8 Tips and Tricks for your Mac

We all love shortcuts and little tips. So, we have done some searching and compiled a list of 8 tips and tricks to help you in your everyday work with your Mac. Honestly, I use #1 every day.

#1. Take a trimmed screenshot

Tired of taking screenshots that capture much more of your screen than you’d like? Hold down Command + Shift + 4, which will change your cursor into a cross hair. After you’ve outlined what you want to be in the screenshot, press the Spacebar to capture.

#2 Hidden icon in plain sight

Once you save a Word, Pages, PowerPoint, or (most) other documents, a little icon appears at the top of your toolbar, next to the document name. You can treat this like a normal file icon and drag it wherever you like, which will move the file too.

Hidden icon in plain sight: Once you save a Word, Pages, PowerPoint, or (most) other documents, a little icon appears at the top of your toolbar, next to the document name. You can treat this like a normal file icon and drag it wherever you like, which will move the file too.#3 Quick tab management

If you need to get rid of too many applications running, hold command and press your tab key to cycle through the applications. Tap “Q” to quit any of the applications, or “H” to minimize.

Quick tab management: If you need to get rid of too many applications running, hold command and press your tab key to cycle through the applications. Tap "Q" to quit any of the applications, or "H" to minimize.

LSU

#4 Never tab past an online form’s box again:

When filling out order forms online, tabbing through the input boxes often skips dropdown menus such as the “month” or “year” selections. To allow your computer to tab through them like any other text box, simply go to System Preferences => Keyboard, and then set “Full Keyboard Access” to “All Controls.”

#5 Use Spotlight search as a calculator:

By simply pressing Command + Spacebar, Apple’s Spotlight search is brought up, allowing you to easily search for documents or music. But the real secret is that it also does basic math, so if you need some multiplication or division done, just type it in the search bar!

#6 Easily group files into one folder:

For those with a cluttered desktop, one little shortcut can make consolidating files into one folder a snap. Simply highlight or click on the files that you’d like to group, right click, and select “New Folder With Selection.”

#7 Experience Expose in slow motion:

For those with Mac OSX version 10.6 and earlier, the easy app selection tool, Expose, can be manipulated to work in slow motion.The secret is just to hold “Shift” while then pressing your Expose key (usually F9, F10, or F11). Use this trick for a less abrupt window-switching method.

#8 Hide your dock in a flash:

If your dock is getting in the way, pressing Command + Option + D will hide your dock. Want it back? Just repeat.

Hide your dock in a flash: If your dock is getting in the way, pressing Command + Option + D will hide your dock. Want it back? Just repeat.

 

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6 Comments

  1. Augusts Kolms
    July 12, 2014

    I’d like to add a few things.

    1. Taking screenshots works actually a bit differently. After outlining the area that you want to capture, simply let go of the mouse/trackpad to take a screenshot. Pressing the spacebar switches to a mode which lets you capture a whole window (click a window to capture it; works also on menus, the menubar etc.).
    3. Cmd + H hides the app window, it’s Cmd + M that minimizes it.
    7. Shift can slow down almost any animation, including the new Mission Control animation. You can slow the minimize animation, the launchpad animation, the sheet animation (open/save dialogs) etc. By the way, old-style Exposé still works in 10.7 and above, but only for a single app’s windows – on my MacBook, it’s a four finger swipe down that triggers it.

    • stacksocial
      July 14, 2014

      Thanks for the corrections and updates!

  2. Logemon
    July 12, 2014

    Should retitle this article to “8 Tips and Tricks for Mac Newbies”

    • stacksocial
      July 14, 2014

      Well, everybody needs a little help sometimes. Hopefully someone got something useful out of this!

      • Logemon
        July 14, 2014

        Sorry, I didn’t mean for that comment to be overly negative. This article definitely includes some of the best shortcuts that I use the most on my Mac. I also didn’t know about #4 before reading this article, so I learned something too! Thanks for the helpful article and I apologize if my comment seemed too negative. 🙂

        • stacksocial
          July 15, 2014

          No problem! Glad you got something out of it too!

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