Need to create a quick Microsoft Word document but don’t have Word? No problem. Just use TextEdit. Create a rich text document in TextEdit and when you go to save, choose one of several different Word formats from the File Format pull-down menu at the bottom of the save dialog. You can also open Word documents in TextEdit, though it can’t handle any fancy formatting or objects.
Everyone knows you can use Spotlight for calculations. Press Command+Space and then type something like 3+4+5 and you’ll see 12 as the result. You can then use Command+c t copy that result. You don’t need to select anything. If you then use Command+a (select all) and Command+v (paste) you can place that result back into Spotlight to start a new calculation with that number.
If you use subtitles or captions under videos, you can set the style in most cases using a setting in System Preferences, Accessibility, Captions. You can choose from four styles: Transparent Background, Classic, Large Text or Outline. This works in iTunes and the new Catalina TV app and other places like QuickTime Player, provided the video you are watching has a subtitles or captions track.
If you see your Macintosh HD and other drives on your Desktop, you can remove those to reduce clutter. Just go to Finder, Preferences and then click on the General tab at the top. Then you can uncheck Hard disks and External disks. It is easy to get to the top level of these drives already by just using Go, Computer in the Finder.
Imagine you have a full Trash folder but want to give the files there a quick look before you empty it. Meanwhile, you have a file you need to delete now. You can delete any file immediately by selecting it, going to the File menu in the Finder, and holding down the Option key. The Move To Trash command changes to Delete Immediately. You can also use Command+Option+Delete.
Sure would be nice if there was a redial button on the iPhone’s Phone app keypad, right? Guess what, there is one. Just tap the big green Call button at the bottom. If you haven’t entered any numbers yet, this brings up the last number dialed. Then tap it again to call.
If you want to know what other people are search for in the Mac App Store, just go to the Search box at the top left. Click in it but don’t type anything. You’ll see a list of trending keywords appear. You can also click on Categories and then select a category to see top app sales and free apps in that category.
You can quickly look something up on the web without even starting in the browser. Use Command+Space to bring up Spotlight, then type a word or phrase. Then Use Command+B to instantly jump to a web search for that term. You can also use Command+L to jump to the dictionary definition of a word in Spotlight. Pressing Return immediately after Command+L will open the Dictionary app.
In macOS Mojave you can change some of the basic colors used throughout the system. Find a color that works better for you or fits your mood for the day. Go to System Preferences, General and play around with Accent Color and Highlight Color.
While Safari on Mac and iOS fills in passwords from your Keychain automatically, you can also request to see a list of your passwords on both platforms. Just tell Siri “Passwords” and you’ll go straight to Safari Preferences on your Mac and Settings on your iOS device to see your passwords list.
If you find that you are losing your cursor on your busy Mac screen, you can increase its size in System Preferences, Accessibility, Display.
You probably know that you can drag a file to an app icon in the Dock to open it. But that only works if the app recognizes the file as a type it can handle. If you want to force an app to try to open a file, hold down the Option and Command keys and drag the file to the Dock icon. If the app can’t handle the file you’ll get an error message.
In addition to including normal links in email messages, you can also use links like imessage://myemail@example.com to allow someone to click and start a conversation in Messages. Just substitute your own Apple ID email address. You can also use facetime://myemail@example.com to have them start a FaceTime call to you. Web pages and social media posts can also use these, though it probably only makes sense to have a public link if you are doing sales or customer support for something and using a company Apple ID.
You can lock your Mac with a quick menu choice or keyboard shortcut. Starting with High Sierra, if you choose the Apple menu you will see Lock Screen as an option. The keyboard shortcut is Control+Command+Q. This is handy if you need to step away from your desk at a moment’s notice.
When you use a Finder window to search for files, you won’t get results in the System or top-level Library folder. But you can add these by adding the criteria “System files” and “are included.” You will most likely have to choose “Other” as the criteria and then search for “System files” to add it.
You can see Recent Items in the Apple menu, when you Control+click on an app in the Dock, and in File, Open Recent in most apps. If you want to increase the number of items listed for a longer history, you can se it in System Preferences, General, Recent items. The lists won’t grow beyond their current size right away, but will expand as you open more items.
If you are like me, you typically have dozens of tabs open in Safari on your iPhone because each time you click a link in an app or email it opens a new one. You can quickly close all of the tabs by tapping and holding the tabs button at the bottom right, it looks like two squares, one on top of the other. Then you have the option to close all tabs with one tap.
You don’t need to launch System Preferences and then hunt for a section. Instead, you can use the Spotlight Menu (Command+space) and search directly for the section to for quick access. Try it with Keyboard, Users & Groups, Displays, Energy Saver, and so on.
If you are having trouble viewing a particular web page, it could be because the website has been updated, but some of the elements on the page are still being pulled from your local web browser’s cache. Hold the Option key and select View, Reload Page From Origin to reload the page and re-fetch all of the elements used by that page. Option+Command+R is the shortcut.
If you don’t like the order of the icons on the right side of your menu bar, you can change the order by holding the Command key and dragging left or right. You can’t move the Notifications Center icon all the way to the right, however. Sometimes if an app has many menu bar items, the menu bar icons to the left won’t appear. So it makes sense to move more important icons to the right.
