Mac OS X Tips and Hints

A popular topic all around the internet, I thought it would be a good idea to start a proper thread for useful Mac OS X tips and hints, little gems hidden within the Operating System that can make your life much much easier.

For people new to OS X, you will be absolutely amazed at how many little things are hidden within the system that can make your day to day tasks that much simpler and efficient.

Everyone is free to post whatever they like, but please keep it consistent with Mac OS X itself, and included applications. Also try to include in bold what the particular hint you are giving involves, for example:

Finder:

Don't be afraid to post something you thing is widely known (you never know who you will help out) but try not to re-post tips often, it may happen, its not the end of the world. Also, assume all tips listed are possible under the latest release of Mac OS X, unless otherwise noted by the author.

PLEASE MAKE SURE TO TITLE YOUR SPECIFIC POST WITH THE PROPER TITLE. This will make searching, navigating, and using this thread much easier. Also don't be afraid to use Symbols like they are displayed in OS X. And definitely post screenshots of what you are talking about if it will make the Tip easier to understand/remember.

Keyboard Shortcut Key:

⌘=Command Key
⌥=Alt/Option Key
^=Control
` or ~ = Tilda (The key under Esc)
⎋=Esc


If you discover a good tip in this thread make sure to give the poster +Reputation!

Sit back, relax, and learn something new about OS X.

 

I will start us off with one of my absolute favorites that I did not learn long ago, but has been around for a very long time.

Finder:

With a finder window open in list view, if you right click on the Size tab, and choose, Show View Options, there is the option to Calculate All Sizes.

With this option checked, Finder will actually calculate the size of Folders as well, instead of just individual files, which is an extremely useful tool when looking to free space up on your HD, as well as just having a general idea of what is taking of space on your HD.

 

Nice thread. I'll see if I have any good tips when I get home.

Oh wait, I have one now.

DoubleCommand. It's for remapping keys. I use it for turning the second key (the one next to the command key) into delete (forward delete in mac-speak).

 

I new this would be an interesting topic, it is ok to post other applications that integrate with the OS, but definitely try to keep it related to tips and hints that are part of the OS itself.

and while I am at it, I should be sleeping but I am not so I might as well keep this party going with a pretty simple one.

Finder:

With any Finder window open, simply go to the Menu Bar and select View->Show Path Bar to always show your Directory path just like you would see with a Spotlight search, extremely useful for always knowing exactly where you are no matter what view mode you are in.

For example see above screenshot.

This view even supports drag and drop! and you can double click a directory to jump right to it.

 

A fun and popular one for people new the OS, that many know about, but is always fun to discover.

Mac OS X:

Pressing and holding shift while activating many functions of the operating system, Dashboard, Expose, Stacks, etc. will result in extremely slow animation of that process.

Probably the best example of this is a stack full of files or applications in your dock, and holding Shift, while clicking on the Stack. This works with minimize, maximize, Dashboard, Front Row, Stacks, Time Machine (I think), Spaces, Expose, etc.

 

One that will pop up in many of the hints on there.

Mac OS X (The Alt/Option Key + Menus):

With many of the menus (right/control+click menus, as well as Finder, Apple, and other menus) there are almost always ALTernative options available when holding down the alt key. For example:

In the  (To type this character, just use Alt+Shift+K) Menu, normally you will see your standard list of options, log off, shut down, etc. With some of these options, you will also see "..." after the Menu bar item, Shut Down, for example. With this menu open, if you simply press and hold Alt you will see a few of those "..."'s disappear, which will allow to to skip the Dialogue box that will pop up next to confirm that action.

Very useful timesaver when you know exactly what you want to do and would like to skip the final step.

This also works with many items in the the Finder menu set as well, Empty Trash probably being the most useful. This is an option that can be turned off by default, but I find it is a good one to leave on just in case, but for those times when you are positive you just need to clear out the trash this is a good one. You simply choose Finder from the Menu Bar->Press and Hold Alt->and press Empty Trash. and your trash is emptied immediately.

for an even quicker method, just use Command+Option(Alt)+Shift+Delete to quickly empty the trash without a confirmation pop up.

there are many more out there, feel free to post under the Mac OS X (Alt/Option Key) title.

