Hi All, welcome to Technifyed, I am Vasav Trehan and today I am sharing 52 awesome tips and tricks for all Mac users.
Mac – I call it Most Amazing Computer, well it is really amazing and you can trust me on that. I learned a lot of it, being at home, locked due to pandemics. Here, I take this opportunity to share 52 MacBook hacks, which will make your life easy while working on mac and bring you very close to a professional user. Without any further ado, let’s jump in.
Mac OS Catalina is used here
[penci_button link=”https://www.apple.com/ug/macos/catalina/” border_radius=”50″ text_color=”White” background=”Black” text_hover_color=”Black” hover_bgcolor=”White”]About Mac OS Catalina[/penci_button]
[blockquote align=”none” author=”Technifyed”]
Cmd: Command
Opt: Option
Ctrl: Control
[/blockquote]
1. 3 Tips to master screenshots on mac
Select as much you want - Hit Command + Shift + 4:
To get a crosshair which you can drag to capture as much of what you want of the screen.
Capture full screen - Hit Command + Shift + 3:
To take a screenshot of your full screen.
Camera Capture - Click Command + Shift + 4 & hit the Spacebar:
This will show a camera icon, with which you can take a screenshot of specific areas which are highlighted green.
2. How to add more desktops to your MacBook?
Oh Really ! more Desktops. I thought there is only 1 desktop in Mac. However, there are multiple Desktops in a Macbook.
Why:
Suppose you are working upon a confidential report & someone is trying to peek into your work, hence rather than minimizing you can do magic using your fingers.
How:
Keep three of your fingers on the touchpad & then softly move them upwards after that you’ll see desktop 1 drag your mouse there and click on the + sign. There you go! Add desktops and you can swap between them.
Left: keep 3 of your fingers on the right side of your touchpad and drag them towards the left.
Right: keep 3 of your fingers on the left side of your touchpad and drag them towards the right.
Upwards: Keep three of your fingers on the touchpad & then softly drag them upwards. After that you’ll see all desktops, click on the one you wish to choose.
3. Change how your screen looks
Move or Replace the Dock
To move the dock (Taskbar) go to system preferences and then to dock there you will find Change dock position, choose Left, Right or Bottom as per your requirement.
4. Get Spotlight Search on the top!
Search anything in a flick of a second! Get the help of the spotlight search in your Macbook
Short Cut: Command + Spacebar
5. Create an Apple Logo
Learn to make an apple logo and show off.
Press the keys : Option + shift + k
6. Calculate without a calculator!
For calculating mathematical operations in seconds use spotlight as your calculator.
To do so just open the spotlight and type the expression you wish to solve 🤪.
7. Zoom in or Zoom out of your screen in a second
What if you’re reading a blog and the text is very small. Using 2 fingers double tap on the touchpad and Zoom into the screen, do that again to Zoom out.
Before
After
8. Quickly Delete Files
Sometimes dragging files into the trash is a bit of a devious task so let’s get to know how we can
simplify this task.
Select the file or folder to be deleted and hit Cmd + delete, the file will be moved to the trash.
9. Make your text interactive with emojis
To get emojis into your text do the following:
Cmd + Ctrl + Spacebar to pop-up emojis, then select the emoji of your choice.
10. Apple’s AI at your service
Tired of doing everything yourself, try Siri. Your voice is its command. You can do a fairly wide array of tasks on your iOS device beyond simply looking something up. For example, you can have Siri create reminders, take notes, and many more.
11. Access the Dictionary with your Touchpad
Some words may fascinate & you want to know the meaning of them. Usually, we search on Google however, Mac users just need to tap with 2 fingers on that word and select the look-up option.
12. Select to get information (meaning)
You’re reading a blog and want to explore the meaning of some words.
Select anything then press Cmd + Ctrl + d to open the dictionary and in the search bar type the word to find the meaning.
13. How to make a signature on a Pdf/Image?
Sometimes we may not get a hard copy but, you’ve been told to sign on it. So, let’s get to know how to do this without boggling your mind.
First double click on the pdf/image you want to open, then click on the pen you see on the right side just before search, after this click on the 6th icon from the left to create your signature & select the one you want to use. You can also follow the pictures below!
And then on the signature, you see
14. Try out Dictation on your mac (Speech to Text)
Aren’t we tired of typing sometimes, what if you can command your Mac to type for you? As we know Mac is the Most Amazing Computer, it also has a feature known as dictation where you turn on dictation and it starts converting your speech to text. Let us see how you can do that.
1. Go to System preferences, Keyboard then dictation
2. Turn it on
3. To use dictation use the shortcut written in the dictation tab
15. Cycle through running apps
In everyday usage of computers, we work with various software. It’s a bit awkward to click on the application again & again to go there. Do the following to get rid of this.
Press Cmd + tab to change tabs and swap between apps and softwares.
16. Rename a Batch of files
To rename a batch of files go to finder select the batch files and right click then press rename. This is very awesome as it can rename multiple files at once.
17. Use the incremental Brightness
Ideally, when we increase or decrease brightness, it moves to level up or down, however, you can break 1 level into 4 levels. To increase/decrease the brightness incrementally do the following:
Option + Shift + F1 or F2
18. Use the Incremental Volume
Similar to the brightness you can increase/decrease the Volume incrementally in 4 stages per level.
