in Mojave and later, but I don't have anything later than El Cap installed and am unable to test that ...
- saagarjha 6y ago
  I've looked into this and the focus-follows-mouse part isn't actually all that difficult; there is SPI to do this. The difficulty is that picking what things should get focus is hard, because there are things in macOS that actually care about what is focused. For example, as I was running my test, from Xcode of course, I moved my cursor over the sidebar, which changed the focused item as I moved my mouse…of course, this had the effect of opening a different file. If anyone has any ideas on how do deal with this, I'd be happy to hear it!
jungletime 6y ago
I have a macbook which I partitioned and installed windows on. the macbook is in a drawer in a stand up desk. The desk has a terrible ergonomic design. So I ended up using the pullout drawer as a shelf form my external keyboard, which is rested on a board. So my macbook is closed, inside a drawer, covered by a board, and connected to external monitor and keyboard. 1. How can I boot into windows from the mac desktop. Current procedure is to take off the board, open up the laptop, wait for startup, press a macbook key waiting for the os screen to start from which I can select windows icon. For some reason my external keyboard doesn't work during boot time. Its very annoying. Is there an app that will boot me into windows, from a mac desktop? 2. I have to shutdown the laptop at night because the fans are driving me crazy. But that means I have to pullout the macbook out of the drawer in the mornings, and open up the laptop to start it with a power button. Any apps that will put the macbook into sleep mode, that turn off the fans and external drives, quickly. 3. I miss cut and past for files the way it was on windows. This effectively moves them. Now I have to hold a key down and drag on a mac. Requires much more coordination, in selecting the destination folder. Is there anything equivalent to cut and paste on mac? Thanks for any help.
- dmitshur 6y ago
  3. You can copy and paste files using the keyboard on macOS too, it’s just not the default. Copy a file first (Cmd+C), then hold one of the modifiers keys (I forget which and can’t check cuz on phone, but either option or shift) and press Cmd+V to move instead of copy. 2. Is the “Sleep” feature built into the OS not the thing you’re looking for? Fans don’t run during sleep. I don’t see why you need an “app”. 1. I don’t have anything useful to say on this one, sorry.
  - mman0114 6y ago
    for 3, its cmd + opt/alt + v
- peterhil 6y ago
  1. I vaguely remember there being some command or sysctl preference which you can use to set options for next boot and also control sleep options.
ChrisMarshallNY 6y ago
Weird. No DefaultFolderX. That is an awesome tool. Also no Little Snitch. I have had problems with iStat Menu. I really want it to work, but it always introduces random crashes into my system. Every couple of years, I try it again, but it hasn’t stabilized yet.
- dundercoder 6y ago
  FWIW iStat menus has been working flawlessly for me for months.
  - ChrisMarshallNY 6y ago
    I’ll try it again. It’s a beautiful bit of code, and I love what it does. It’s just that, whenever I would have it installed, my system would have fairly frequent, random, “gray screen of death” crashes, with worthless stack traces. The only way I figured it was iStat Menus, was I uninstalled it, and it stopped.
  - ChrisMarshallNY 6y ago
    Nope. Still causing problems. It's messing with my displays (I use an eGPU and an LG Ultrawide 49-incher), and I am getting more crashes than usual. It's def iStat Menus. When I removed it, all the issues stopped.
CGamesPlay 6y ago
In Finder and also in "Open File" dialogs, Command-Shift-G will allow you to type a path directly. You can use this to open the dialog to hidden paths, for example: "~/Library" and enter will open the dialog to that folder, allowing you to browse the folder normally.
totetsu 6y ago
So long as we are sharing.. looking through my shell history: organize windows without using a mouse. https://github.com/eczarny/spectacle https://github.com/eczarny/spectacle stop accidentally navigating back in chrome with the touchpad. defaults write com.google.Chrome AppleEnableSwipeNavigateWithScrolls -bool FALSE Something about enabling darkmode? defaults write com.google.inputmethod.Japanese.Tool.DictionaryTool NSRequiresAquaSystemAppearance 0 show hidden files in finder? defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles YES Disable attention seeking app bouncing animation, for those of us sensitive to these things.. defaults write com.apple.dock no-bouncing -bool TRUE If you run dnsmasq, you can add addn-hosts=/etc/dnsmasq-hosts-blocking/ to the your dnsmasq.conf. In that folder you can put files from https://github.com/unixsheikh/dnsmasq-blacklist https://github.com/unixsheikh/dnsmasq-blacklist and https://github.com/adversarialtools/apple-telemetry https://github.com/adversarialtools/apple-telemetry to try and block apple and others telemetry .. but apple just seems to get around it by using, x.apple.com.akadns.net or x.apple-dns.net
- kitsunesoba 6y ago
  For toggling visibility of hidden files in Finder, changing defaults hasn't been necessary since Sierra (10.12), which added the [Cmd + Shift + .] shortcut. It works in native open/save dialogs too.
- krackers 6y ago
  I think that darkmode is applicable for Google's Japanese Input IME app (which I didn't even know existed!) https://www.google.co.jp/ime/ https://www.google.co.jp/ime/
  - totetsu 6y ago
    I think that one didn't work to enable darkmode. I use the google IME so I can use the same dictionaries as i do with linux mozc. You can have a dictionary with the reading and english meaning of words, that pops up when selecting them, also lots of ascii emojis. I have a memo about it here. https://become.radioac.dev/posts/terminal-tools/#language https://become.radioac.dev/posts/terminal-tools/#language (*^_^)ﾉどもっ
WantonQuantum 6y ago
My tip: System Preferences -> Desktop & Screen Saver -> Screen Saver -> Hot Corners -> Bottom Left Corner (or whichever you prefer) -> Put Display To Sleep (or Lock Screen if you prefer).
- Abishek_Muthian 6y ago
  I concur, I've been doing this for years. Adding caveat : Keep the dock size small to avoid interfering with Hot Corners and if you use VM in seamless mode try not to place any action(VM guest panel) near the macOS Hot Corners.
- kmundnic 6y ago
  You can also lock the screen with control + command + Q. I always bump into the corners so I prefer a key combination.
  - selrond 6y ago
    If you press ⌘ when selecting hot corner action you can make it so assigned hot corner only activates when holding ⌘
    - xanathar 6y ago
      Mind. Blown. (seriously, this is a game changer for me, thanks!)
  - runamok 6y ago
    You can also add a lock icon to the touch bar.
    - kmundnic 6y ago