 

Right, soz. I'll see if can remember anything when I get home.

Oh, stating which version you have could be a good idea, as some stuff are different depending on what version of OS X you have. I didn't use Tiger that long, my experience comes from Panther and Leopard. And I don't remember much from Panther, so I don't know if things have differed.

Anywho, keep up the good work

 

yeah definitely, for most of the tips listed here, just assume they work under that latest updated version of Mac OS X, unless listed otherwise.

here is a cool one I just learned today:

Address Book Contact Photos/iChat user photos:

when dragging a photo in place for one of your contacts in Address Book under Leopard, you will see the normal option to resize the image, etc. but you will also see a little swirly button underneath the image:



if you choose this option, you can select from 6 pages of different photo effects similar to the ones in photobooth, although many more are available here for some reason:


Don't mind my friend Koji

just a cool one that helps you make your friends, coworkers, and family look a little bit ridiculous.

faberati: nice avatar, that is one of the best music videos made for quite some time.

 

Yeah, that functionality is supported in other programs as well (I played with it in Adium).

And yes. Yes it is.

 

The Alt/Option key strikes again!

Mac OS X (Alt/Option Key):

Isn't Quicklook awesome? You know what is even more awesome? If you have a photo, group of photos, movie, or other filetype selected that supports full screen viewing in some form or another in Quicklook, selected, and press and Hold Alt/Option while clicking the Quicklook Finder toolbar button, it will skip right to full screen Quicklook viewing.

To make that much less convoluted, Select a file, Hold Alt, Press the Quicklook button. cool huh? and just to blow your mind even further Cmd+Option+Y (while you have a file selected) does the same thing, Automatic Fullscreen Quicklook.

Another one:

with a photo opened up in quicklook, you can actually zoom in and out by holding Alt/Option and scrolling in and out or clicking on the image to zoom in.

Team Win wins again!

 

I can't contain myself, because starting this thread is making me remember and find even more cool things to post. Atleast no one will ever have to worry about this thread dieing out

Volume Control Options:

First, you can disable the standard volume change noise in System Preferences->Sound. or... you can Temporarilty Disable/Enable this option by simply pressing Shift+Volume Adjust keys.

Something else really cool is pressing Shift+Option+Volume Change Keys to do very small incremental volume changes, giving you a little more volume control with those keyboard keys. (4 per bar instead of 1)

It's like Apple was trying to build a useful operating system or something, maybe even one they actually use themselves! incredible! ^_^

 

To take a screenshot of a window press Shift+Command+4, then space, and click on a window to save the image.

 

definitely a good one, and works not only with a Window, but with any part of the OS, the Dock, Menubar, Quicklook window, Icons, etc. One of the most useful.

 

I agree. Took me forever to figure out how to do that.

 

press control, alt/option, command + 8 and see what happens

 

Expose

With Expose activated, press tab to cycle through programs so only windows of that program appear.

Volume

press shift + alt/option + volume +/- to make precise changes to volume (4x the sensitivity as normal)

 

How about a request? I'm not that savvy on a Mac, but I have been trying to get more familiar so that I can help out family members that may buy Macs in the future.

One simple thing that I always use in Windows has eluded me in OS X. Is there an easy way to minimize all of your programs so I can navigate or move stuff around on the desktop? Maybe some sort of button combination while clicking on the Finder in the dock? All I can figure out how to do is navigate through folders with Finder, but all my windows remain open.

Thanks

 

Well for me, Fn + F11 drags all open windows off the edge of the screen. Your expose button may be different on your keyboard. Go to System Pref > Expose and Spaces > Expose and see what "Show Desktop" is mapped to.

 

I'm not exactly sure on which key this was, as I'm at work and can't check, but

Press Ctrl+F4 to Cycle through windows. Alt+Tab cyles through the applications, this will go through all the windows.

 

Drag and Drop
One of the things I like about OS X is that drag and drop works almost everywhere.

In your browser, if you highlight some text, You can drag to your desktop and a text file containing it will be made. Drag and drop it to an open text editor window and you don't even have to bother about copying and pasting. The same can be done with pictures. Also drag something over the dock. The name of the application will highlight if it will accept whatever you are dragging.


