Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

15 Mac Tips and Tricks You Need to Know

MacRumors

MacRumors

macrumors bot
Original poster
Apr 12, 2001
63,486
30,721


There are plenty of hidden features and shortcuts that Apple has built into macOS over the years, ranging from keyboard commands to less than obvious settings. These small hacks can improve your workflow and make your Mac experience more customized, so we've highlighted several tips and tricks that you might not know in our latest YouTube video.



  1. Open With Default App - Want a certain file type to only open with a specific app? Right click on a file, click on Get Info, click on Open With, and select the app you want to use from the dropdown menu.
  2. Automatically Open Safe Files After Downloading - To automatically open safe files downloaded from Safari, open up the app, go to preferences, open up the General tab and select Open "safe" files after downloading. Don't want files to open automatically? Uncheck it.
  3. Convert to PDF - In Finder, or the desktop, you can right click on a file and use the "Quick Actions" feature to turn an image, document, or downloaded webpage to a PDF. Just right click on the file you want to turn into a PDF, select Quick Actions, and choose "Create PDF." You can select multiple files and combine them all into one PDF using this method. Convert to PDF is a default option, but if it's not enabled for some reason, choose "Customize" and select it to add it to your Quick Action options.
  4. Search Current Folder - Want to set your Mac to default to search in your open current folder instead of the entire device? Open up Finder, to Preferences, select "Advanced," and then under the "When performing a search" heading select "Search the Current Folder."
  5. Close All App Windows - To close all open windows of an app all at once, hold down Option and click the red x of one of the windows.
  6. Always Show Scroll Bars - To keep your scroll bars visible at all times, open up System Preferences, select General, and then under the "Show scroll bars" option, choose "Always."
  7. Access Sound Input and Output from Menu Bar - You can access sound input and output by holding down option when clicking the sound icon in the menu bar or in Control Center on your Mac. Go to System Preferences > Sound > Show Sound in menu bar and set it to always if you want to have a permanent menu bar sound option.
  8. Quickly Find a File from Spotlight - If you have Spotlight search open, you can find a file in Finder by holding Command + R and clicking on it.
  9. Minimize Windows With a Click - Want to change what a double click on a window's title bar does? Go to System Preferences, Dock & Menu Bar, and under "Double-click a window's title bar," select minimize instead of zoom, which is the default.
  10. Automatically Hide and Show Menu Bar - To automatically hide and show your menu bar, go to System Preferences, select Dock & Menu Bar, and then choose "Automatically hide and show menu bar on desktop."
  11. Hide Menu Bar Date - Don't want to see the date? go to System Preferences, select Dock & Menu Bar, and then under the Clock heading on the left menu, deselect "Show day of the week" and "Show date."
  12. Delete by Word - When you're writing, you can edit more efficiently with keyboard commands. To delete an entire word at once instead of character by character, hold down the option key and then press the delete button.
  13. Delete by Line - To delete an entire line, hold down the command key and then press the delete button.
  14. Move Cursor by Word - To move your cursor through text faster, hold down the option key and use the arrows to move word by word instead of character by character. Hold down command to move it by line.
  15. Customize Screenshots - Macs have a lot of built-in customization options for screenshots. When you use shift + command + 4 to take a sized screenshot, hold option when dragging to resize all four corners, and space bar to move the selection box.
Have other great Mac tips that we didn't include here? Let us know in the comments.

Article Link: 15 Mac Tips and Tricks You Need to Know
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2022/04/14/15-mac-tips-april-2022/
  • Like
  • Love
Reactions: Centeno, adrianlondon, katbel and 10 others
Octavius8

Octavius8

macrumors 6502a
Oct 25, 2016
846
1,230
Another good one:
You can convert HEIC images to JPEG (maybe you airdropped a photo to your Mac and want to send it as JPEG by email). You can convert one or several directly in Finder. Just right click on the HEIC image and select the option “convert to JPEG” as in the same fashion as when convert a file to PDF.
 
  • Like
Reactions: ReneeReader, Dave00, Zachari and 15 others
M

MauiPa

macrumors 68040
Apr 18, 2018
3,429
5,080
Some of these are only because I read an article in the past saying you couldn't do it:

1) Open app at login, by including them in Settings Login items
2) Schedule apps/ scripts to run by creating a shortcut save to dock (it is also saved in user Applications and can be dragged to desktop. create a Calendar for scheduled applications and set a time, then set an alert to open the shortcut you just created. OK weird place for it, but does anyone really do this, easy to just run the shortcut to open/close applications
3) add an App to the Finder toolbar By command dragging it. Kind of cool for google drive to open it
4) get bluetooth settings for devices by option clicking Bluetooth on MenuBar. (that means you 9to5Mac, for saying you couldn't do it and then deleting my post).
5) use Spaces to set up what desktop apps use and remember screen locations.
 
  • Like
Reactions: ReneeReader and amartinez1660
M

MauiPa

macrumors 68040
Apr 18, 2018
3,429
5,080
Octavius8 said:
Another good one:
You can convert HEIC images to JPEG (maybe you airdropped a photo to your Mac and want to send it as JPEG by email). You can convert one or several directly in Finder. Just right click on the HEIC image and select the option “convert to JPEG” as in the same fashion as when convert a file to PDF.
Click to expand...
convert videos too
 
  • Like
Reactions: amartinez1660 and The Barron
Jeven Stobs

Jeven Stobs

Suspended
Apr 8, 2022
224
226
Nothing new for me here unfortunately. Some other things I’d find useful to know (if I was new to macOS) would be how to add blank spaces to the dock, change automatic update check from a week to a day, or a month or whatever you’d like, how to change the grid layout in Launcher, how to auto launch apps at login (like @MauiPa suggested) and a lot of other handy stuff you can do with Terminal.
 