      Ha, I didn't know about that one. I currently replace the Siri button with the do not disturb button, seems like I use it more often.
- dhritzkiv 6y ago
eric-hu 6y ago
Does anyone know of a way to enable keyboard control of menus on Touch Bar MacBooks? There’s the keyboard preference which I have enabled, but it doesn’t behave the same as my non Touch Bar MacBook. I can keyboard-interact with confirmation dialogs on my 2012 MacBook to hit Ok or Cancel. On my 2019, I must use the trackpad or the Touch Bar. I’ve been googling for a fix or even a bug report but it’s a surprisingly hard thing to google for.
- extra88 6y ago
  Do you mean “Use keyboard navigation to move focus between controls?” That’s in System Preferences > Keyboard > Shortcuts.
  - eric-hu 6y ago
    That’s what I have enabled. That setting behaves differently between Touch Bar and non Touch Bar macs. On non Touch Bar Macs, you can hit space or enter to interact with a pop up dialog. On Touch Bar Macs, the tab key skips over certain UI elements as if they don’t exist. “Conveniently”, those elements are on the Touch Bar.
    - addandsubtract 6y ago
      I'm not sure if this solves your problem, because I'm still on a non-TB Mac, but you can use CMD + [first letter] to select dialog options. For example, if you're closing an app and are asked if you want to save an open file, the dialog might have "Yes" preselected, but also let you choose "Don't save". If you hit CMD + D it will choose the "Don't save" option. Same thing for something that might say "All files" you can hit CMD + A to select it.
      - eric-hu 6y ago
        I just took some time to try this and it didn’t work. I think the Touch Bar acts as another device and UI prompts get forwarded to them. Thank you for the suggestion though.
xenadu02 6y ago
For presentations turn on Zoom hotkeys in accessibility. Then you can instantly zoom in or out by pressing Control then doing a scroll gesture.
- saagarjha 6y ago
  Thanks for the reminder to turn this back on; it used to cause some nasty WindowServer crashes in earlier betas…
tagawa 6y ago
Can anyone explain what a backtick is please?
- mikeklaas 6y ago
  It's the key beside "1", namely "`"
  - tagawa 6y ago
    Ah, thank you. It's in a different position on my keyboard (Japanese) but now I know what it's called.
mindfulhack 6y ago
My tip: Make your Cmd-Tab do everything you've ever wanted it to do that it currently can't: https://github.com/lwouis/alt-tab-macos https://github.com/lwouis/alt-tab-macos
- gauchojs 6y ago
  Tried now and the .5s delay that happens sometimes already kills this for me...
thomasdd 6y ago
in Finder, when you cusomize the toolbar(icons), yo can Drag-Drop, Folders, Files or Applications into the toolbar! that's what I discovered lately, as cool feature.
michelb 6y ago
I'm having several finder windows with tabs open as I work on certain projects. From time to time something crashes and closes all windows. Is there a way to 'store' the finder's open windows(including tabs!) and then restoring them again? I have not found anything that works on Catalina. (Stay doesn't do this)
- jastuk 6y ago
  Finder is essential yet it's the biggest pain point I have with macOS. - You've already mentioned a big one - Related would be remembering which Finder window goes to which "desktop" or screen - Another is no (permanent) custom width per folder or auto-sizing column view. Fixed width is either wasting space or not showing nearly enough. I always end up manually resizing the last/active column. - They recently added shared iCloud folders as well. Guess what, you can't see any filenames in column view because they repeat "Added by {Owner}" for every single file/folder which takes way too much space. I guess an icon/avatar was too much. Heck, even that is questionable since we have a sidebar with all the metadata. I don't know the technical aspect of it but they seem to have also locked down macOS which resulted in TotalFinder calling it quits. Not sure how viable it is for alternatives nowadays. I have no need for split/ftp Finder alternatives, just need a polished column view.
greggman3 6y ago
The tip I want answered... how do I make the icons on the file open dialog large enough that they actually become useful? I can enlarge them in the finder but not in an open file dialog.
peterhil 6y ago
Some hard to find tips that are a bit old (tested on OS X Lion), but most of them still work: https://software.clapper.org/cheat-sheets/mac-os-x.html https://software.clapper.org/cheat-sheets/mac-os-x.html For me, an immediately useful tip was hiding user login for Git user. I would add the following tips to above article: # System resource usage * USE Method: Mac OS X Performance Checklist: http://www.brendangregg.com/USEmethod/use-macosx.html http://www.brendangregg.com/USEmethod/use-macosx.html # Emacs users * For Emacs users with their config in version control, I would recommend downloading the latest Emacs.app version 27.1 instead of using Aquamacs, because Aquamacs has a bunch of customizations that do not play so well with original Emacs. https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/ https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/ # Printing * If you have Acrobat or Acrobat Professional installed, add an Adobe PDF printer from System Preferences > Printers and scanners, so you can make better PDF files by printing from any application. * You can save anything as PDF by choosing "Save as PDF" from the dropdown on the lower left corner on any print dialog. * Open CUPS web UI by opening the following URL in a web browser: http://localhost:631/ http://localhost:631/ http://localhost:631/printers/ http://localhost:631/printers/ You may need to enable the web user interface by issuing: cupsctl WebInterface=yes Warning! Be sure that you are behind NAT or a firewall so as not to expose the web UI to internet!
johnmw 6y ago
I'll throw in another: For a cool "hacker" (and more powerful in many ways) alternative to spotlight, install iTerm2, and activate a drop down quake style hotkey window. [1] Then install broot, which is a fantastic command line search tool. [2] [1] https://www.iterm2.com/documentation-hotkey.html https://www.iterm2.com/documentation-hotkey.html [2] https://github.com/Canop/broot https://github.com/Canop/broot
djKianoosh 6y ago
Is there a setting to tell Mac OS to follow the mouse for focus, and optionally activate (bring to foreground) the window under the cursor (after say, a 300ms delay) ?
t0rst 6y ago
Cmd-tab extras: - before releasing the command key and in between tabbing you can type H to hide/show and Q to quit the currently highlighted app. Note that quitting is often slow - can take a while for app’s icon to disappear. - with shift to reverse direction - you can start a drag, then use Cmd-tab to switch to your destination app, and then drop
pragmaticpandy 6y ago
Has anyone done or know of anyone who has done a third party security review of Karbiner-elements?

