For example, you can create a smart folder that contains all PDF files matching a certain name pattern within a given directory (or the whole disk) [0]. You can get really advanced, there's a ton of different parameters you can use [1], and you can even create more complicated conditions by holding Option and clicking the plus sign (now changed to just three dots). And of course you can drag these folders into the sidebar's Favourites section.
You can create a smart album that “is not” in “Any”. Now this smart album has all the photos that are not in any album.
I would LOVE them if they were reimplemented as a fuse style file system instead of a userland macOS trick.
Like, you're in a smart folder that contains files whose name includes "foo", and you try to create a file whose name does not include "foo", what happens? Do you get an existing filesystem error? Do you get a new "can't create new files in smart folders" error?
Interestingly enough I just discovered that if you drag a file into the Tags section of the Finder window's sidebar, it will remain where it is - but if you create a smart folder whose criteria is "tag:tagname" it won't let you drag anything into it, even though it shows the exact same set of files.
This would pretty much match the expectations of how "Smart Folders" currently work in the Finder, and also how equivalents like "Smart Playlists" work in iTunes/Music.
The point OP was making is that they have probably did their due diligence and subsequently decided that it ain't worth doing.
That being said, I agree that support should be native.
Type whatever you want.
Cmd-b
Your default web browser with your default search engine will now open and perform your query. I can't stress this enough how much I use this workflow when writing code.
Another thing for the OPs issue with the screenshots, (there's a few steps via terminal so maybe try the above shortcut to search for an article on how to do it) you can have all your screenshots redirect to a folder.
For example all of my screenshots end up in $HOME/screenshots
Also, another cool and sometimes useful shortcut, holding option while clicking is a big thing in osx. Try click the wifi icon in the top right corner whilst holding the option key. It will give you a bunch more details :)
Set safari as your default, set the search engine you want in the safari preferences, change your browser back to what you prefer.
Command + D: Opens Dictionary using the word you typed in Spotlight
Command + L: Jumps to dictionary definition without leaving Spotlight
So now I realize for years I’ve been using this silent feature of macs for years called “not totally jacked up font rendering”. I would never have imagined this was a feature, but apparently there is a collective insanity in windowsland where the quality of font rendering is not just a total and utter failure. So this is my new top Mac feature.
They turned off subpixel anti-aliasing and it looks worse on older displays.
(I can't help but think of the "slowing down older iphones" thing)
search for "fix blurry fonts mojave"
It was interesting because I realized how subtly difficult font rendering is. Unless you’re using a monospaced font all of the characters have different widths, you have to figure out how to split text into lines, or how much to space text if the alignment is set to justify. In some of the fancier fonts on macOS, the characters actually change slightly if there are other characters nearby.
So then a few years later, he's running a computer company, and it's the heyday of greenscreen, monospaced fonts. And a lot of people - without this connection to the font-making culture of western history, genuinely thought that's perfectly fine, no room-for-improvement, etc. Monospaced stuff was honest, straightforward, industrial - it didn't waste any effort on silliness like "looking pretty" (very much like soviet brutalist architecture).
As a manager, he was able to at least greenlight the idea of "wasting money" (lots of it, in fact), on decent typography, because, thanks to that education, he understood it wasn't just being done to make stuff prettier, but was actually being done to make it easier to read. That there was a powerful, utilitarian reason to do fancy fonts, not just an aesthetic one.
Do you mean kerning and ligature or something else?
Some people, myself included, prefer how Windows render fonts. Others prefer MacOS.
From what I recall the last time this came up on HN, MacOS tries to render true to the font as if in a professional work flow that ends with a physical product. Windows aims for on screen legibility as it's primary goal.
Also remember that most Windows machines have a much lower DPI screen that what comes with or is hooked up to a Mac, so what is being optimized for there is also different.
Honestly hooked up to my large 1440p screen, MacOS's font rendering isn't /that/ nice, it becomes a wash vs Windows, and on a 1080p laptop I'll take Windows don't rendering.
https://1drv.ms/u/s!AkO2l6AGLMlwhKhSgq-aamXREBO0Vw?e=01Qr5w
How is this more legible in any objective universe lol.
So there is subpixel antiiasing, which I prefer, it works really well on lower res displays and gives you more horizontal dpi, but not all app frameworks support it (...) and some people /hate/ it.
