10 Weird macOS Features That Are Somewhat Useful

There are some strange and hidden features in macOS. Here are 10 that are also somewhat useful. Learn how to make your Mac speak the time, summarize articles, speak in odd voices, show hidden Finder sorting columns and more.

Comments: 8 Responses to “10 Weird macOS Features That Are Somewhat Useful”

    Lorenz Rychner
    3 years ago

    Gary, speaking of weird behind-the-scenes, have you ever addressed the history of the "sosumi" system sound and how/why it has only just recently been renamed "sonumi"? Lots of fun stuff in the former, not so sure about the latter.

    3 years ago

    Lorenz: I think I've mentioned it a few times in various places. I think the new name is just "nu" as in "new."

    Myron Gochnauer
    3 years ago

    "Speaking" text is more than *somewhat* useful! It's a great way to proofread anything you write. For most people it is much easier to hear writing errors than see/read them.

    John Konopka
    3 years ago

    Another useful feature that has been around for a long time is Text Clippings. Select text in an app such as Pages, click and hold for a bit then drag that selection to the desktop. It creates a file with that text. Later you can drag that back anywhere you need text. This preserves the formatting better than the clipboard. Often,if you select text in one application and paste it in another the formatting will be lost or changed. Text Clippings will do a better job of preserving formatting.

    nick
    3 years ago

    Gary, unless I'm mistaken, at one time, couldn't you access the Clipboard through Spotlight Search? And I think it used to show a history list of text on clipboard. I find it strange that Clipboard is hidden away in Finder and it doesn't even show a keyboard shortcut, although I'm sure one can be created. Copying and pasting text into messages, emails etc is probably one of the most common tasks I do on a Mac, and I would have thought that Clipboard would be a useful tool for a lot of users.

    nick
    3 years ago

    Forgot to ask...would there be a way to place a Clipboard icon on the upper right taskbar? thx

    3 years ago

    Nick: what do you mean? What are you looking for this icon to do? If you use a third party clipboard manager, they usually do add an icon to the menu bar.

    3 years ago

    Nick: (answering you let previous comment): there was never a Spoltlight function to access the clipboard and there is no previous clipboard function in macOS. But I definitely recommend getting a clipboard manager. I’ve been using CloudClip, but there are many other good ones in the App Store.

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