346 points by trishume 6y ago

My tips: 1. Forget Finder, it is just bad for any power user scenario, and IMO worst part of Mac OS. Use Forklift or other similar app for all GUI file management operations. 2. Never drag and drop (this applies to any OS). Early release can cause all kinds of issues. 3. Make sure that you have fast access to Activity Monitor, since some GUI applications do not show any reasonable progress indicators when they start long lasting compilation/export operations.

Normille 6y ago
I've recently gone back to using Finder after a very brief dalliance with PathFinder [terrible processor and memory hog] and a fairly longer dalliance with ForkLift3. Although I like a lot about ForkLift3, I had to ditch it eventually because its inability to set different view settings for different windows drove me insane. Finder does allow this so, for example, I can have my ~/Downloads and ~/Pictures/Screengrabs folders set to always display in list view sorted by most recent [so the latest download or screengrab ia always at the top] whilst displaying other folders, such as /Applications in column view and alphabetically because I look for things in there by name. My favourite Finder tip: when saving a file and you want to base its name on an existing one, eg: myimage01.jpg, myimage02.jpg, myimage03.jpg... etc. Click on one of the existing files in the save dialogue and the untitled one you're about to save will adopt that name. Then you just change the last digit [or whatever] and save. Favourite not particularly OSX specific tip: When including a date in your filenames, put it at the start in YYYY-MM-DD somefilename format. that way, sorting the column of files by name, also correctly sorts them by date. Favourite not yet mentioned OSX utility: A Better Finder Rename [0] --bulk file renaming with more options and combinations than you can shake a stick at. Favourite not yet mentioned OSX app: TextMate [1] --what Sublime Text hopes to be when it grows up! [0] https://www.publicspace.net/ABetterFinderRename https://www.publicspace.net/ABetterFinderRename [1] https://macromates.com https://macromates.com
mekster 6y ago
1. This. The only thing I miss from Windows is Explorer. I just can't understand how macOS dev feels Finder would work like that for 20 years without much change. It resets the config and the window size for a folder at every random occasion, creates .DS_Store garbage all over, you cannot even cut files and just feels uneasy. I even enable "Quit Finder" menu and get it out of my app cycle list but it randomly resurrects itself... ForkLift is something that keeps my sanity.
- reaperducer 6y ago
  creates .DS_Store garbage all over Has Windows stopped polluting the world with Thumbs_db files? I hate when I see those things on a server.
  - joan_kode 6y ago
    Yes, ever since Windows Vista thumbnails are in a central per-user directory. Old thumbnails are removed automatically. Definitely an improvement over previous behavior, at this point I would say it just needs easier configurability.
- saagarjha 6y ago
  > It resets the config and the window size for a folder at every random occasion, creates .DS_Store garbage all over I suspect you might be deleting the .DS_Store files, which would have a side effect of resetting your configuration. Also, Finder doesn't do cut, you hold down ⌥ when pasting to move it rather than make a copy. And since it draws your desktop icons, it's supposed to stay running–that's why "Quit Finder" menu is hidden by default.
- bartvk 6y ago
  > I just can't understand how macOS dev feels Finder would work like that for 20 years without much change I do a lot of stuff on the commandline, I don't really need an advanced graphical file manager. If necessary, I open an additional Finder window for more complex manoeuvres. I wonder if there are people who, like me, come from Desktop Linux to macOS and kept working like that.
JadeNB 6y ago
> 1. Forget Finder, it is just bad for any power user scenario, and IMO worst part of Mac OS. Use Forklift or other similar app for all GUI file management operations. The author mentions this among several other Finder alternatives, of which they prefer Path Finder.

chime 6y ago

Author says Alfred is marginally better than Spotlight but I use it for so many different things. Doing quick math is a very common function for me. My favorite hidden trick is cmd+L which displays the typed text in HUGE fonts, so someone across the room can read it.

trishume 6y ago
Yah it's perpetually on my todo list to learn to use Alfred for more things, like using its built in file browsing more. It would be nice to have Alfred workflows set up for more things like switching Chrome tabs and Discord channels. I do use it a ton for launching apps and quick calculations, but Spotlight can do that with a bit less polish.
- spurgu 6y ago
  Once you start using the snippets and clipboard history there's no going back...
scarlac 6y ago
A few tips for Spotlight that made me stop using apps like Quicksilver and Alfred: 1. Typing something and pressing CMD+B will open a browser and do a Google search for that 2. Typing math works now 3. You can change your Spotlight preferences to not include files you don't wanna search on, essentially always showing apps (if you just want it do be an app launcher) Alfred does a lot more than this, but for me these were the key automation features I needed to stop using it.
- mekster 6y ago
  I just don't see the need when I can just open a new browser tab and type to search or launch the calculator app?
  - reaperducer 6y ago
    Because you don't need to open a new browser window or launch a calculator app. You just press a hot key and it's there.

macinjosh 6y ago

My favorite is this: You can drag the Spotlight search bar anywhere on your screen. But if you want to restore it to the default position long tap/click on the Spotlight icon in the menu bar and it will snap back.

antipaul 6y ago
Wow, how did you discover the long tap/click to restore it...
saagarjha 6y ago
If you have a Force Touch trackpad, it will also click to let you know you've aligned it back to where it was originally.

missing_paren 6y ago

> cmd+backtick is like cmd+tab but between windows of the same app. Well, I wish that were completely true, because cmd+backtick only cycles through the windows of the application, while cmd+tab lets you select the application you want. From Ubuntu (or maybe rather Ubuntu's default desktop environment?) I am used to cmd+backtick allowing me to select the window - I did find an application that does enable this behavior [1] but I wonder what else is out there. I used to use Hyperswitch but it doesn't seem to work on Catalina [1] https://contexts.co https://contexts.co

trishume 6y ago
Wow Contexts looks incredibly well designed. I'm not sure I'll actually use it over my current Hammerspoon setup, but they combine all my favorite quick selection techniques like smart ordering, fuzzy matching, providing two-character hints which will definitely select a certain item, persisting things to keep hints consistent, shortcuts where you press a modifier type and then release to activate ... What I really want now is for Alfred to copy all of Contexts search features so that I can use them for generic search matching in Alfred workflows.
- sa1 6y ago
  It seems to be unmaintained.
  - trishume 6y ago
    Oh I hadn't noticed, that's real sad. Their "upcoming" feature of showing window tabs is something that would be necessary for me.
JadeNB 6y ago
> > cmd+backtick is like cmd+tab but between windows of the same app. > Well, I wish that were completely true, because cmd+backtick only cycles through the windows of the application, while cmd+tab lets you select the application you want. I'm having trouble distinguishing between these two descriptions of the behaviour. What is different between what you say and what the author says?

adamnemecek 6y ago

I'll add another one, if you have a file dialog open, hit Command+Shift+G to open a dialog that let's you type in the path. Useful if you are going back and forth between terminal and some GUI app and some path is in your clipboard.

saagarjha 6y ago
You can also use tab completion in said dialog.
- layoutIfNeeded 6y ago
  And tilde also works for your home.

newsbinator 6y ago

Spotify flashes non-stop (the left sidebar and the bottom control strip, but interestingly not the main app window). > Quartz Debug: There are some apps that reduce your battery life in an insidious way where it doesn’t show as CPU usage for their process but as increased WindowServer CPU usage. If your WindowServer process CPU usage is above maybe 6-10% when you’re not doing anything, some app in the background is probably spamming 60fps animation updates. As far as I know you can only figure out which app is at fault by getting the Quartz Debug app from Apple’s additional developer tools, enabling flash screen updates (and no delay after flash), then going to the overview mode (four finger swipe up) and looking for flashing. This same problem can also occur on Linux and Windows but I don’t know how much power it saps there.