Then there is the classic grayscale anti-aliasing.
Finally there is the nightmare of different DPI monitors.
I've also witnessed a machine (Surface Book!) that decided to start rendering all fonts in MS office applications in some weird super jaggy way like it was 1992 or something.
The fonts should never be blurry, IIRC Microsoft tries go snap characters to pixel boundaries, which is less "correct" than Apple but should be more legible.
Unless something goes wrong...
- While a menu is open, hold Option; if you're lucky, you'll get some additional options. This works after right-clicking an item in Finder, for example, or after right-clicking an icon in the Dock.
- Magnet for window management. This is a third-party application, but you'll wonder how you lived without it. If you've used Spectacle, Magnet is similar, but I find Magnet to be a bit more graceful.
- Sidecar and AirPlay. Want a second screen? Got an iPad or Apple TV? You can effortless treat it as a second screen with very low latency. It "just works."
- Cmd + Space to open Spotlight. Most power users are already familiar with this; if you're not, try it.
- Cmd + Shift + G in Finder to go to a folder by path. You can also use it to copy the path to the current folder.
- Return/Enter to rename the currently-selected file in Finder. If you're coming from Windows/Linux and are accustomed to pressing F2, you might not know about this one.
- Similarly, to open the currently selected item in Finder, press Cmd + O. To navigate up a directory, press Cmd + Up.
- Ever installed a new drive in your Mac? You don't need to manually download macOS installation media beforehand; with the right key combination at boot, you can install it via the internet. There are a few different related combinations with differing functionality; it's worth looking them up and choosing the right one for your situation: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201255
cmd + ctrl + o to open another tab in Finder in the same folder that's current open. In my opinion this should be the default for cmd + t, which opens a new tab but in your home folder.
- Option, to move all four corners symmetrically around the region's center
- Shift, to constrain expansion to a single axis
- Option + Shift, to move the edges on a single axis symmetrically around the center
- Space + Shift, to move the entire region along a single axis
Cmd-Down also opens in Finder, just like Cmd-O
If you're using a Macbook with a Touch bar, you can press Cmd + Shift + 4 to enter a screenshot selection mode, and then use Touch bar to adjust screenshot mode (full screen, window or selection) and destination (Desktop, Clipboard, Preview, Documents etc) on the fly.
For the app icons in the top right, clicking while Option is pressed also shows different menus. For example, the wifi icon now has options for diagnostics or the battery icon has a battery quality indicator.
- Get Info on file. - Check Stationary Pad box.
> Lisa users never dealt with Lisa applications directly (these were called tools in Lisa parlance) but instead always manipulated stationery pads which produced documents.
(1) https://www.folklore.org/ProjectView.py?project=Macintosh&in...
If you open the file from within the application itself (I tested with Pages) or via an external app (Terminal, LaunchBar, etc) then it opens the original.
Dragging and dropping files from the finder into an file selector window (ie. Open File in most programs) will navigate to that file and select it. As others mentioned this works in terminal as well to give you a path, but actually this generally works in any text box (unless it specifically handles paths being drag ‘n dropped). This also works with multiple files / multi file selection, and in the case of inserting the path as text, they are space delimited and auto quoted (convenient for shell use).
Edit: This icon can include the one at the top of a finder window (the window title). That’s actually interactable and can be dragged and dropped for the directory itself.
I'll add that if you want the path of a file and the destination application doesn't support drag 'n' drop, right click on a file in finder, then hold the Option key and you'll see the copy command changes from "Copy" to "Copy as Pathname".
You can also drag a file or folder's icon from a Finder window title bar.
When it doesn't work, that's a good indication of a program that's using Electron, Carbon, some old framework, or poorly maintained.
Adobe and Audacity are both guilty of this.
Hit it once, start dragging, then hit it again to bring back your apps to drop into.
My daughter enabled it while I wasn't at the computer and then thought my keyboard had died. Even took it in to get repaired, and got a new keyboard.
There is no permanent indicator that it's enabled, and it persists after reboots (once logged in)... when I figured out my brand new keyboard still had several broken keys I started looking for S/W level issues. Hard facepalm. It didn't help diagnosis that I did have some physically affected keys too.
At least I got a new keyboard out of it...
