Posts By: Gary Rosenzweig

Text Replacement is a built-in function on your Mac that allows you to automatically replace one sequence of characters with another. You can use them to fix common typos, make it easier to type long phases, or even allows you to insert longer passages you commonly use when writing. They can also help when trying to type special characters or emoji. Text Replacement works in most apps though some have special settings.

If your hard drive is close to full you may want to look through your hard drive to find out which files and folders are using the most space. You can do this by using List view in the Finder, along with the Calculate All Sizes option. You can also search for large files. Finding large folders and files may give you the chance to archive or delete things taking up a lot of space that you don't need any longer.

Many new Mac users try to use the buttons at the top of windows to minimize the window and send it to the Dock, when what they really want to do is to hide the whole app. It is usually quicker and more effective to hide an app using Command+H than to minimize a single document window. Learn the difference between minimizing and hiding and when to use each. Another option is to quit the app knowing that the document windows will reappear when you launch it again.

By using iCloud.com you can access your iCloud Drive files from any computer. Some files, like Pages, Numbers and Keynote can even be edited and updated right in the web browser with web-based versions of those apps. Other apps allow you to store finished versions of projects, such as iMovie videos, and access them from iCloud.com. Using the iCloud.com interface, you can rename or delete files from your iCloud Drive folders.

You can almost completely control your Mac using just your keyboard. Many keyboard shortcuts offer you a way to access functions without using a mouse or trackpad. You can even access the menu bar and buttons in dialog boxes with the keyboard. You can jump right to folders in the Finder by typing the folder's path. You can also create your own keyboard shortcuts.

If your iPhoto library is huge, one way you can cut it down is to remove all of the videos and store them elsewhere. But finding and then deleting videos in iPhoto can be tricky. You'll need to create a smart album, and then flag the videos before using a hidden command that moves all flagged items to the trash.

You can change the alert sound on your Mac using System Preferences. There are a variety of built-in sounds to choose from. You can also import your own sound files by placing them into a special folder. These files must use a special format, or at least have the file extension set to that format.

You can quickly find information inside of long web pages using Safari's Find function. By default you are searching only for the letters at the start of words, but you can change this to search for any place the letters appear. You can also select some text in a web page and then search for other occurrences of that text.

You can choose almost any image to be your desktop background. Apple provides a variety of images to use, or you can select one of your own photos or any image you obtain. You can also choose a solid color. You can set the desktop background to change at regular intervals, selecting from a folder of images. Advanced users can even access and change the default backgrounds.

With Yosemite can use Automator to create commands that your Mac will react to using only your voice. In this example, we create a command that responds to the command 'day of week' with the spoken day of the week. You can now use JavaScript to create Automator scripts which makes this even easier to do.

You can use the QuickTime Player in Yosemite to record your iOS device's screen and create videos. You'll need iOS 8 on your device and Yosemite on your Mac, plus the lightning cable to attach the two. Then you can record the screen as well as audio from a microphone. You can then save it, trim it or share it. You can also bring the video into other apps for more editing.

If you need to type special characters, such as letter variations or symbols, you can use one of several different methods. For letters with accent marks, you can just hold down the key on your keyboard. You can also learn special keyboard combinations. For other symbols you can use the Character Viewer to special for them. You can also save characters you use often for easy access.

You can use many different methods to trim video clips in iMovie. You can bring in a section of a clip, trim the ends by dragging or using keyboard commands, split the clip and remove unwanted sections, or adjust the clip ends with the Precision Trimmer and other tools. Some methods are easier while others are more versatile.