trishume 6y ago
An app that was going to make it on my list was Anesidora, which is a native macOS Pandora player which of all the many music streaming apps I've tested including Apple Music, is the only one which uses less than 10% CPU total including on WindowServer and coreaudiod. Unfortunately since I got it the author seems to have removed it from the app store. There's some other native Pandora apps that might have low resource usage but I haven't tested them. I switched to Pandora for my music streaming mainly because of Anesidora, and luckily I still have it downloaded. Anesidora still redraws when it's hidden, but only once every second, and it uses lower CPU itself and in coreaudiod than other players.
- password4321 6y ago
  Have you tried https://hermesapp.org https://hermesapp.org?
  - trishume 6y ago
    No I hadn't seen that. It appears to have been unmaintained even longer than Anesidora but at least it's open source.
WD-42 6y ago

coldtea 6y ago

>iTerm2: An alternative Terminal with just so many features. I particularly like the ability to split windows into panes, which Apple’s Terminal does not have. Terminal actually has it, View -> Split Pane or Command-D - and has had it for ages (as well as tabs).

trishume 6y ago
Terminal's split panes are a totally different thing than iTerm2's and IMO not very useful. Terminal can have multiple panes that all show different places in the same scrollback buffer, not different terminals. iTerm2 can have many different terminals within one tab, which I use for example to have a tab for a project with one pane ssh'd into a VM/server and another pane on my local machine for file munging and syncing.
- mercer 6y ago
  The tmux integration is amazing too! When I ssh into a server, whatever window/pane setup I last had (tab colors, names, and all), are restored. On one server I run a few 'production' apps, but I also have a tab for 'random shit' and a tab for 'nginx config'. the production tabs are bright red, and are usuall split pane with the left showing logs, and the right giving me a terminal with app-specific commands (and in the current app home dir). But then on another server I have two separate windows, and each window deals with one of the two 'concerns' on that server. It's a massive help in managing all my panes/sessions.

LanceH 6y ago

When I turn off my bluetooth headphones osx switches my speaker to my microphone. Is there some hidden menu to disable this as an output device?

cawlin 6y ago
You might try the Audio MIDI Setup utility. This allows you to add/remove devices which might work to remove the microphone as an output device. If you're looking for a fix and more advanced customization you could try Soundsource: https://rogueamoeba.com/soundsource/ https://rogueamoeba.com/soundsource/
adav 6y ago
I'm not sure about speakers becoming microphones, but you can quickly select input and output devices by option+clicking the volume icon in the menu bar.

evadne 6y ago

I have a few favourites ControlPlane https://github.com/dustinrue/ControlPlane https://github.com/dustinrue/ControlPlane Divvy https://mizage.com/divvy/ https://mizage.com/divvy/ Stay https://cordlessdog.com/stay/ https://cordlessdog.com/stay/

ViViDboarder 6y ago
+1 for ControlPlane. I’ve got a lot of automations set up for things like muting my speakers when I get to the office (remember those days?), when I use an app that listens to my microphone, automatically turning on a Hue light Red and toggling Do not Disturb so I don’t get interrupted is my latest and favorite though.
AnonHP 6y ago
Looks like ControlPlane is not actively maintained now. Last pull request merge was a year ago, with many issues and some more pull requests open.
- mikewhy 6y ago
  Someone has a fork that gets it working with later versions of macOS, but it still has some worts. Very sad cause it's a brilliant little tool. https://github.com/PBMacDev/ControlPlane/tree/mojave https://github.com/PBMacDev/ControlPlane/tree/mojave https://github.com/dustinrue/ControlPlane/issues/501 https://github.com/dustinrue/ControlPlane/issues/501
luizfelberti 6y ago
I used to use Moom and then Divvy, but switched over to a lighter weight and OSS alternative: Rectangle [0], which is a successor to (now unmaintained) Spectacle Easier to automate setup through Homebrew, no need to store/activate the license or anything, doesn't have the "draw the window position" popup thingy, but I don't really care about that and gotten used to the (very simple) default shortcuts. I highly recommend it, give it a try if you're interested! [0] https://rectangleapp.com https://rectangleapp.com or https://github.com/rxhanson/Rectangle https://github.com/rxhanson/Rectangle

mekster 6y ago

There are better tools than a hex editor or system monitor (why do you want to constantly be bothered how well your hardware is performing?). Unclutter - This gives you a nice non intrusive "memo zone" as well as manage your clipboard, so that copying password won't lose your user name into limbo. BetterTouchTools - Who'll live without this one? Just give "three fingers swipe down" mapped to cmd-w and your life will be quite that much better. No more click at the upper corner tiny button to close a window which is an insanely dumb usability. Add several more to your likings and your life is even rosier. And use a password manager, so that a new login made from your phone will be on your mac without effort and nothing gets lost on clean install even if you forget to export them if they're saved in the cloud, not to mention you can have randomized password for every site, but make sure to secure the master password with 2fa.

arafsheikh 6y ago
A free alternative to BTT trackpad gestures is jitouch2 (https://www.jitouch.com https://www.jitouch.com). It's not as versatile and no longer maintained, but works well for most use cases even in the latest version of MacOS.
- mekster 6y ago
  I just don't get why custom gesture mapping isn't implemented in macOS itself.
  - srtjstjsj 6y ago
    "custom" violates Apple's UX philosophy.
    - mekster 6y ago
      It's as custom as keyboard mapping which it already has.
- reaperducer 6y ago
  Thanks for the recommendation. I paid for BTT, and find it very unstable. More often than not the custom snap windows function just doesn't work. That's the only reason I bought it. I used to be able to restart BTT and snapping would work again, but that is no longer effective in the latest version. I guess the fact that it even has a "restart" option in its drop-down menu should have been a hint.

doctoboggan 6y ago

> cmd+shift+4 pops up a crosshair to take a screenshot of a region. If you hit space at after invoking the crosshairs then you can take full window screenshots. This mode is nice for marketing material as it also captures the drop shadow and rounded corners rendered properly as a transparent png.

hibbelig 6y ago
After cmd-shift-4 and space, a simple copies the window with its shadow. Some modified allows to copy just the window. But I forgot which modifier.
- jasomill 6y ago
  Hold down Option while clicking the window to exclude the drop shadow from the screenshot. As a vastly more general rule, hold down Option while clicking anything on a Mac to get the alternate/advanced form of the click action (e.g., try Option-clicking the various status icons on the right end of the menu bar).
  - lostgame 6y ago
    >> Hold down Option while clicking the window to exclude the drop shadow from the screenshot. You just taught an exclusively-MacOS user of 15+ years a new trick! Thank you! :) I often marvel at how fantastic this OS truly is.
- phodo 6y ago
  Is there a way to make it NOT make that camera shutter sound when you do the screenshot ?
  - hibbelig 6y ago
    In System Preferences, under Sound, select the tab Sound Effects. There is a checkbox to play user interface sound effects.
6y ago

bhaskara2 6y ago

Add a “folder..noindex” to disable files in the folder from getting indexed

AnonHP 6y ago

> You can select multiple images in Finder and drag them onto the Preview dock icon to open them in one window with a Sidebar where you can quickly flip between them with arrow keys. Instead of wasting time dragging and dropping, just press Cmd+Down Arrow to open the files (usually images are associated with Preview.app as the default application). Cmd+Down Arrow in the Finder opens (navigates one level down) whatever is selected: folder or single file or multiple files. Cmd+Up Arrow goes one level up from the current folder. > Path Finder: A fancier version of Finder with multiple panes and various other advanced features. Path Finder has a few nice features, but its updates and update schedules haven't been great. A cheaper alternative that also supports network transfers is Forklift.