In short, it makes the keys on a numerical keypad allow you to control the mouse (move up/down/left/right and click)
[1] https://etc.usf.edu/techease/4all/input-devices/what-are-mou...
I think it was either persistent, or he only sleep/woke his computer and never tried rebooting it.
Looking at my keyboard shortcuts it's cmd-alt-ctrl-8, and it is presently disabled.
Finder: Cmd+Shift+G to navigate wherever I want (with autocomplete)
Text input: Control+Command+Space for the emoji list and search
Text input (switching keyboards for Japanese input): Control+Space for quick toggles
Text input (accents in my native language): all the accents and letters of various European languages are usually made by using Option+[key] for the accent, and Option+[key]+letter for the proper letter. The [key] maps are e -> ´, `` -> `` (I'm messing up the rendering of the quotes here despite my best efforts), i -> ˆ, u -> ¨ and some keys Option+[key] directly give a character when it's unique, such as Option+a=å and Option+o=ø, and Option+1=¡ (because it's the key for ! otherwise, which makes sense - and can help with Spanish)
For the longer examples, Option+e+e = é, Option+e+a = á, Option+`+a = à, Option+u+u = ü, Option+i+u = û, Option+n+n = ñ, etc.
Holding Option in menus also shows extra options and their shortcuts (although this is less and less the case outside of the Apple apps themselves). An example using Finder -> Edit and pressing/releasing the Option key[1]
Oh and one more: the app "Stickies", which allows you to have "post-it notes" with color coding and collapsing the note by double-clicking on the title, saving to file, etc. I use it to take quick notes or set casual reminders.
Last but not least, not an Apple app but a very helpful tool I've used to make the gif in this post: Kap is incredibly convenient to records bits of the screen and save to various formats, and it's been improving a lot since its early releases[2] (I have no stake in this, I'm just thankful for such a cool piece of free software)
[0] https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204609
Nowadays, holding down a key will show a pop-up with all the accent options, which you can then select by mouse or by typing the number under it, much like on iOS. The option route is my preferred one, as it's faster, but the new one is much more accessible to people without keyboard prowess.
If I remember correctly, once you hold the key you can also use the number underneath to select the character (as in "long press e, press 2"). I've since disabled that long-hold thing because this allows me faster text repetition (eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee... in all its glorious uselessness), but I am glad Apple thought about the UX for different types of users there.
Thank you so much for telling us about it, but I expected that I can drag the window anywhere. Turns out I can only drag it where it could also be dragged by clicking normally.
But I turned it on anyway, we'll see if I'll use it.
Discovered after ~10 years
---
https://www.macworld.co.uk/how-to/mac-software/show-hidden-f... added since sierra
—
Edit: Thinking about it a bit more, it might not be that long since I wasn’t into programming back then and hidden files meant little to me. The first time I used it was probably around Leopard.
—
Edit 2: It seems like the feature debuted in Lion (10.7). This would make sense since Finder was overhauled in that version to add several features.
If I have dot files, I’m gonna go all grey beard and handle them in a terminal.
Also, what do you use for backups?
Thank you.
- you can drag that file anywhere to move it.
- CMD click it to see a breadcrumb menu showing where it is and navigate to the folder
on a similar vein, dragging a file into an open file modal box makes it browse to the containing folder. In windows, dragging a file would move the file into that folder.
I combine the above two quite a bit. Editing a file in app A, need to upload it somewhere via browser. Drag file from title bar into open dialog box, done.
This behaviour seems to come 'for free', so, when it breaks, I can only assume that it's intentionally broken. One of the many ways that Adobe Acrobat violates the design language on macOS is by making this somehow not work. (They also break print to PDF–I guess because otherwise you wouldn't pay for the PDF creation capabilities—and do their absolute best to make sure you don't access the native print settings, which is fun because Adobe's own print settings don't play well with the printer accounting software at $WORK).
Similarly you can right click the window title (click with two fingers on the touchpad) for this functionality. It's very useful to navigating up in the folder hierarchy in Finder without adding any new icons to the toolbar.
I knew about this feature but it took me about a year or two of using macOS every day and the feature only working about 50% of the time before I understood how to get it to work reliably.
For those, like me, who were having problems: You have to click and hold the mouse button over the window, then hold the mouse there for a short period of time (e.g. half a second), then drag. If you drag too quickly it'll move the window instead.