Some Shortcuts

command + C: copy
command + V: paste
command + I: get info of selected file
command + Y: quick look selected file
command + M: minimize current window to dock
command + H: hide current application
command + Q: quit current application
command + W: close current window/tab
command + space: open spotlight
com. + shift + 4: take a screenshot (press space to select a window)
ctr + alt + com + 8: ?? (try it )

speaking of Spotlight
You can quickly open any application by just typing the first few letters and press enter (in spotlight). You can also easily look up the definition of a word.

 

Seems I was mistake on the correct key for cycling windows. That's now corrected.

Press Ctrl+F3 For bringing up the Dock

 

Zooming in the screen (Zooms in the OS, not just the open application)

Hold Ctrl and do a two finger drag up on the touchpad (like when scrollin up a page). Zoom out by holding ctrl and dragging down.

Oh yeah. My tips comes from using the last 12" Powerbook. Thus it has dual-tap touchpad and whatnot, but different keyboard layout than the latest laptops.

 

Bluetooth

This is not so much a trick, as a hint for a new user:
When first upgrading to Leopard i noticed that you couldn't recieve anything through bluetooth, no matter what I did in the bluetooth settings.

Turns out you have to enable bluetooth sharing in System settings > Sharing.

 

Here's a hint for when on forums (NBR or others):

When responding using the Quick Reply, you can post the message by pressing Ctrl+S. This works in both Firefox and Safari.

Not strictly a hint about OS X, I never the less though it should be up.

 

Great thread!Great Job!and this thread should be "Sticky-fide"

 

Spotlight. Don't try to make the Dock into a "Start Menu". Keep it to half a dozen icons and 3 or 4 stacks. (I know, mine is bigger but I'm paring it down). Use Spotlight to launch things and it finds them more quickly than mousing around for them in the Applications folder and just about as quickly as if you had clicked on an icon in the dock.

QuickLook. Don't double click things just to see what they are. Quick Look them before you consider launching some huge app like photoshop or word.

 

The best way to do this is to simply set up Exposé to Show Desktop, either through a key command or through Hot Corners. Another way to Hide certain apps is Cmd+H, or to hide all other Apps you can use, Option+Right Click/Control click on the App you want in the Dock, and choose Hide Others, another way to do this is to just have the App you want to use at the front, and simply use Cmd+Opt+H to hide all other apps.

 

here is a very useful one for people who like to have a lot of windows open at once.

Finder/Other Apps:

If you have many Finder windows open, you can Cycle through them all with ⌘+~ (the key under Esc).

Another:

Say you are now finished with all those windows, and want to close them all quickly, well you can either close them all one by one using the traffic lights, or use ⌘+w to do the same thing, OR! you can simply use ⌘+⌥(Option Key)+w to close all open windows.

 

Here's one, the most under-used, under-rated, full featured screen capture feature in OS X, GRAB. Grab is in the utilities folder ,Applications-Utilities, it has more screen capture options and it's customizable in preferences.

 

Deleting backups (the easy way) in Time Machine. With a Finder window open launch Time Machine. Highlight the app that you want to remove from backups. Press the "Action" key and select " delete all backups of xxx-file".

 

While a browser window is active type Command+F. A window at top right of Safari or bottom left of Firefox appears. You can search any text on a web page. Very useful when there's tons of words. I use it to search my online debits from my banking institution. This feature looks better in Safari. After finding the word keep pressing the return key and each word gets highlighted individually on the page.

 

Get a screen capture of your screensavers. Press Command-Shift first, then hit the Test button in the Screen Saver panel of the Destkop & Screen Saver System Preferences panel.Then wait for the shot you want (still holding Command and Shift), then press 3.

 

There is an alternative to this, and it is Quicksilver. It is a handy downloadable application that makes everything quite similar to "using spotlight to launch things and it finds them more quickly ...", but even faster!xD

Here is a video about it. Check it out!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EBvFUhTqKK4

 

are there any short keys for minimizing or closing windows?

 

Why isn't this thread stickified yet???