JadeNB 6y ago
> Path Finder has a few nice features, but its updates and update schedules haven't been great. A cheaper alternative that also supports network transfers is Forklift. It is mentioned in the article immediately after Path Finder. The author says they prefer Path Finder for its good column view, which they find no alternative offers.
derefr 6y ago
> Instead of wasting time dragging and dropping, just press Cmd+Down Arrow to open the files I believe this does something different: it opens each photo in its own Preview window. It’s basically the difference between passing multiple arguments to one “Open” invocation, and passing one argument apiece to multiple “Open” invocations. If the images are in a folder, though, you can “Open With” the folder with Preview.

ViViDboarder 6y ago

I’ve been a long time user of Dash. There is a Linux alternative called Zeal for those that use multiple platforms. I use Alfred quite a bit as well, though not as an alternative to Spotlight. I use it for automations via workflows instead. Turning on or off VPNs, sending files, converting date times, reading 2FA codes off my Yubikey, etc. I haven’t found a great Linux alternative for this. Ideally I’d have something that lasts me reuse my workflows that I’ve written. Not mentioned in the article is Better Touch Tool[1]. I’ve had this since the original Intel MBP and it’s been incredible for making the fancy trackpads and touch bars actually useful. I’ve got a Pomodoro timer, Dark Mode toggle, Do Not Disturb toggle (also automated by ControlPlane), and lots of simpler app shortcuts. I responded to someone else about ControlPlane a bit further down, but I have it automate things like DND when I start a call from my Mac. [1] https://folivora.ai/ https://folivora.ai/

hardwaregeek 6y ago

Having emacs commands by default on native apps is a really nice detail. It's nearly impossible to do on Windows since there's already a bunch of shortcuts using control. On Linux it's definitely doable but you have to install a keyboard shortcuts app, get an emacs profile, etc. If only reddit didn't use C-b to insert bold text, it'd make navigating in text boxes a lot easier.

m463 6y ago
If firefox had a setting, maybe per-site, to prevent text boxes from "helpful" editing key overrides it would be wonderful. I have to use a web application that uses CKEditor for text boxes. And just like you - the most annoying thing in the world - j I get: control-b is bold instead of back one character (one of my most commonly used keystrokes) The other annoying one is control-k pops up a link dialog. I tried to figure out how to override or disable it, but never got very far.
trissylegs 6y ago
On gnome, if you open Gnome Tweak Tool there's a keyboard theme setting, select "Emacs" and all GTK applications will use Emacs keyboard shortcuts. (Including M-b M-f, which is a differnt combo on macOS). It's propbably a dconf setting but I haven't checked which one. It tends to avoid running into issues on <input type="text" /> boxes in Firefox. But not more advanced things like Google Docs or embedded text editors. (eg Rust playground)

eyesee 6y ago

Surprised no one has mentioned QuickLook. In Finder, select a file (document, image, movie, etc.) and tap the space bar to bring up QuickLook. You’ll see a full preview of that document instantly. The preview window follows your focus, so you can use mouse arrow keys to navigate between files, etc and see an updated preview. Also works in Open dialogs, Mail attachments and elsewhere.

trishume 6y ago
I briefly mention the spacebar shortcut in the article but it does indeed deserve more explanation. One of my favorite macOS file browsing features for sure, miss it all the time on Linux, especially the part where it follows your focus when you use the arrow keys. Great for looking through large folders of poorly-named PDFs for the right thing.
- read_if_gay_ 6y ago
  If you’re looking for text, pdfgrep works pretty well too.
markc 6y ago
thank you thank you thank you!
speleding 6y ago
Spotlight is great but by default it will only do extensions it knows about, and will ignore text files like .css and most source code files. There is a plugin called qlstephen that allows you to spotlight all text files (but it's a bit of a pain to install on Catalina due to permissions issues): https://github.com/whomwah/qlstephen https://github.com/whomwah/qlstephen

Austin_Conlon 6y ago

I love how you added Option-2 for ™ as a tip, that's the only shortcut for one of those symbols I've committed to memory before for using in a jokey context.

saagarjha 6y ago
I believe "tm" automatically corrects to "™" by default–it's one of the ones that are set up automatically to show you how to make you own autocompletions.
xenadu02 6y ago
Option plus many other keys also gives you various language options. For example the umlaut can be added to a letter with Option+u. Option+e adds a diacritic mark.
longnguyen 6y ago
Also Option-R for ®

Gys 6y ago

Maybe my biggest improvement: Paste. A graphical clipboard history manager. Still cannot understand that I did not come up with this myself.

seriocomic 6y ago
Worth it for the Setapp subscription alone!

Hammershaft 6y ago

Swish, it's a clever window management app designed for speed with touchpads. https://highlyopinionated.co/swish/ https://highlyopinionated.co/swish/

dschuessler 6y ago

To add some shortcuts that I use regularly but don't appear on the list: - Ctrl+Cmd+Space brings up a Unicode-Char-Picker - Shift+Alt+Cmd+V pastes from your clipboard without formatting from the source - Shift+Fn+Ctrl+Power shuts off the display

spurgu 6y ago
For shutting off the display (locking) I use Shift+Ctrl+Power (not Fn). Or are the two somehow different?
- laurent92 6y ago
  Ctrl+Cmd+Q = locks the screen, Cmd+Alt+Power = locks and sleep. It seems there are a lot of variations with slight details.
  - astrocat 6y ago
    This right here is what I've been waiting for all these years...
- dschuessler 6y ago
  I believe you are right. Shift+Ctrl+Power shuts off the display and it does so more reliably than Shift+Fn+Ctrl+Power. I guess I memorized it wrong.