I use this all the time when I either have something handy in Finder or can find it more quickly with alfred.
Especially drag-n-drop. I'm not sure if it's already mentioned, but the proxy icon (the icon in the title bar) is super-useful in situations when you need to find (e.g. upload/attach the file in Safari, opening the file with another app) the file somewhere else. Just drag the proxy icon and drop it to the destination, and it usually will do what you want.
Also the Touch Bar. Everybody complains about it while not even trying to take advantage of it...[1] Customize your Touch Bar so that the buttons are in a consistent way, e.g. I always put the new tab button (if it exists) in the far right, where I can reach without looking, and I put the most useful actions (like getting information, trashing files in Finder, tab switching in Safari, text suggestion, etc...) in the middle, and put the less-useful but somewhat frequent actions (like toggling the sidebar, emojis, etc..) in the left. If you consciously try using them for a week or two, you realize you're much productive using the Touch Bar than using obscure shortcuts or moving the mouse.
[0]: BTW, good news for people who were complaining - macOS Big Sur greatly increases the amount of controls reachable with the keyboard, although I dislike the fact that I have to bang more tabs to reach some button.
[1]: There's definitely Apple's fault here too, if you're using a Touch Bar equipped Mac, 'brew cask install haptickey' so that you get haptic feedback on your Touch Bar touches.
My original touch bar layout mirrored the pre-touch bar layout out of familiarity. Recently I've learned how to use it as intended (sliders instead of up and down buttons, using application-custom buttons). I realized that I was just being an old man about the touch bar before.
As the apple keyboard strokes become shorter, and the gestures become more numerous, we become one. ;)
My ideal setup would be to make the trackpad a tad smaller, add the physical function keys again and the touch bar above.
I don't think it was a good tradeoff for many use cases.
With the pandemic is kind of a non issue, but at the office it’s quite common.
An excellent example I discovered only the other day: in Finder, press spacebar to speed up drag-and-drop spring-loading. (It finally makes spring-loading USEFUL!)
Everything explained and shown here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w1izlhicjvQ&t=67
E.g. move file into a folder in another Finder tab, now made quick via this action.
[1] https://osxdaily.com/2015/05/28/batch-rename-files-mac-os-x-...
- Hold down the option key while resizing a windows (with the mouse) to also resize the opposite side. This also works when resizing the window on a corner to resize all edges at once.
- Double click a window border to enlarge this side of the window up to the edge of the scereen. Hold down the option key to enlarge also the opposite site.
- Double-click the title bar of a window to maximize it
It's the first app I install on any fresh box.
On my personal computer I use Better Touch Tools.
For example, this script[0] picks a random color preset each time a new session is created, and this one[1] picks a preset based on the hostname.
[0] https://www.iterm2.com/python-api/examples/random_color.html
[1] https://www.iterm2.com/python-api/examples/colorhost.html
(Also, try hitting space a couple of times in that mode.)
`defaults write com.apple.screencapture show-thumbnail -bool false`
After you’ve done that it won’t be saved, which is great as you can quickly snap and use a screenshot without having to switch to the Finder - and the desktop doesn’t get cluttered with hundreds of images.
What I found you can do instead is use Cmd-C to copy it and then paste it into the app. That generally works.
Increase Contrast, which I prefer not just for aesthetic reasons (it gives a slightly old-school feel to the interface), but because it delineates areas of windows / apps more clearly: Preferences > Accessibility > Display > Increase Contrast. This will automatically turn on Reduce Transparency, but I used that setting anyway, to reduce distracting detail.
You can then navigate by arrow keys or typing. Space bar activates the highlighted menu/submenu.
It makes life so much better.
Control-F2 itself was slightly broken in 10.14 (IIRC), so I hacked up a dumb workaround in my Hammerspoon config:
https://github.com/NateEag/dotfiles/blob/99f6b641151f85f6f78...
This is also something you can generally call from Applescript as well, if you want to automate application behaviors.
I am pretty sure most of the work was just extending the documentation in https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/documentation/La... with looking up application "dictionaries" (iirc, a box of supported commands) and all menu items being accessible by default.
https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/documentation/Ap...
Also, Command-K to clear out a terminal window (also often works in similar places, such as the MAMP error log viewer).
My 1 year old taught me that one.
