List of hidden OS X features, tips and tricks | Hacker News Reader

List of hidden OS X features, tips and tricks

apple.stackexchange.com

203 pointsjason_tko65 comments

Didn't see this one on the list - while Command+Tabbing, if you hold down Option while letting go of Command at the end, you'll open a new window in the specified application if it currently doesn't have any open.

It might sound confusing, but it's quite useful if you've closed all the windows of a given app but still have it running.

wow, thanks for this. when I switched to Mac last year I actually googled around about shortcuts to deal with the lack of a universal 'restore minimized' shortcut.

this doesn't solve it entirely, I think, but can't believe I never came across it.

The option key is involved in most of these hidden tips. If something doesn't work quite like you want it to, try doing it with option held down. 6 times out of 10 it probably will.

"6 times out of 10" That's such a weird number to have chosen, I know I'm being pedantic here, but why not 3 out of 5?

Here's a posting I made a while ago about this trick: http://superuser.com/questions/196141/keyboard-shortcut-to-u...

I have one: press shift and alt while changing volume or brightness and you can change it in fine-grained steps. Not super useful, but kind of neat.

I love that little feature. The bad thing about it is that it doesn't work where I want it the most: The darkest backlight level is still the same. (It lets you set it to 1/4, but it's still the same as 1)

Thanks. The controls for this used to be different (I think it was previously command-option-volume), and I had just assumed that they had removed this.

I was just playing around with option+menu bar items and discovered that notifications can be disabled by option-clicking the notification center icon on the far right in Mountain Lion.

Then if you click to open notification center there is text which says that notifications will turn back on tomorrow and a toggle to turn them back on now

Nice shortcut! Thanks.

The switch for this is always there, reachable by scrolling up past the top of the notifications panel.

Here are the comments from the last time this appeared on HN a few years ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2436198

Not a hidden feature - but what confuses some of my family members is that if they install an app in OS X, they click on a downloaded dmg (or it auto-opens), and they get this Finder window opening, without "Applications" visible.

Initially they just ran the application like this, as if it was installed.

However, I've explained that it needs to be moved to "Applications". This is difficult, seeing that if one clicks on Finder again, it doesn't bring up a new window.

I tell them to do File->New Finder Window, but I wish there was a more elegant solution to this.

Does Cmd-N (when Finder is active: open a new Finder window) help?

The applications folder is in the dock by default.

I just always drag to the dock Applications folder, I've never messed around opening a Finder window.

I tried - dragging something using only a trackpad (many people just use a laptop) seems to be quite challenging for the computer challenged people.

You could click on the translucent bar button on the top right of a DMG-window, then you get the sidebar on the left back.

But apparently it's been removed in Lion: http://myintarweb.com/dispatch/lion-tip

Command-Option-T is the equivalent key combination.

> the translucent bar button

a.k.a "the pill".

Agree. I use Yoink! for this all the time.

Because of the way application bundles work, you do not strictly have to move them to the /Applications folder on the hdd.

I first started using computers on a Mac SE, I found the whole setup.exe thing to put things on the disk for DOS and more especially Windows, to be odd. I was used to just running applications from the floppy disk it sat on.

I think it's a great subtle feature when applications detect on first-run they are not being run out of /Applications and ask if you'd like to have the bundle moved there. Saves a few steps.

Here's a good time killer (I think I got all of the domains in there):

https://encrypted.google.com/search?q=hidden%20features%20of...

If you have an external display hooked up to a MacBook, using the Macbook keyboard’s brightness keys will change the laptop display. The external keyboard will change the external display (if attached). Ctrl + brightness key inverts the behavior for both external and internal.

http://finerthings.in/mac/tips-for-changing-brightness-on-ma...

I recommend looking at BetterTouchTool http://www.bettertouchtool.net (free) and Alfred http://www.alfredapp.com (free without the Powerpack). I start all programs with Alfred and use BTT taps/movements on my trackpad to arrange/resize windows. I used to fire up applications with spotlight but alfred feels much quicker + I can create lots of custom web search queries which I use all the time.