dwighttk 6y ago

Two apps he didn’t include that I like: Levelator (free): https://apps.apple.com/us/app/the-levelator/id1493326487?mt=12 https://apps.apple.com/us/app/the-levelator/id1493326487?mt=... LaunchBar (alternative to Alfred, free trial): https://www.obdev.at/products/launchbar/index.html https://www.obdev.at/products/launchbar/index.html

mindfulhack 6y ago
Side comment: anyone else feel like an app that only is in the MAS is lower quality for some reason? Apps in that quality seem to have a high ratio of junkware. This one looks good though, just giving my reaction to even seeing a MAS link. It's interesting how IMO macOS really doesn't need an app store. It's different.
- dwighttk 6y ago
  I usually don’t use the App Store unless it is the only option

lunixbochs 6y ago

If you use multiple monitors, and you're frustrated with the cmd-tab app switcher only appearing on the last monitor you touched the dock, this will make it show up on all monitors. defaults write com.apple.Dock appswitcher-all-displays -bool true killall Dock

jawngee 6y ago
You're a good person. That's been bugging me for years, but just a tad under bugging me enough that I'd take the time to solve it. Thank you!
- saagarjha 6y ago
  Have a couple more, although they are purely eye candy: defaults write com.apple.dock mineffect -string suck defaults write com.apple.dock slow-motion-allowed -bool YES

catmistake 6y ago

I recommend macports package management system, similar in function to BSD ports collection. Superior to Homebrew, the johnny-come-lately PMS with all the penguinista-style hype that seems to lean towards binary installs, unlike roll your own from all source in macports. Homebrew also does not honor the default privileges of /usr/local, which is an annoying security flaw.

lunixbochs 6y ago
You can transparently run homebrew as a dedicated user, prevent it from accessing your home directory, and only give /usr/local permissions to that user. https://github.com/lunixbochs/meta/tree/master/utils/brew_altuser https://github.com/lunixbochs/meta/tree/master/utils/brew_al... I have been doing this for years. The only thing it breaks for me is casks that try to install applications, and I don't mind.
beagle3 6y ago
Or Joyent's "pkgsrc" system, which is also mostly ports-like, works on just about every posixy OS these days (including Linux, NetBSD, Cugwin and more). Capable of installing both source and binaries. Works well in my experience. (No experience with MacPorts so I can't compare; but coming from Linux/apt I didn't feel much was missing, just a little different)
mdaniel 6y ago
While it does default to binaries, it accepts a build-from-source option I haven't been involved with macports recently enough to compare, but one advantage of Homebrew's popularity is the depth of package specifications and how quickly they're updated
talentedcoin 6y ago
Agreed 100%. No idea why homebrew is so dominant while doing the wrong thing by default. Binaries are nice but not worth the trouble Homebrew gives compared to sane, rational MacPorts.
- catmistake 6y ago

luizfelberti 6y ago

Does anyone have a tip to keep macOS from phoning home when you run unsigned binaries? I almost locked up my entire computer this week, presumably because of this... here's the story for that: I had setup unbound listening on 127.0.0.1:53 as the only DNS resolver for all network interfaces, so that I hijack several responses that I might want to (e.g. adnet sinkholes) and forward the rest to Google/Cloudflare over TLS. When I rebooted the Mac, the entire computer was so fucked that I panicked cause I thought my SSD was failing. Turns out unbound failed to start so all DNS was down. I suspect it to be the "phoning home" because when I opened the Terminal, running `ps aux | grep unbound` took like 5 seconds to return anything (as did everything else that tried to run), and that behavior has been reported by other users as Gatekeeper's Phone Home checks being at fault. So that's why I was wondering if anyone has found out how to keep macOS from doing this (preferably without disabling all of SIP), cause that'd be one hell of a tip...

lunixbochs 6y ago
Edit: removed instructions to disable gatekeeper as sibling comment looks like a much better solution and writeup. I’m also curious if the self signed binaries in Big Sur fix this problem.
- luizfelberti 6y ago
  I'll test that out later today/tomorrow, thanks! I guess the questions I'd have regarding this that I'd need to validate would be: - Does this setting persist across reboots? - Does it stop phoning-home altogether, or will it still phone-home, but always authorize regardless of answer? - Is there a more granular way to disable just phoning-home, rather than nuking all of Gatekeeper? (Some of its things like disallowing access to personal files by default are still nice to have) Will report back with an update after testing...
  - lunixbochs 6y ago
    I think tcc is separate from gatekeeper, so the granular permissions should still work.

kratom_sandwich 6y ago

Also, check out https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24091707 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24091707

uuuuuuuuuuuu 6y ago

One useful shortcut I've discovered recently is cmd-[ and cmd-] to go forward and back through link history. Works in the browser as well as pdf viewers. With regards to pdf viewers specifically, this has greatly improved my paper reading experience.

AJRF 6y ago

Cmd + Shift + 5 gives you a crop tool and you can choose to create a screenshot or start a video. Little options menu lets you pick between audio inputs and outputs for the video too.

mindfulhack 6y ago
It pays to just try things out of curiosity: Cmd + Shift + 6 takes a 'screenshot' of your touch bar! (But let it be said that the touch bar should be deprecated. I want my Fn keys back.)

tanin 6y ago

Shameless plug. You can use a programmable tooltip for macOS, so you don't have to remember all the shortcuts for these workflows. Please see https://github.com/tanin47/tip https://github.com/tanin47/tip

uniqueid 6y ago

Cmd+Shift+Period : toggles 'shows hidden files' in Finder

seriocomic 6y ago
was literally looking for this only 2 hours ago...

ladberg 6y ago

I'll add one of my favorite ones: you can do Option-Command-C to copy the path of a file to the clipboard (if you need to use it somewhere that doesn't support dragging to paste a path).

mindfulhack 6y ago
This just made me able to de-bloat my macOS by removing the 'PathSnagger 2' app from my system! Thank you! :) To add to this marvellous shortcut I will now be using very frequently: Right click on the file in finder, then hold the Option key and you'll see the copy command change from "Copy [file]" to "Copy [file] as Pathname".
oarfish 6y ago
What must I do to enable this? For me I just hear the error sound and nothing gets copied. I am on Mojave; pressing option when opening context menu with right click on a file does show the "Copy as Pathname" option. Maybe the shortcut was introduced later.

jawngee 6y ago

My personal must haves are Yoink for drag and drop, Moom for window sizing/placement, Default Folder X.

diegoperini 6y ago

FinderPath. It makes Finder's title clickable to be able to copy or change the current path, just like Windows' explorer.exe.

saagarjha 6y ago
I assume this requires disabling SIP?

shinycode 6y ago

I’ve been searching for a long time a tool that would resize all the windows open on a given space to fill up the entire screen. I open lots of things when working and that would be more useful than doing the exposé and switching back and forth do declutter. It seems to me that this feature is available on Windows and has been for a long time. I tried almost everything that I could google and I even bought apps that I don’t use anymore because I though that the level of customization would enable it. Is there someone that knows a tool or a trick to allow that ?