I also have repeat set to fastest and delay until repeat the shortest.
defaults write -g NSRepeatCountBinding -string "^u"
— https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/documentation/Co...
If you're just using Preview to rearrange/combine/etc. pages, no re-encoding happens and file size stays the same.
Believe me, I do a lot of PDF management in Preview. Even to the point of creating my own Quartz filters in the ColorSync Utility precisely so that I can intentionally re-encode images when I want to. (Because the Apple-provided Quartz filters are hard-coded to abusrdly high or absurdly low resoltions.)
Others already mentioned:
- three-finger drag is indispensable. Anytime I touch someone else's laptop I turn it on and blow their minds
- hold Cmd in Spotlight to reavel the path containing the selected item, Cmd + Enter opens that folder in Finder.
- readline keys work in basically every text input on the machine. Want to delete a line? C-a C-k. Delete the word preceding the cursor? M-Backspace.
- Cmd + Down opens the selected item in finder, Cmd + Up jumps one level up the folder hierarchy Cmd + Left/Right expand/collapse
Worth noting: Chrome actually no longer dies when you fat-finger cmd-w. It shows a "hold cmd-q to quit" overlay and only dies if you keep holding the keys down.
I’ve never had even a single issue with Spectacle so not really a big deal to me that it’s no longer maintained. It Just Works, from my experience - with that said who knows for how long, I guess.
https://www.omnigroup.com/more
I'm a big fan of the Omni group, and run my life on omnifocus
EDIT: Updated with the actual default command.
I think this may not be the default; it doesn't work for me.
While speaking of the character picker, does anyone know a way to get less broken search in the picker? For example, I frequently find myself looking for math italic characters in Unicode. Despite the description being, say, "MATHEMATICAL ITALIC SMALL A", it doesn't come up when I search for 'small'. In this case searching for 'mathematical' or 'italic' works, but there are other cases where I just have to guess search terms randomly (or go look up Unicode tables elsewhere).
Indeed, I thought that might be what you meant … but that opens the Finder search window for me, so I think that that shortcut also is not universal. Probably some of these differ depending on whether you've got a fresh install or an updated system that may carry along shortcuts from an older release.
EDIT: adsche (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24092377) suggests ⌘⌃␣, and that works for me.
Completely agree about the search. E.g., I sometimes want the cmd sign (⌘), which is named "place of interest". Sure, that makes sense from unicode and in other contexts but I would expect to find it as cmd or command in macos.
Tried in both Chrome and TextEdit.
There are a LOT more sets of characters available in the picker, hit the gear menu in the upper left and select "Customize List".
This is especially useful for pranking your loved ones for whom you have remote shell access. ssh in and cause the other person’s computer to start talking to them... by name... asking for help... to be let out of the small metal box they’ve been trapped in for SO long...
This has been available in Mac OS for at least 15 years, and probably longer.
You can still recreate the title card voices in macOS.
say -v Whisper "Weird: Layer zero one"Whisper can definitely be installed on Catalina still. It's a 34 MB download.
./some-lengthy-job | say Done
I still use this as a kitchen timer all the time when cooking while on my Macbook with utimer, which is basically a count-down timer for the shell (available via brew install utimer), e.g.
utimer -c 10m | say Pasta is done ./some-lengthy-job && say Done || say FailedIf you create a "Developer" folder in your ~ it's gonna have a different icon and is canonical place to put all your code in mac world.
Clicking wifi tray icon while holding option is going to give you a lot more info and some hidden tools.
Same for the Bluetooth icon: you can see for example your BT audio codec used, signal levels, MAC addresses and other info.
1. Press Command-Tab to show your running apps. Keep holding Command.
2. Press Tab until you've selected the minimized app.
3. Press the Option key, and let go of the Command key. You must release the Command key after pressing the Option key! The minimized app is now unminimized.
Note that this only works for an app with all of its windows minimized. If there is already a visible window of the app you won't be able to get to the minimized one with this trick.
I posted it once to Super User where it’s still getting attention after 9 years: https://superuser.com/questions/196141/keyboard-shortcut-to-...
And
Command + Option + Shift + Click
Works on most default OS things you can click on. Reveals a whole new set of amazing functionality.