P

polyphenol

macrumors 68000
Sep 9, 2020
1,891
2,228
Wales
I'm not quite understanding which files can convert to PDF - and which can't.

I have Quick Actions set up and see Create PDF if I select a .png or .jpeg. But not if the file is an RTF or docx.

How do I extend the range of file types which can be converted to PDF?

And, if I can convert Word documents, is it possible for them to include ToC links?
 
  • Like
Reactions: fhall1
Z

ZipZap

macrumors 603
Dec 14, 2007
6,076
1,448
Jumping to the enclosing folder is the dumbest feature because you cannot determine where that folder resides.
 
I

ignatius345

macrumors 604
Aug 20, 2015
6,846
11,183
MacRumors said:
Move Cursor by Word - To move your cursor through text faster, hold down the option key and use the arrows to move word by word instead of character by character. Hold down command to move it by line.
Click to expand...
And if you add shift to that (so, option+shift), you can select a word at a time. Using only shift lets you select a character at a time. (Basically, option+arrow=jump a word, command+arrow=jump a line, and adding shift to any of those will select instead of just moving the cursor. It all sounds horribly complicated to write it out like this, but it's very intuitive in practice. Once you get these into muscle memory you can write and edit a lot of text without ever touching the mouse.
 
  • Like
Reactions: lionel77 and Tagbert
aevan

aevan

macrumors 601
Feb 5, 2015
4,293
6,789
Serbia
Relatively new thing I discovered: if you have an M1 Mac and you're running an iPhone app, you can choose "Zoom" in the Window menu to make it bigger and more legible.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Tagbert
No5tromo

No5tromo

macrumors 6502
Feb 17, 2012
392
1,021
How do you maximise, or in Apple terms "zoom", a window without entering full screen if you change the top bar double click to minimise?
 
anthogag

anthogag

macrumors 68020
Jan 15, 2015
2,132
3,531
Canada
MauiPa said:
Some of these are only because I read an article in the past saying you couldn't do it:

1) Open app at login, by including them in Settings Login items
2) Schedule apps/ scripts to run by creating a shortcut save to dock (it is also saved in user Applications and can be dragged to desktop. create a Calendar for scheduled applications and set a time, then set an alert to open the shortcut you just created. OK weird place for it, but does anyone really do this, easy to just run the shortcut to open/close applications
3) add an App to the Finder toolbar By command dragging it. Kind of cool for google drive to open it
4) get bluetooth settings for devices by option clicking Bluetooth on MenuBar. (that means you 9to5Mac, for saying you couldn't do it and then deleting my post).
5) use Spaces to set up what desktop apps use and remember screen locations.
Click to expand...
#4 also works for WiFi icon
 
  • Like
Reactions: Detektiv-Pinky and montuori
M

meson

macrumors 6502
Apr 29, 2014
476
465
ZipZap said:
Jumping to the enclosing folder is the dumbest feature because you cannot determine where that folder resides.
Click to expand...
Show your Path Bar:

In Finder -> View -> Show Path Bar

When you make the jump in Spotlight, you will see the path to the enclosing folder.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Shifts
Tagbert

Tagbert

macrumors 603
Jun 22, 2011
5,500
6,372
Seattle
meson said:
Show your Path Bar:

In Finder -> View -> Show Path Bar

When you make the jump in Spotlight, you will see the path to the enclosing folder.
Click to expand...
Having Path Bar visible also lets you copy that location so you can paste it into terminal or elsewhere.
It also makes it easy to jump to a parent folder in Finder by double-clicking on a folder in the Path Bar.
 
rgetter

rgetter

macrumors member
Sep 20, 2008
47
25
Portland, Oregon
A couple of tricks I learned from imaging big Mac labs...
  • Press <Ctrl>, <Eject>,<Return> to shut down
  • Press <Ctrl>, <Eject>, <r> to reboot
  • To eject an external drive with multiple volumes/partitions:
    • Select it and press <Cmd>E (as usual)
    • When you see the dialog asking if you want to eject all volumes, press <Cmd>E again
  • If you have View Path selected as a Finder option, you can click on any folder in the path to go there
Enjoy!
Ric
 
  • Like
Reactions: MacBH928 and paulypants
SpeQ

SpeQ

macrumors regular
Feb 26, 2014
206
67
Convert to PDF - In Finder, or the desktop, you can right click on a file and use the "Quick Actions" feature to turn an image, document, or downloaded webpage to a PDF. Just right click on the file you want to turn into a PDF, select Quick Actions, and choose "Create PDF." You can select multiple files and combine them all into one PDF using this method. Convert to PDF is a default option, but if it's not enabled for some reason, choose "Customize" and select it to add it to your Quick Action options.
Click to expand...

Is this right? I mean, it doesn't seem to work on .txt, .rtf, .rtfd or .html files, and it doesn't explain how you would go about saving the downloaded webpage to convert it. Would you select all the files in the Files folder at once and convert them to a single PDF or what?

All of these file types could be printed to PDF, so it's no big deal, but I'm just curious if I'm missing something here.

It is true it works for images and combining multiple PDFs.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom