Mac OS has been built with a lot of hidden features and shortcuts, including keyboard shortcuts and less obvious settings that Apple has implemented over the years. We tried something new in our latest video, suggesting several little tips and tricks you might not know to help improve your workflow and make your Mac experience more customized.
- What you are looking for is to set up a specific file type to only open with a certain application. Click the Open With the drop-down menu, then find the app you wish to use, by right-clicking a file, clicking Get Info, clicking on the Open With the option, and then selecting the program.
- Automatically open safe files after they have been downloaded from Safari – tap on the Settings icon, click on the Preferences tab, and select Open all “safe” files after downloading. Are you not interested in automatic opening? Make sure it is not checked.
- To convert an image, document, or downloaded webpage to a PDF, right-click on the file in Finder or use the “Quick Actions” feature on the desktop. You can select multiple files and combine them into one PDF by right-clicking on each one, selecting Quick Actions, and then choosing to Create PDF. You’re normally able to choose to Convert to PDF as a Quick Action, but if it’s not active for some reason, you can add it to the Quick Action list by selecting “Customize”.
- Is there any way to set your Mac to default to searching through the currently open folder instead of searching through your entire hard drive? It is easily accomplished by opening Finder, choosing Preferences, then selecting “Advanced,” and then selecting “Search the Current Folder” under the heading “When performing a search.”
- Hold down Option and click the red x next to one of the open windows in an app to close all open windows at once.
- Scroll bars are visible at all times if you remove or disable the “Show scroll bars” option in the settings preference window. This can be done by opening up System Preferences, selecting General, and then selecting “Always.”.
- Input and Output Sound from Menu Bar – You can access input and output sound from the menu bar if you hold down the option when you click on the sound icon in the menu bar or inside the Apple Control Center software on your Mac. If you want to have the sound option permanently displayed in the menu bar, then you should go to System Preferences > Sound > Show Sound in Menu Bar and set it to always.
- Hold Command + R and click on a file in the Finder when Spotlight is open to finding it quickly.
- You may want to change how you minimize windows with a double click on their title bar if you wish to change how a double click works? Under “Double-click the title bar of a window to bring up its preferences,” select minimize and not zoom, as these are the defaults in System Preferences.
- The menu bar can be automatically hidden and shown by going to the System Preferences, selecting Dock & Menu Bar, and clicking “Automatically hide and show menu bar on the desktop.” After you have done this, go to the Dock & Menu Bar tab, followed by “Automatically hide and show menu bar on the desktop.”
- You don’t want to see the date on Menus? The menu bar date is hidden. You can do this by navigating to System Preferences, selecting Dock & Menu Bar, and then deselecting the checkboxes for “Show day of the week” and “Show date” with the Clock heading on the left menu.
- Using the keyboard commands in Word can help you edit more efficiently while you’re writing. The option key can be held while pressing the delete key to make it easier to delete a whole
- One can delete an entire line from an entire document by simultaneously pressing the command key and the Delete key.
- Using the arrow keys to move the cursor through text faster is another helpful feature. Instead of moving the cursor character by character, hold down the option key and use the arrow keys. If you want to move it line by line, hold down the command key.
- Screenshots can be customized in many ways in Macs – for example, there is a built-in option for customizing screenshots. To take a sized screenshot, hold down the shift and command keys, and then drag the selection box until that top right corner is resized, spacebar to move it to the bottom left corner.
Is there anything you would like us to include that you think we have missed? Please let us know by leaving a comment!