Loving this thread and the one from around two and a half years ago. I'm probably missing out on a few things as I'm still running 10.6.8.

when you pipe something to pbcopy, it doesn't strip any trailing newline:

    echo hi | pbcopy

pasting this would get you hi<cr>. so if you want to put the output of a command in the clipboard, you can do something like (where `find .` is your command):

    echo -n $(find .) | pbcopy

that will take advantage of the fact that subshells discard a trailing newline (at least in bash, zsh. probably others..)

Neat. I didn't know Apple still did this. Mac OS 7 and 8 hat tons of useful hidden features and modifiers. Having a keyboard key modify basic actions is such a benevolent way to increase productivity for power users without harming newbies. It's also fairly easy to add.

I don't understand why Linux desktops apps don't do this more often. Or maybe they do and I just don't know where to look.

Leopard-style (spatial) Exposé in Snow Leopard (grid):

http://superuser.com/questions/118424/old-leopard-expose-on-...

Sometimes Stackexchange sites will close a thread, because it's "not a question". Sometime's they won't. Nitpicking, but this is not a question. (Still great answers, though.)

At the end of the day though, if it provides some value to the world, does it matter?

I think there is a section of stack overflow moderators who shoot down questions purely due to ego.

Someone obviously trying to solicit an answer for their CS homework, close! Intoxicated monkey whacking the keyboard: close!.

This: keep it, please!

In fact I'm surprised it's still there.

This isn't Stack Overflow. Stack Overflow needs to be strict to handle the thousands of questions that pour in every day. Many other Stack Exchange sites are under less pressure and could decide on different policies. However, most sites' communities have also rejected such questions because they do not fit the Stack Exchange model. The software and policies are not optimized the handle this them a site filled with them would be terrible.

The Apple Stack Exchange community decided that list-style questions are acceptable in very limited quantities. (They tend to be broad, which help avoid the need for too many of them.)

Do you mean the title?

Because the first line of the main body "Do you know any hidden or little-known nice feature of Mac OS X?" certainly looks like a question to me.

As I recall, and it's been a while so things may have changed, Stack Exchange's Apple site has always been more forgiving of these types of "hidden features" lists, much to the consternation of the rest of the network (example: http://meta.stackoverflow.com/q/110611).

Select-all, cmd-c copy (in a document or terminal)

Select a word or symbol of interest, and cmd-e to get it in the find buffer.

$ pbpaste | fgrep -i `pbpaste -pboard find`

I have this aliased to pbg, so will typically pipe the output to awk or some such.

My favorite has to be ⌘+Space. It brings up Spotlight Search. I use it instead of the Dock to launch applications. It quickly adapts to your preferences. For instance, after a few tries, it will learn that you want Digital Color Meter when you type 'dig'. So, you just type "⌘+Space dig Return", and the app starts.

It's also useful to look up words quickly in Dictionary and to evaluate simple arithmetic expressions.

That's all in addition to its normal use: searching your machine

You realise how long you've been using a Mac when you know every single one of these, bar one (Opt+Clicking Menu Bar Extras)

A personal favorite is setting a hyper-fast key repeat via terminal:

  defaults write NSGlobalDomain KeyRepeat -int 0

This is amazing. Thank you so much.

Again, not really a hidden feature but one I was very happy to find: moving files via Finder using Cmd-C to 'cut' and Cmd+Opt-V to 'paste'. (I come from a Windows background and cutting and pasting using the keyboard is deep in my DNA).

The Opt key in "Cmd+Opt-V to 'paste'" is unnecessary.

Without the option key, Cmd-C/Cmd-V just copies and pastes. Cmd-C/Cmd+Opt-V cuts and pastes.

Thank you. No more two finder windows.

Perfect, never knew about this!

Personally, I'm not a big fan of how Apple likes to hide useful features all over the place in OS X hidden behind completely non-discoverable modifier key + mouse click options or double modifier key + another key.

don't know about hidden, but really useful is a three finger tap on a word to open a small dictionary popup.

This was one of the feature that made me get my first Mac back in 2002. You could easily tell apps that didn't use OS standard controls (e.g., Firefox) because they didn't support the dictionary lookup.

At the time it was ctrl+cmd+D while hovering over a word with the mouse cursor (you can still trigger it this way now).