Option + Shift + F11 or F12
19. Use the Incremental Keyboard brightness
How can you forget about keyboard brightness? To increase/decrease the Keyboard brightness incrementally do the following:
Option + Shift + Keyboard Brightness
20. Folders can even be Smart!
What’s a smart folder?
Smart Folders automatically find and organize files on your Mac by learning your search criteria. Because they update continuously, these folders can save you a lot of time and effort. … A Smart Folder is more like an index gathering files by type and keywords, pointing you to the actual files
Learn how to set them up-
To create a smart folder right click on finder and then click on smart folder.
21. Free up memory when your mac gets sluggish!
1. Compress files
2. Remove unwanted files
3. Mp4 takes a lot of space to delete them if not needed
22. How to get a special character (foreign language)
Think that you’re writing a blog and you need to place special characters.
Press the alphabet for 2 secs to get the choice of characters above it.
23. Easy way to quit an app
Here is a shortcut to quit applications, press Cmd + q, that's about it
24. How to swap between Tabs in Browsers
Working on a browser with multiple tabs open?
To swap between tabs in same browser just press Ctrl + tab
25. Switch Between windows of the same application
To switch between the windows of the same app
Press Cmd + Tidal key (`)
26. Stack your Desktop (View>Stack)
Stacking your desktop helps to arrange de-organized files on your desktop. To do so go to View in Finder and then select Use Stacks. You may also follow the pictures
27. Stop your Mac from sleeping once
You’ve been called for 15-mins & you were working on your laptop. Within 15 minutes your mac will go to sleep. Can we stop this?
Yes, Let’s see how! Open terminal and type caffeinate.
Your MacBook will not sleep until you cancel the command. To cancel the command, close the terminal.
28. How to add tables in notes
We usually use tables to simplify our work. So, let’s see how we can get these in notes!
Click on the table icon to insert a table.
29. Change default screenshot saving place
You might get irritated by seeing so many screenshots in the same place, hence you can change the default saving
location on your laptop. Let’s see how you can do it
First press Cmd + Ctrl + 5 then click on options and the saving location of your choice
30. Invert screen colour to save your eyes
When it’s night or it’s dark you can turn on the Night-shift option to focus and get less stress on your eyes. Follow me if you want to do so.
Click on the 3 lines you see at the top right then click on night shift
31. Turn your own MacBook into a WiFi hotspot!!!
Click on the go to system preferences>Sharing. Click on Internet Sharing and then tick the box next to Wi-Fi. Now turn on Internet Sharing by clicking the tick mark next to Internet Sharing in the sidebar.
32. Paste text without formatting
To paste text without formatting in your mac first copy the text then press Cmd + Opt + shift +V
33. How to jump to the beginning or end of a line of text
Beginning: Cmd + Left Arrow
End: Cmd + Right Arrow
34. Change the highlighting color of your MacBook
Can you change the Highlight/Selection color of your mac?
Yes, to do so go system preferences General and change the highlight color
35. Change the accent color of your MacBook
To change the accent of your Macbook go to System preferences>general and then choose
the colour you want.
36. Change the appearance to light or dark
To change the Appearance of your macbook go to System preferences > general and then
choose the appearance you want between light, dark or auto.
37. How to open the Sound settings in a go
Isn’t it too long to go to sound settings in the normal way. There is a shortcut, hit. Option + F11 to open sound settings.
38. How to open the Keyboard settings in a go
Similar to sound settings you can access keyboard settings as well by just pressing Option + F6
39. How you can change the wallpaper on a mac
System preferences >Desktop Screensaver > Desktop then choose!
40. Tip:
Connect other Apple accessories with your Macbook
41. Use airdrop to exchange Files
We all keep exchanging files, Apple has given one more software to do that, its called Airdrop. Let's see how we can exchange files using it.
42. Turn a website into a dock app
Open Safari and visit the website you want to add a shortcut.Click and hold on the URL the drag it to the right of your dock
There you go!
43. How to open the Display settings in a go
Shortcut for Keyboard settings is Opt + F2
44. Set up your screensaver
You may use the screensaver to hide the desktop if you need extra privacy or when you're away from your Macbook. Go to System preferences then Desktop & screensaver>screensaver Choose
45. How to hide all icons on your Desktop
To hide all the icons of your desktop open terminal and type defaults write com.apple.Finder CreateDesktop -bool False Press enter TYPE : KILLALL Finder Hurray!
46. Disable Notifications
Go to Notification preferences select the app and turn off notifications
47. Check the remaining space on your mac
Click on the apple menu> about this mac>Storage to see a detailed analysis
48. Quick tip
Open up apps by using Siri
49. How to see how many items are there in the folder on the desktop
Press ctrl + j and click on show item info to enable
50. What about the launchpad!
Launchpad in your mac shows you all the apps and are different from your desktop. To reach there just click the rocket thing you see on your dock (icon) or press F4.
51. Go to the desktop immediately
To go to the desktop while working press Cmd + F3
52. Unable to move a file to an external disk
Mac is the most amazing computer but models such as air etc. have very little storage. To overcome this problem we have External disks. What if we’re not able to copy files. If this happens either the External disk is damaged or its format is NTFS or Windows NT File System. As that disk’s format is related to windows, to use that for a mac we’ve to change its format. Let’s see how we do this.
First push-in a disk with a wire, then open disk utility there you’ll select the external disk click on erase then change the format to I prefer Exfat then click on erase.
You’re Done! You can also follow the pictures.
Also Read
30 Coolest Google Sheets hacks for Kids