Example: Doing so on the bluetooth icon on your menu bar, gives you the debug option for you to reset / restart bluetooth module.
defaults write -g NSWindowShouldDragOnGesture yes
e.g. "smash"+h moves the window left with shiftit
The sad thing is there’s no good reason for the slider to ignore your input during the animation. I think Apple just didn’t care enough to test it thoroughly. They only tested the Touch Bar with computer newbies who press every key slowly.
To do that use Handbrake, whick is open source and the go-to app for any encoding.
When you save it the changes will be on the command line.
i sometimes compose quick-and-dirty UX flows from mockups this way.
I imagine this was added recently.
It's part of the Accessibility > Speech menu in Settings.
I wrote up a little info doc for how to enable keyboard shortcut for it so you can use with any text you can select: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1mApa60zJA8rgEm6T6GF0yIem...
Use cases: - read blog posts and news articles while doing dishes (basically turn anything into an podcast at the press of a button) - read hacker news comments - proofreading text (you can hear the typos much easier than you can see them in a text you have written)
I haven't tested it much yet but the 'Samantha' voice actually seems listenable and intelligible for long periods.
I gave it a go with LSTM's.
Each sentence is intelligible, but it feels so dry without the emotion of a human voice actor.
I only recently discovered the Youtube channel 'MacMost':
https://www.youtube.com/user/macmostvideo
As a long-time macOS user, I am astounded at the things I'm currently learning from this guy, they're not just 'cool' things, they're seriously productivity-boosting things! They're small but sometimes impactful.
This is the best tip I can give anyone here.
using option will duplicate
using cmd will move
So the default for dragging on the same disk is move. option+drag will make a copy.
The default for dragging to a different disk is copy. cmd+drag will move instead.
Not builtin on macOS but iTerm2 is a must (together with oh-my-ZSH it's been a game changer)
The "time machine" on apps has been useful as well, rolling back to a previous version of a doc is great.
Some "unexpected feature" I found the other day. I accidentally dropped my MBP (and it seems it is engineered to close itself on drops but I knew that already ahem so it fell shut and upside down) and it started making a siren-like noise, as I began to get worried, I opened the screen and it was showing only glitches and it restarted (well sh1t). But then it restarted just fine and crisis averted.
At some point in the last 8 years, Apple changed the animation for how a window becomes full screen. The default behavior is to expand while simultaneously shifting the window to the right, or conversely expand while the desktop shifts to the left.
Enabling "Reduce Motion" eliminates that behavior, and the full screen window fades in and out instead, which personally I prefer.
cmd + shift + a = applications directory
cmd + shift + d = desktop directory
Semi-related, type `open .` in terminal to open that directory in Finder
If you shift-drop a file icon into Terminal, it will paste the file path to the command line without escaping spaces.
edit: Another user replied with what I want as I typed this! Thank you haddr.
Install the app “cd to…” (https://github.com/jbtule/cdto) and add it to your Finder toolbar. Now clicking that icon will open a new Terminal (or iTerm) window within the selected folder.
It's great when you don't have a mouse, or don't want to use it:
cmd+tab: pulls up app switcher, keep clicking until you select Finder
cmd+shift+u: opens utility menu t: highlights Terminal.app cmd+o: opens a terminal
type
cmd-space, terminal, return
I have thought Macs were pretty cool since I first used system 7. But I would not apply such blinders. This thread could also be taken as criticism even if nobody intends it to be so.
Useful when you like to leave apps "open" even with all their windows closed (ie. not using Cmd-Q), but still want to use Cmd-Tab to get to the app instead having to click something.
For decades I assumed that there’s some weird fluky behavior when trying to select a word and accidentally selecting the paragraph.
Windows, Android, all browsers I use, inside apps, etc
opt + [arrow keys]: To move through text respecting word boundaries.
cmd + [arrow keys]: To move through text respecting line boundaries.
Add shift to either of those and now instead of navigating, you're selecting the text.
opt + delete: deletes full word behind cursor
cmd + delete: deletes full line behind cursor
sudo nvram StartupMute=%00
sudo nvram StartupMute=%01Yes!
Wanted this for ages!
Very handy i. e. for project management (Kanban…)
Instead of releasing cmd to switch to the application, you can press q to quit it.
