Most Mac users never take the time to customize their login screen. But there are several options there you will want to change to increase security or have the login screen better fit your needs. There is one very easy change that every user should make, to include a message on the login screen in case you lose your Mac and want to increase the chances that it will be returned to you.
One of the most powerful tools in Preview is the Smart Lasso. You can use that to quickly cut out part of an image to create a new one with a transparent background, or insert an object from one image into another. While Preview lacks a lot of the image editing tools found in more powerful apps, the Smart Lasso is probably easier to use than similar features in expensive apps.
You should be very careful when installing apps on your Mac and try to stick only to the Mac App Store or sites you fully trust. When you want to uninstall an app, you can usually do it through LaunchPad. However, for some apps you'll need to look for uninstall instructions at the developer's site. If needed, you can uninstall an app manually if you know where to look for its files.
iCloud email allows you to freely add some text to your regular email address to create unqiue addresses that you can use on an as-needed basis. So you can use a slightly different email address when you sign up for a service and easily identify if that service is sending you spam or seling your information. You can also use this to organize legitimate email by filtering into groups that use the same address. However, there are some downsides too.
If you want to trim some video from the beginning or end of a movie file, you don't need to use a video editing app. You can do it right in QuickTime Player. Trimming is lossless and can be done with precision. You can also cut sections out of the middle of your video and export a new copy. You can trim in the Photos app as well, though the original full-length video is always available if you wish to revert.
If you use the Find function in the Finder you can perform file searches that are much more complex than using Spotlight. You can add many pieces of criteria to the search other than a single search term. If you know how, you can use logic to combine search criteria and add very specific options. Then you can save your searches so you don't have to recreate them from scratch later.
A new feature in macOS Catalina will be the ability to share entire folders in iCloud Drive with others. Any files you place in the folder will be available to others that you specify, or anyone with a link of you wish. All with access to the folder can modify, add and delete files. This collaborative feature has been a part of other cloud soltuions for a while, so it is nice to finally have it as part of iCloud. You can also do this with iOS 13.
Many Mac users ignore the Go menu in the Finder, but there are some useful shortcuts there. You can access some of the most most used folders on your drive with this menu and see keyboard shortcuts for them. You can also access your Librray folder and Startup Disk through the Go menu if you know how. The Go to Folder function lets you move around by typing, which is preferred by many pro users.
With standard Mac apps like Pages, Numbers and Keynote, you can revert to a previously saved version of the file to retrieve text or items you may have deleted or changed. You can completely revert to the old version, or copy and paste some text from an old version. This also works with TextEdit and some third-party apps.
One of the biggest changes that will come with macOS Catalina is the replacement of the iTunes app. The new Music app will take over management of your existing iTunes music library and it has pretty much all of the functions that iTunes had. Preview what it looks like and see what the Mac Music app can do. Catalina will be released in the fall.
The color adjustment tools in Preview allow you to tint a photo, but without much control. By using this special technique, you can tint your photo any color you wish, and by any amount. You can also do this directly in the Photos app using the markup tools there. This is also a good way to fade a photo or to darken it without losing too much definition.
In addition to being able to capture a still image of your Mac's screen, you can easily record your screen to create a video using built-in functionality. The screen capture tool in macOS Mojave and beyond has a variety of options including being able to select an area of the screen, capture microphone audio, and review and edit the video before saving. You can also capture and send immediately in an email or share other ways.
While most Macs have trackpads, most users never bother to learn how to use some of the gestures available. You can see which ones you have available in System Preferences, along with videos that show you how to perform the gestures. Each has a keyboard shortcut you can use instead if you prefer.
Many of us have hundreds of app on our iPhone and iPad home screens. Keeping them organized can be a chore. But you can use techniques like app folders and searching by keyword to help. It is also a good idea to delete apps you rarely use, knowing you can download them again easily. When organizing apps, you can drag more than one at a time.
If you want to go beyond the title text feature in iMovie, you can create your own styled text in Keynote or any image editing tool and use the resulting image as an overlay. Then you can use picture-in-picture keyframes in iMovie to animate the text popping in from one side or scale as it moves. You can use this technique with any transparent image for a variety of effects.
There are two ways to highlight text in Pages on the Mac. The first has to do with editing and revisions, and is usually used when collaborating on a document with others. But you can also highlight text purely as a style, placing a solid color behind characters. To make things easier, you can create character styles for different text highlight colors and even assign keyboard shortcuts to them.
In addition to using the Emoji Viewer to type special characters, or holding a key to add accents, you can also learn some special keyboard combinations using the Keyboard Viewer. These allow you to type some symbols like degrees, pi, the Apple symbol and accent marks using standard keystrokes with the help of the Option and Shift keys. The Keyboard Viewer allows you to see exactly which key combinations match which characters. This is dependent on the type of keyboard you own.
