Veterans or newbies to macOS, especially those who have left Windows, are not always able to discover or incorporate into their routine all the commands and resources that Apple’s operating system offers to make it easier to use.
Because of this, we’ve separated 10 essential tips for you to increase your productivity and get the best out of your Mac. Check it out below!
1. Open windows in Full Screen Mode
No more screen distractions: Full Screen Mode lets you expand an application window, filling your Mac’s entire screen and automatically hiding both the Dock and the menu bar. This function can be applied in all macOS native apps, including Finder itself, but with the exception of System Preferences.
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Third-party programs and software require the developer to have adapted the application to work in Full Screen Mode. If this is not possible, the green icon will only display the “+” symbol and expand the window as far as possible inside the desktop.
2. Open multiple worktables
How many programs do you have open on your Mac right now? The Finder, a browser, WhatsApp, Mail… This can get messy, can’t it? To help increase your productivity, access Mission Control and open multiple worktables at once. This way, you can leverage each desktop for a variety of purposes and stay organized.
To access Mission Control, drag three fingers up on the trackpad or press the F3 button on your keyboard, and click the “+” sign at the top right of the screen. Switch between tables, choosing manually with the F3 key or shortcuts ⌃ Control + left or right arrow.
What’s more, you can change the background image of each of the open tables, as well as dragging them from one side to the other to reorder them in Mission Control. Not cool?
3. Take screenshots or record the screen
One of the simplest and most useful things to do on the Mac is to take a screenshot or record the screen, and doing this on macOS is definitely more convenient than on Windows. Find out below all the possible commands and what each one does:
- Capture the entire screen: ⌘ Command + ⇧ Shift + 3 (a thumbnail will appear in the corner of the screen, which you can click to immediately edit it. You can also wait a few seconds for the screenshot to appear on the desktop) ;
- Select a part of the screen: ⌘ Command + ⇧ Shift + 4 (hold down the mouse click and drag the cursor to select the area you want to capture);
- Capture only a specific window: ⌘ Command + ⇧ Shift + 4 + Spacebar (click on the window you want to capture);
- Open the Screen Capture native app: ⌘ Command + ⇧ Shift + 5 (open the app to record the entire screen or selected part);
- Capture the Touch Bar: ⌘ Command + ⇧ Shift + 6 (only available for MacBooks Pro with Touch Bar).
4. Use the main Mac shortcuts
Using shortcuts can help a lot to speed up simple tasks: navigating between open applications, finding documents quickly, copying, pasting and cutting, among other commands. Find below all the essential shortcuts that will facilitate your interaction with your Mac:
- Copy: ⌘ Command + C
- To paste: ⌘ Command + V
- Cut: ⌘ Command + X
- Undo: ⌘ Command + Z
- Print out: ⌘ Command + P
- Close the active window: ⌘ Command + W
- Close the active application: ⌘ Command + Q
- Switch open apps: ⌘ Command + Tab
- Erase forward: Fn + Delete
- Open Spotlight to find files and open apps: ⌘ Command + Spacebar
- Force close an open app: ⌥ Option + ⌘ Command + Esc
- Hide or show the Dock: ⌥ Option + ⌘ Command + D
5. Quickly view, edit and share files
Let’s say you have a folder full of jumbled images, such as photos, screenshots, and images from the internet, and you want to quickly locate a file. You can enlarge the thumbnail of each image, search by title, open one by one, make basic edits and share.
Prepared? Then select a file and hit the spacebar. To view other files in the same folder, simply navigate the keyboard arrows. To exit quick view mode, press the spacebar again and you’re done.
To edit a file, just open it again with quick view, tap the brush button at the top of the window and start editing it. You can cut, add texts, insert your signature in documents, among other functions. Use the button on the side to rotate the file and the share icon to send it to your contacts or AirDrop-enabled devices.
6. Unzip files in .rar format
New Mac users may have the unpleasant surprise of receiving compressed files with the .rar extension and not being able to open them natively. Although it works fine in other formats of this category, such as .zip, the Mac needs a third-party program to enable unzipping with the .rar format.
But calm down, solving this issue is quite simple, actually. Just open the macOS App Store and search for the .rar format in the search field. Download the app that best fits your usage profile and that’s it, use it to unzip your files with this extension.
7. Reposition the Dock
If you prefer to use your Mac’s Dock on the left or right side of the screen, or just want to test it that way, you can reposition it from a direct shortcut. Right-click on the Dock, avoiding touching any application icon, and then on “Position on Screen”. Test the three possible Dock positions on the screen and see which one best fits your machine usage profile.
8. Hide recently opened apps
A feature introduced a few years ago that macOS users didn’t entirely like was the insertion of an area with recently opened and used apps in the Mac Dock. If you don’t like or make sense of it, open Preferences. of your machine, go to “Dock and Menu Bar” and disable the option “Show recent applications in the Dock”.
9. Organize Notification Center widgets
The introduction of widgets on iPhone and iPad has also come to macOS. To add and use them, access your Mac’s Notification Center by dragging two fingers from outside to inside the trackpad or clicking on the far right corner of the screen.
Then click on “Edit Widgets”, located at the end of the Notification Center, and explore all available widget options for your Mac. When finished, click “Done” or simply close the Notification Center.
10. Keep your Mac up to date automatically
Finally, nothing worse than looking for an update every time news comes out or staying out of security packages and system optimizations, right? For this reason, macOS provides a feature to update your machine automatically.
To enable it, open your Mac’s System Preferences and go to “Software Update”. On the next screen, enable the option “Keep Mac up to date automatically”. Then click on “Advanced” and also enable all the feature’s options.