Useful for "I just want to quit every app": just move the mouse left and right over the icons while pressing Q repeatedly until everything's dead.
https://taoofmac.com/space/til/2020/06/11/1915 (has animated GIF explainer)
- If you need to make a quick screen recording video, open QuickTime Player. There’s an option to record the screen in the menu.
- (This one’s been extremely useful to me, and hardly anyone seems to know about it!) — If you need to provide tech support to another macOS user, open iMessage on your Mac, and start a conversation with the other person’s Apple ID. Click the dropdown caret beside their name in the recipient list, and click “Ask to share screen”. A VNC request will be sent straight to their Mac (with built-in microphone audio, so you can chat to them), plus options to control their computer remotely.
You can easily record the initial setup that way, which helped immensely with users working from home getting phone upgrades during the pandemic.
It's a tiling window manager. If you've used tmux, i3 or awesomewm you'll feel right at home.
⌘O – open file/folder in Finder
⌘J in Finder, Set as Defaults — sets default view options for all folders (struggled a lot with Finder inconsistencies before finding this out)
Hold down OPTION to vertically select text (works in the terminal at least)
CMD + SHIFT + . in Finder to show/hide hidden files
CMD + CTRL + D on a selected word to open the dictionary
I'll sometimes use the `say` command to let me know when a long-running command on the terminal finishes (e.g., `say Done`)
https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/211954/how-can-i-n...
Some people on this post are using ‘Stickies’ app to put a label on each one?
Otherwise, there are 3rd party apps that do it.
I may go for that commercial app anyway because it really is costly to lose context built up in a space. Especially when you have a lot of completely unrelated projects you want to task switch between.
I’d go so far as to say lack of Spaces feature polish in MacOS is impacting my ability to efficiently maintain open source code. Because those projects only get special extra time from me these days.
Apple should make more spaces API open to developers if Apple won’t improve this important macOS feature.
I may yet in addition to the space naming. It feels like it would be helpful to see on the wallpaper using expose, and also from the three finger swipe up.
Really, Apple should allow this meta to be overlayed on a wallpaper instead of having to photoshop it in. I'm perplexed on why Spaces has gotten zero improvements for so long.
Working on the graphic novel? Go to the desktop with a model sheet of one of the characters/props. Working on the Mastodon instance? It's the desktop with the image I drew for the front of the site. Drawing furry porn commissions? Hello, desktop with an endless rotation of Doug Winger's work.
I wish there was a workspace-specific description - big letters describing the workspace that fade, or a watermark for the background image.
I mean something designed into the window switching.
Ability to remap the Caps Lock key to Control
Shift+control+command+4 = screen capture to clipboard
Blows me away I can do that stuff in Preview. Wow.
This comment and its children sent me on a spelunking mission and the treasures I found. Markup has a Loupe tool and Speech Bubbles.!
Such features are many, various, and somewhat obscure, akin to Easter Eggs. (Both undiscoverable and handy to know.)
[0] https://tidbits.com/2018/11/19/macos-hidden-treasures-the-ma...
defaults write NSGlobalDomain KeyRepeat -int 5
I first learned about it here: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=click-through+site%3Adaringfirebal...
Somehow it took me 12 years of using macOS to learn how to maximize windows.
You can choose between "zoom" and "minimise" in System Preferences > Dock > Double-click a window's title to…
https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/297417/how-to-decr...
While I was in Brazilian jujitsu class they had an MMA brand that needed "organic content" based on articles from wikipedia and I bartered with them so that I would receive a Jujitsu Gi for summarizing 150 articles. This allowed me to accomplish the above task in only a few hours.
Option-click the volume icon will allow you to change your sound input and output devices.
Also, show files / packages on Logic Pro projects which are packed as a file.
So you press "Ctrl" and then scroll down on the trackpad and it will zoom in anywhere/on anything. Use it quite often and love it :)
2. Accessibility > Pointer Control > Trackpad options > Enable dragging > Without dragg lock
This one takes some time getting used to but it's awesome once you get the hang of it
3. Control–Shift–Power button
To put the display to sleep
Press CMD + Shift + / to open a search over all Menubar-actions for the current app.
If you're used to action-search in IntelliJ or VSCode, this will feel familiar to you. It's for those countless features that you use often, but not often enough to remember their proper shortcuts.
There are Launchbar- and Alfred plugins that provide a nicer interface.
