If you like your screen as clean and empty of distractions as possible, then check out the “Automatically hide and show the menu bar” setting in System Preferences, General. This is new for El Capitan. When turned on, the menu bar at the top of your screen will only appear if you move the cursor up there.
On your Mac in El Capitan you probably already know that you can read articles with fewer distractions using the Safari Reader function. Just tap the little Reader button next to the address field or choose View, Show Reader. Once you do that, you’ll get another button that looks like “AA” on the right side of the address field. Click that to change the font, and also to select a different background shade. Select the darker shades to invert the text and read white text on a dark background. Handy for reading at night.
Sometimes you want to skip the trash can. In El Capitan you can do this by selecting the file, choosing File, Move To Trash while holding down the Option key. The menu item changes to Delete Immediately. The keyboard shortcut is Option+Command+Delete.
If you ever lose the cursor on your screen, El Capitan makes it easy to find. Just move rapidly back and forth using your mouse or trackpad and the cursor will increase in size allowing you to spot it.
OS X El Capitan allows you to move the Spotlight window, unlike Yosemite which kept it locked in the center of the screen. Use Command+space to bring up spotlight. Then You can drag the very top of the window, or the Spotlight icon at the top left corner to move the window. This is handy for getting it out of the way when you are trying to refer to something else on the screen. You can also drag the top or bottom of the window to make it larger or smaller.
With iOS 9 you can save a copy of a web page to iBooks as a PDF document. While viewing a page in Safari, tap the share/actions button at the top of the screen. Then look for the Save PDF to iBooks button. This could be a handy way to save a long article or Wikipedia page for offline viewing.
If you want to see how many photos are in your library in the new Photos app, start by bringing up the left sidebar if you don’t already see it (View, Show Sidebar). Then select Photos, the top item. Then use Window, Info (or Command+I) to see the total number of photos and the space used by your entire library.
This is one of those tips where if you are 20 or younger it is probably obvious, but if you are older it may have never occurred to you. You can use Emoji symbols in folder names on both OS X and iOS. With iOS it is easy to switch keyboards while typing an app folder name. With OS X you need to use the Character Viewer or copy and paste an emoji from a document. Either way, it can help your folders stand out and make them easier to find.
Want to really delete a file? Instead of choosing Empty Trash from the Finder menu, choose Secure Empty Trash. The difference is that the latter will overwrite the bits for that file, completely erasing it. The former only forgets that the bits were a file in the first place, but leaves them there until they are overwritten by something else. It is possible in that case to sometimes retrieve the file using special software. You can also go into Finder, Preferences, Advanced and make this option the only one.
Did you know you can have multiple viewer windows in Apple Mail? Just choose File, New Viewer Window. You can focus on different messages or even different inboxes in each window. This makes managing multiple email accounts much easier.
It is quick and easy to see what coverage you have for your Mac if you have Yosemite. Choose About This Mac from the Apple menu. Then Click Service at the top. Now click the “Check my service” link and it will load a page on the web that uses your serial number to check your coverage. You can even contact support or set up a repair from this page.
If you are chatting from Mac to Mac using the Messages app you can click on the Details button at the top and select the screen sharing button (two rectangles) to share your screen or have the other party share theirs. You can use this to help a less computer savvy relative or friend with a problem, or just to let them observe a presentation you are working on.
If you have been tinkering with the icons on your Dock on your Mac and other Dock settings and wish to start over with the default set of shortcuts, you can do so by typing two lines in the Terminal app. First type “defaults delete com.apple.dock” — that will clear your Dock preferences. Then type “killall Dock” — that will restart the Dock. Note that you need to capitalize the D for it to work as Terminal commands are case-sensitive.
With Apple Music and Beats 1 more people are keeping iTunes open on their Macs while doing other work. The MiniPlayer window is handy for pausing, skipping or liking songs. You can bring it up many ways, including choosing Window, MiniPlayer or clicking on the small album artwork icon at the very top of the main iTunes window. By going to iTunes, Preferences, Advanced you can can select “Keep MiniPlayer on top of all other windows” to make sure you don’t lose it while working in other apps.
If you close a window in Safari by mistake, you can instantly reopen it and reload that page by choosing History, Reopen Last Closed Window. If you closed a tab in a window it is even easier. You can useEdit, Undo Close Tab or just press Command+Z.
You can see a preview of the select file when you are using Column view in the Finder. In Yosemite, you can also bring up the preview pane in List and Icon view. Just select View, Show Preview.
Want to see where a link really leads before clicking? In Safari, choose View, Show Status Bar. Then you’ll see a thin bar at the very bottom of your Safari window. When you move your cursor over a link, you’ll see the URL there so you know before you click.
If you find that it is taking a while to fetch your email, or send it out, go to Window, Activity to bring up window that shows you what the Mail app is doing at the moment. You’ll see a list of tasks that it is currently performing that may give you a clue what is going on. It will provide you with a way to see the progress of Mail activities.
While viewing a folder in the Finder in List mode, you can see the sizes of each file. If not, use Command+J and turn on “Size” there and it will appear as a column. In addition, you can check “Calculate All Sizes” and then you’ll see the total file size of each subfolder.
Instead of seeing the time with digits in your menu bar, you can switch to a little analog clock which takes up less space. Go to System Preferences, Date & Time, Clock. Then switch from Digital to Analog. Or, simply click on the time in the menu bar and select one or the other.