 

Sorry, ToFu. I started to mention quicksilver in my post but decided against it. I tried QS but haven't used it lately. My first reaction was to pan the thing. It never quite did it for me. But now I'm taking another look at QS. My first tweak? Bezel. What a difference a skin makes!

 

To close windows: command + 'w'
* Note: This just closes the active window of the active application, but doesn't necessarily close out the active application.
** Note #2: If you are using FireFox or Safari, this command closes the active tab in the active window. If there is only one tab in the active window, the window gets closed.

To minimize windows to the dock: command + 'm'

I'd also like to know if there's a keyboard command for maximizing windows in OSX...

 

With the new update to iTunes in Quicktime 7.5, there is a new feature in Quicktime that is definitely worth noting.

Quicktime:

Just like in Final Cut Pro you now have jog shuttle keyboard controls built right into QT. Using J, K, and L. J=Backward, K=Stop, L=Forward. You can tap J or L to increase the speed of playback or hold the key down. You can also use J+K, or K+L for slow motion forward/reverse playback. So awesome that they actually added this right into Quicktime for anyone out there that works with video, film, or animation.

 

Volume

Holding down shift while using the volume keys on your keyboard will allow you to change the volume without making the 'pop' noise.

Finder

You can drag and drop files/folders on the Finder's path bar. Handy if you need to quickly move files/folders down in the path when not using column view.

Finder

When in a secondary menu you can use press ⎇/alt to toggle more menu items when available.

Start-up Chime
Muting your speakers before a reboot/shutdown will mute the chime sound at start-up. (NOTE: This might not might work for everybody or all models. However, it works on my C2D iMac7,1 ).
Handy if you plan on being in a library or classroom when you fire up your Mac for the first time.

 

Mac OS X:

Holding Cmd and Using backspace will delete entire lines of text.

 

Mac OS X:

Probably the best way to close multiple Apps at once is to use the App Switching keyboard shortcut, Cmd+Tab, if you continue to hold down Cmd, you can release Tab and use other commands, like Cmd+Q to close whatever app you like from the App Switching Pop-up.

 

so how to maximize windows?

 

The jury is still out on that one.

 

To maximize an app sitting in the dock:

1. Cmd-Tab to the minimized app.
2. Press and hold Option.
3. Release the Cmd key.

For zooming (green button):

You have to set up a custom keyboard shortcut.

System Preferences
-> Keyboard & Mouse
-> Keyboard Shortcuts
-> Click the +
-> Make sure it says All Applications in the dropdown.
-> In the menu title type in "Zoom" (Capitalization matters).
-> Click in the keyboard shortcut area and set the keyboard shortcut you want.

For example: cmd-opt-ctrl-m or something.
It should take affect on the next application launch.


Circa I think you should pick out the best / most useful tips here and organize them on the first post, giving credit to the the tipster. Then maybe we can get a sticky?

 

and how to full screen?

 

OS X's philosophy is that fully maximized windows, i.e., windows that take up the entire screen are inefficient due to OS X drag and drop, multitasking methodology.

There is no full-screen button in OS X. The green zoom button just resizes the window based on the contents of the window.

Safari for example, depending on the layout of the webpage, will resize the window to its optimal horizontal width on the first click of the green button and on the second click it will find the optimal vertical size of the window based on content and available vertical screen real estate to bottom of the screen; or if you have the dock visible, to the top of the dock.

In my experience, the zoom button needs to be looked at again. It does all kinds of wacky things depending on the program. For example clicking the zoom button in textedit or terminal will maximize the window to fit the whole screen like you would expect, but in address book clicking the green button will optimally try and resize the window based on it contents in an effort to get rid of the outside horizontal and vertical scroll bars.

 

Mac OS X:

you know when you quit an app, and are asked if you would like to Cancel, Don't Save, Save?

well, you can hit return to save, esc to cancel, but what is the darned keyboard shortcut for "Don't Save", "Replace", etc.?

well with any Cocoa app, you can actually use shortcuts like Cmd+D when a save dialogue box is up to choose "Don't Save" and never have to touch the mouse or trackpad. Very good time saver. also, this works in the same way for things like "Replace", Cmd+R.

Use it, love it, learn it, . . . um, save time!


[ahem, Sticky, or atleast post a link in other Stickies ^_^]