(Germans need to reconfigure the shortcut in the settings, because our keyboards are weird)
In the terminal you can use pbcopy and pbpaste to use your clipboard: cat my.txt | pbcopy.
In the terminal you can use the open command to open a file or a folder in finder: open . and open foo.pdf.
Double tap the window frame to maximize it correctly (not to a new screen and not just on one axis but the way Windows maximize works).
Multiple virtual desktops and swiping between them with gestures.
pbcopy < my.txt #!/bin/bash
# Sets the title of the Terminal Window / Tab.
# title foo => Sets the title of the Terminal Window / Tab to foo.
echo -n -e "\033]0;$1\007"Suffice to say I had to change my MAC address every week to fight their shitty system.
Go to [System Preferences > Mission Control > Hot Corners] and when you make your selection just press the modifier you'd like to use.
I've always found hot corners too easily triggered, for me this strikes the right balance.
Hold Shift + Option and click on the Bluetooth icon in the menu bar.
Doesn't work for groups (last time I tried at least), and hideously undiscoverable.
Cycles between the windows of the same app. Similar to cmd + tab.
Saved me so much when reading multiple pdfs in preview
Thank you so much.
`open ./someFile.foo -a App\ Name`
or even just
`open -a App\ Name`
eg, Option-click the menubar wifi icon and you get all the details of your wifi connection including BSSID of the router you're actually connected to, RSSI, your assigned IP, etc.
You get a new PDF with the pages you copied.
defaults write http://com.apple.dock persistent-apps -array-add '{tile-data={}; tile-type="spacer-tile";}'
Very useful for organizing icons.
And this works also within other apps like spark where I can use the space bar to quickly verify what attachements are present.
Don’t think windows does this.
Also, damn you Microsoft for using non-standard views in your macOS apps.
Command-arrow to move to the beginning or end of the line
Combine either of these with the shift key to quickly select text.
This experience alone was enough to convince me it was time to learn vim.
Home/ctrl+home (Or end, to jump lines/doc) Ctrl+up (or down, to scroll without moving cursor)
I forget these others, but I keep trying to use these in osx.
Ctrl+A = start of line, ctrl+e = end, ctrl+n = next line, ctrl+v = next page
By default, in macOS, this isn't enabled everywhere, but you can do it easily https://forum.keyboardmaestro.com/t/os-x-text-system-keybind...
Some functions will change, and some of the functions with shortcuts will add the modifier.
For example, open the Apple menu and press and release Option.
Some menu items that say "Foo..." which means they will have an "are you sure" dialog will change to "Foo" which means they will not confirm.
Basic commands use the command key with a letter. Adding the shift key usually reverses the command, like cmd-Z in Finder is Undo, cmd-shift-Z is Redo.
The addition of the option key is supposed to add an alternative or extension to the basic command like when you see commands whose text contains an ellipsis (which means that the command will bring up a dialog for more information before executing). Adding the option key can remove the ellipse and just execute the command with the last parameters that were set. In the Finder, cmd-W closes a window, cmd-option-W closes all windows.
Rarely would you find a command that uses all four modifier keys, it's just hard to press them all at the same time.
Of course over the years and the proliferation of apps and developers, these ideas have faded and don't always hold up, but that was the general idea.
CTRL + K (delete to end of line)
CTRL + D (delete in place aka delete key (not backspace))
CTRL + A (go to start of line)
CTRL + E (go to end of line)
as an alternative to 3 finger swipe, to move across multiple desktop spaces. Especially helpful when when you have multiple editors and layouts
does anyone know how to turn off wifi on startup via scripting?
If you open menus on macOS and hold down various modifiers and combinations of modifiers you'll discover tons of hidden gems.
Try it with Finder > Edit then ⌥ Option, ⌃Control, and ⇧Shift.
function pbedit
set tmpfile (mktemp /tmp/pbedit.XXXXX)
pbpaste > $tmpfile
if vim -c "set nofixeol" $tmpfile
pbcopy < $tmpfile
end
rm $tmpfile
endThis makes servers running on the mac unreliable (sometimes it's not listening to the net) and adds interference to other devices.
Then "File"->"New From Clipboard" in Preview to be able to save it as a file.
I've changed the destination to the downloads folder, so I can drag the file from the dock where I want it to be.
If a web site doesn't have a PiP button, press and hold the speaker icon.