travmatt 6y ago
BetterTouchTool?
saagarjha 6y ago
Hammerspoon can do this quite easily, just grab all the windows using hs.window.filter.defaultCurrentSpace:getWindows() and set each's frame to it's screen:frame().
- shinycode 6y ago
  Thank you for the tip, I'll to code the algorithm to do it myself. That's great ! On an other note: a tip on iOS and MacOS, when you make a voice recording then you can edit it and activate a feature with the top left wand icon which is going to clear up the sound. When it's a voice recording it's pretty amazing how well it works, in particular to remove the echo.
  - shinycode 6y ago
    I guess the topic is buried now ... but I'll update it for posterity. What I want to do actually IS the mission control mode where all the windows are resized to fill up the screen. To close a window while in exposé mode, the easy solution is effectively to use BTT, creating a new gesture for example "3 fingers click" with the ctrl modifier. Then selecting the action "Close Window Below Cursor (Works in Mission Control)". And this effectively close my window. An other tip here, still in mission control while the cursor is on a window, pressing the space bar displays it full screen. One more thing: While doing COMMAND + TAB to show the open apps, pressing the bottom arrow key show all the open windows for this app, regardless of the space they are in. Really useful.

rsync 6y ago

What I miss the most is a workable "focus follows mouse" solution. Circa Snow Leopard, I used "mondomouse" but that is abandonware and does not work. I tried to use "dwellclick" but it's not a good solution. I think there are now some new accessibility settings that actual enable a proper focus follows mouse in Mojave and later, but I don't have anything later than El Cap installed and am unable to test that ...

saagarjha 6y ago
I've looked into this and the focus-follows-mouse part isn't actually all that difficult; there is SPI to do this. The difficulty is that picking what things should get focus is hard, because there are things in macOS that actually care about what is focused. For example, as I was running my test, from Xcode of course, I moved my cursor over the sidebar, which changed the focused item as I moved my mouse…of course, this had the effect of opening a different file. If anyone has any ideas on how do deal with this, I'd be happy to hear it!

jungletime 6y ago

I have a macbook which I partitioned and installed windows on. the macbook is in a drawer in a stand up desk. The desk has a terrible ergonomic design. So I ended up using the pullout drawer as a shelf form my external keyboard, which is rested on a board. So my macbook is closed, inside a drawer, covered by a board, and connected to external monitor and keyboard. 1. How can I boot into windows from the mac desktop. Current procedure is to take off the board, open up the laptop, wait for startup, press a macbook key waiting for the os screen to start from which I can select windows icon. For some reason my external keyboard doesn't work during boot time. Its very annoying. Is there an app that will boot me into windows, from a mac desktop? 2. I have to shutdown the laptop at night because the fans are driving me crazy. But that means I have to pullout the macbook out of the drawer in the mornings, and open up the laptop to start it with a power button. Any apps that will put the macbook into sleep mode, that turn off the fans and external drives, quickly. 3. I miss cut and past for files the way it was on windows. This effectively moves them. Now I have to hold a key down and drag on a mac. Requires much more coordination, in selecting the destination folder. Is there anything equivalent to cut and paste on mac? Thanks for any help.

dmitshur 6y ago
3. You can copy and paste files using the keyboard on macOS too, it’s just not the default. Copy a file first (Cmd+C), then hold one of the modifiers keys (I forget which and can’t check cuz on phone, but either option or shift) and press Cmd+V to move instead of copy. 2. Is the “Sleep” feature built into the OS not the thing you’re looking for? Fans don’t run during sleep. I don’t see why you need an “app”. 1. I don’t have anything useful to say on this one, sorry.
- mman0114 6y ago
  for 3, its cmd + opt/alt + v
peterhil 6y ago
1. I vaguely remember there being some command or sysctl preference which you can use to set options for next boot and also control sleep options.

ChrisMarshallNY 6y ago

Weird. No DefaultFolderX. That is an awesome tool. Also no Little Snitch. I have had problems with iStat Menu. I really want it to work, but it always introduces random crashes into my system. Every couple of years, I try it again, but it hasn’t stabilized yet.

dundercoder 6y ago
FWIW iStat menus has been working flawlessly for me for months.
- ChrisMarshallNY 6y ago
  I’ll try it again. It’s a beautiful bit of code, and I love what it does. It’s just that, whenever I would have it installed, my system would have fairly frequent, random, “gray screen of death” crashes, with worthless stack traces. The only way I figured it was iStat Menus, was I uninstalled it, and it stopped.
- ChrisMarshallNY 6y ago
  Nope. Still causing problems. It's messing with my displays (I use an eGPU and an LG Ultrawide 49-incher), and I am getting more crashes than usual. It's def iStat Menus. When I removed it, all the issues stopped.

CGamesPlay 6y ago

In Finder and also in "Open File" dialogs, Command-Shift-G will allow you to type a path directly. You can use this to open the dialog to hidden paths, for example: "~/Library" and enter will open the dialog to that folder, allowing you to browse the folder normally.

totetsu 6y ago

So long as we are sharing.. looking through my shell history: organize windows without using a mouse. https://github.com/eczarny/spectacle https://github.com/eczarny/spectacle stop accidentally navigating back in chrome with the touchpad. defaults write com.google.Chrome AppleEnableSwipeNavigateWithScrolls -bool FALSE Something about enabling darkmode? defaults write com.google.inputmethod.Japanese.Tool.DictionaryTool NSRequiresAquaSystemAppearance 0 show hidden files in finder? defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles YES Disable attention seeking app bouncing animation, for those of us sensitive to these things.. defaults write com.apple.dock no-bouncing -bool TRUE If you run dnsmasq, you can add addn-hosts=/etc/dnsmasq-hosts-blocking/ to the your dnsmasq.conf. In that folder you can put files from https://github.com/unixsheikh/dnsmasq-blacklist https://github.com/unixsheikh/dnsmasq-blacklist and https://github.com/adversarialtools/apple-telemetry https://github.com/adversarialtools/apple-telemetry to try and block apple and others telemetry .. but apple just seems to get around it by using, x.apple.com.akadns.net or x.apple-dns.net

kitsunesoba 6y ago
For toggling visibility of hidden files in Finder, changing defaults hasn't been necessary since Sierra (10.12), which added the [Cmd + Shift + .] shortcut. It works in native open/save dialogs too.
krackers 6y ago
I think that darkmode is applicable for Google's Japanese Input IME app (which I didn't even know existed!) https://www.google.co.jp/ime/ https://www.google.co.jp/ime/
- totetsu 6y ago
  I think that one didn't work to enable darkmode. I use the google IME so I can use the same dictionaries as i do with linux mozc. You can have a dictionary with the reading and english meaning of words, that pops up when selecting them, also lots of ascii emojis. I have a memo about it here. https://become.radioac.dev/posts/terminal-tools/#language https://become.radioac.dev/posts/terminal-tools/#language (*^_^)ﾉどもっ

WantonQuantum 6y ago

My tip: System Preferences -> Desktop & Screen Saver -> Screen Saver -> Hot Corners -> Bottom Left Corner (or whichever you prefer) -> Put Display To Sleep (or Lock Screen if you prefer).