Anyone know how to filter a list of files in a Finder window by a string?

http://shortcatapp.com allows you to search the contents of any on screen window.

It's not quite what you are asking for since it's recursive, but there is a setting in the Finder's preferences, Advanced, that lets you choose how the Finder's Spotlight field works. I always change it to search in the current directory only.

Never figured out how to do this in Finder - its search bar behaviour has always seemed really weird to me. I now use Path Finder, which does this kind of filtering and others.

Installing a OS free of patent-lawsuits and bad digital karma on your otherwise good hardware:

http://blog.kylebarlow.com/2013/05/installing-ubuntu-1304-ra...

How is this relevant or connected to OS X hidden features?

Not all people know that a Mac is commodity PC-based hardware which you can install any operating system you like onto.

In that regard it is a hidden feature, but maybe more so for the Mac than for OS X.

If this was 2007 or so, maybe.

I don't believe in karma and don't think Ubuntu can ignore the game of patents. They've been able to so far because they are irrelevant in the desktop space.

Personally, I'm not willing to hobble my computing experience due to some hopeless ideology.

> some hopeless ideology

The fact that someone would say, on a forum called Hacker News, that the free software movement is a hopeless ideology is astonishing.

> irrelevant in the desktop space

Hardly. Ubuntu is about as popular now as Macs were a few years ago, or at least in the same league.

> hobble my computing experience

Ubuntu has many productivity advantages over both OSX and Windows. It's not necessarily the best for everyone, but the have taken a lot of good ideas from both Windows (eg. Maximise works properly, aero snap) and OS X (Expose), and added their own (HUD). If you consider Ubuntu to be hobbling your experience, then other people could consider using OSX as hobbling theirs.

>The fact that someone would say, on a forum called Hacker News, that the free software movement is a hopeless ideology is astonishing.

Patent free is what I'm calling hopeless. Nice try though, I guess.

>Hardly. Ubuntu is about as popular now as Macs were a few years ago, or at least in the same league.

Uh, no. Unless by "years" you mean "decades".

>Ubuntu has many productivity advantages over both OSX and Windows.

I've used Windows for years. I've used OS X for a few years now. I've used Unix for years and I've used Ubuntu off and on since it was started. Ubuntu had some advantages over windows for me but day-to-day OS X is simpler in every possible way. Except the "do tons of tweaking of every pixel on my desktop" way.

> Patent free is what I'm calling hopeless.

The ideology behind Ubuntu is the free software movement. I'm not sure that "Patent free" even is an ideology.

> Uh, no. Unless by "years" you mean "decades".

About 10? That's years, not decades. Even 5 years ago they were well under 5% weren't they?

I'm glad to hear that OSX suits you, that's fine. What I object to is you calling Ubuntu a hobbled experience. Personally I find that both Unity and OSX have DEs that really get in my way without a lot of tweaking, but both can be made to give a reasonable experience.

I wouldn't have said anything, and just chalked it up as someone making an opinionated comment that I disagree with if it weren't for the ridiculous line about Ubuntu's ideology being hopeless.

> What I object to is you calling Ubuntu a hobbled experience.

I might be wrong, but I think he's talking about a future in which Canonical is forced to remove features from Ubuntu due to patents. Whereas Apple would just pay the licensing fees.

I don't see this happening because software patents don't exist in most of the world. The worst thing that could happen is they wouldn't be able to sell phones in the U.S. and other patent-crazy territories.

> Whereas Apple would just pay the licensing fees.

More like Apple would be the one firing the lawsuits.

I find it troublesome to see so many otherwise talented hackers chop off their own feet by supporting the top company fuelling the patent-war and undermining the software-industry as a whole.

You are truly a delight.

How about the PRISM and hardware tracking built into iPhones?

edit: let the down votes commence, I've got some karma to burn.

I'm not sure how that's actually relevant to the conversation on the subject? Plus you may as well post the same comment when any mobile phone is mentioned, be it an iPhone, an Android or a standard dumbphone.

If you're getting downvotes for this one, it's not because you're voicing some controversial opinion, it's because you made a really dumb comment.

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