Abishek_Muthian 6y ago
I concur, I've been doing this for years. Adding caveat : Keep the dock size small to avoid interfering with Hot Corners and if you use VM in seamless mode try not to place any action(VM guest panel) near the macOS Hot Corners.
kmundnic 6y ago
You can also lock the screen with control + command + Q. I always bump into the corners so I prefer a key combination.
- selrond 6y ago
  If you press ⌘ when selecting hot corner action you can make it so assigned hot corner only activates when holding ⌘
  - xanathar 6y ago
    Mind. Blown. (seriously, this is a game changer for me, thanks!)
- runamok 6y ago
  You can also add a lock icon to the touch bar.
  - kmundnic 6y ago
    Ha, I didn't know about that one. I currently replace the Siri button with the do not disturb button, seems like I use it more often.
dhritzkiv 6y ago

eric-hu 6y ago

Does anyone know of a way to enable keyboard control of menus on Touch Bar MacBooks? There’s the keyboard preference which I have enabled, but it doesn’t behave the same as my non Touch Bar MacBook. I can keyboard-interact with confirmation dialogs on my 2012 MacBook to hit Ok or Cancel. On my 2019, I must use the trackpad or the Touch Bar. I’ve been googling for a fix or even a bug report but it’s a surprisingly hard thing to google for.

extra88 6y ago
Do you mean “Use keyboard navigation to move focus between controls?” That’s in System Preferences > Keyboard > Shortcuts.
- eric-hu 6y ago
  That’s what I have enabled. That setting behaves differently between Touch Bar and non Touch Bar macs. On non Touch Bar Macs, you can hit space or enter to interact with a pop up dialog. On Touch Bar Macs, the tab key skips over certain UI elements as if they don’t exist. “Conveniently”, those elements are on the Touch Bar.
  - addandsubtract 6y ago
    I'm not sure if this solves your problem, because I'm still on a non-TB Mac, but you can use CMD + [first letter] to select dialog options. For example, if you're closing an app and are asked if you want to save an open file, the dialog might have "Yes" preselected, but also let you choose "Don't save". If you hit CMD + D it will choose the "Don't save" option. Same thing for something that might say "All files" you can hit CMD + A to select it.
    - eric-hu 6y ago
      I just took some time to try this and it didn’t work. I think the Touch Bar acts as another device and UI prompts get forwarded to them. Thank you for the suggestion though.

xenadu02 6y ago

For presentations turn on Zoom hotkeys in accessibility. Then you can instantly zoom in or out by pressing Control then doing a scroll gesture.

saagarjha 6y ago
Thanks for the reminder to turn this back on; it used to cause some nasty WindowServer crashes in earlier betas…

tagawa 6y ago

Can anyone explain what a backtick is please?

mikeklaas 6y ago
It's the key beside "1", namely "`"
- tagawa 6y ago
  Ah, thank you. It's in a different position on my keyboard (Japanese) but now I know what it's called.

mindfulhack 6y ago

My tip: Make your Cmd-Tab do everything you've ever wanted it to do that it currently can't: https://github.com/lwouis/alt-tab-macos https://github.com/lwouis/alt-tab-macos

gauchojs 6y ago
Tried now and the .5s delay that happens sometimes already kills this for me...

thomasdd 6y ago

in Finder, when you cusomize the toolbar(icons), yo can Drag-Drop, Folders, Files or Applications into the toolbar! that's what I discovered lately, as cool feature.

michelb 6y ago

I'm having several finder windows with tabs open as I work on certain projects. From time to time something crashes and closes all windows. Is there a way to 'store' the finder's open windows(including tabs!) and then restoring them again? I have not found anything that works on Catalina. (Stay doesn't do this)

jastuk 6y ago
Finder is essential yet it's the biggest pain point I have with macOS. - You've already mentioned a big one - Related would be remembering which Finder window goes to which "desktop" or screen - Another is no (permanent) custom width per folder or auto-sizing column view. Fixed width is either wasting space or not showing nearly enough. I always end up manually resizing the last/active column. - They recently added shared iCloud folders as well. Guess what, you can't see any filenames in column view because they repeat "Added by {Owner}" for every single file/folder which takes way too much space. I guess an icon/avatar was too much. Heck, even that is questionable since we have a sidebar with all the metadata. I don't know the technical aspect of it but they seem to have also locked down macOS which resulted in TotalFinder calling it quits. Not sure how viable it is for alternatives nowadays. I have no need for split/ftp Finder alternatives, just need a polished column view.

greggman3 6y ago

The tip I want answered... how do I make the icons on the file open dialog large enough that they actually become useful? I can enlarge them in the finder but not in an open file dialog.

peterhil 6y ago

Some hard to find tips that are a bit old (tested on OS X Lion), but most of them still work: https://software.clapper.org/cheat-sheets/mac-os-x.html https://software.clapper.org/cheat-sheets/mac-os-x.html For me, an immediately useful tip was hiding user login for Git user. I would add the following tips to above article: # System resource usage * USE Method: Mac OS X Performance Checklist: http://www.brendangregg.com/USEmethod/use-macosx.html http://www.brendangregg.com/USEmethod/use-macosx.html # Emacs users * For Emacs users with their config in version control, I would recommend downloading the latest Emacs.app version 27.1 instead of using Aquamacs, because Aquamacs has a bunch of customizations that do not play so well with original Emacs. https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/ https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/ # Printing * If you have Acrobat or Acrobat Professional installed, add an Adobe PDF printer from System Preferences > Printers and scanners, so you can make better PDF files by printing from any application. * You can save anything as PDF by choosing "Save as PDF" from the dropdown on the lower left corner on any print dialog. * Open CUPS web UI by opening the following URL in a web browser: http://localhost:631/ http://localhost:631/ http://localhost:631/printers/ http://localhost:631/printers/ You may need to enable the web user interface by issuing: cupsctl WebInterface=yes Warning! Be sure that you are behind NAT or a firewall so as not to expose the web UI to internet!

johnmw 6y ago

I'll throw in another: For a cool "hacker" (and more powerful in many ways) alternative to spotlight, install iTerm2, and activate a drop down quake style hotkey window. [1] Then install broot, which is a fantastic command line search tool. [2] [1] https://www.iterm2.com/documentation-hotkey.html https://www.iterm2.com/documentation-hotkey.html [2] https://github.com/Canop/broot https://github.com/Canop/broot

djKianoosh 6y ago

Is there a setting to tell Mac OS to follow the mouse for focus, and optionally activate (bring to foreground) the window under the cursor (after say, a 300ms delay) ?

t0rst 6y ago

Cmd-tab extras: - before releasing the command key and in between tabbing you can type H to hide/show and Q to quit the currently highlighted app. Note that quitting is often slow - can take a while for app’s icon to disappear. - with shift to reverse direction - you can start a drag, then use Cmd-tab to switch to your destination app, and then drop

pragmaticpandy 6y ago

Has anyone done or know of anyone who has done a third party security review of Karbiner-elements?