Master Context Menus On Your Mac

Hi, this is Gary with MacMost.com. Let me show you how to master Context Menus on your Mac. 

Context Menus are menus that appear anywhere on your screen at the location of the Pointer and give you control over the object that you're pointing at. Sometimes people call them Right Click Menus or windows users may know them as Shortcut Menus. There are many other names as well. For instance, in documentation sometimes they are referred to as Contextual Menus. Let me show you can example here. 

Here I am in the Finder and I'm going to use two fingers to click on the trackpad with my Pointer over this file here. When I do so it brings up the Context Menu. You can see the first item here is open and there are a variety of different commands here. The thing about the Context Menus are is that they operate based on the context. In this case the context is that file. So these are things that can affect that file. This is different than the Menu Bar where the pointer is actually in the Menu Bar, not over the item that it is affecting. The Menu Bar can affect the entire system, it could affect the entire app, or window that you are using. Also, it often has command, usually, in Edit and File and other menus for items that are selected. Selected like this, not necessarily where the pointer is but what remains selected even after the pointer moves away. 

So notice, for instance, I can have this file selected here and if I go to Edit, Copy it is going to copy that file. But if I move my pointer to another file, like this one, and I click with two fingers on the trackpad to bring up the Context Menu, the Context Menu is for the item that was under the pointer when I used the two fingers to click. So here Copy would copy that file, whereas in the Edit Menu it would copy the selected file. 

Now I mentioned one way to bring up the Context Menu and that is to use two-fingers and click with both fingers on a trackpad. But you could also use a mouse and click on the right side of the mouse. Or if you have a non-Apple mouse sometimes there's a completely separate right button. You can also hold the Control Key on your keyboard and then just do a regular click on either the mouse or trackpad. So the basic three ways are Control Click, Right Click, or two-finger click on a trackpad. However, you can customize the way that a trackpad or mouse works. 

So, for instance, in System Settings here if you go down to Trackpad you'll see here Secondary Click. Secondary Click is how you bring up the Context Menu. You can see the default is Click or Tap with two fingers. You can also switch that to Click in the Bottom Right Corner, or Click in the Bottom Left Corner. Or you can turn it Off. So you can only use the Control Key and click on your trackpad to bring up the Context Menu. With an Apple Mouse you also have a secondary click setting here and you can choose right side, left side, or Off as well. Now your settings are going to be different, of course, if you've got a third party mouse or trackpad. 

In addition to working on things like Files in the Finder you can use it on items in almost any app. For instance, you can Control Click, two-finger click, or Right Click on a word in a Word Processing App and you get a Context Menu for that word. If you make a longer selection and you bring up the Context Menu the Context Menu is now for the entire selection. Here I am in Pixelmator Pro and I can make a selection like this and if I Control Click, Right Click, or two-finger click inside the selection it gives me a Context Menu for that selection. But, I could also not have any selection and the Context Menu is for the image. Or if I were to Control Click, Right Click, two-finger click on the layer here in the left sidebar I get a Context Menu for that layer.

In Safari I can Control Click, two-finger click, or Right Click on a link and get a Context Menu for the link. I could also do it for something, say like an image, and it would give me a Context Menu for the image. So it is the context of whatever is under the Pointer when I bring up the Context Menu. So in the Finder here I can bring up a Context Menu for an item in the Sidebar. I can go down to the Dock and I can use Control Click, Right Click, or two-finger click to bring up a menu for an item in the Dock. In the Dock there's an additional way to bring up the Context Menu. That is to Click and Hold and it will bring up the Context Menu. Typically then you have to keep holding, move and release over the item that you want to select. 

You can even bring up a Context Menu for places where there's no item. For instance if you were to Control Click, Right Click, or two-finger click on the Desktop, so a blank area on the Desktop with nothing else there, you get a Context Menu for the Desktop. So even if you don't think there is context, often there is. 

So the idea behind Context Menus is when you want to perform a specific action on something on the screen you don't have to select it and then go hunting for that command in the Menu Bar. You can simply Control Click, Right Click, or two-finger click on that item to see what actions are possible while at the same time indicating that you want that action performed on that item. You can do this for multiple items as well. For instance in the Finder here I can use the Command Key and select several files. Once I have multiple items selected all you need to do is Control Click, Right Click, or two-finger click on one of those in the selection and the Context Menu applies to all of those items. So a copy would copy all of those items and you can see the Context Menu evens changes here with a new item at the top allowing me to create a Folder with those four items. Something you wouldn't see if you were just bringing up the Context Menu for one Finder. item. 

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Now it is important to note that a lot of the commands you'll see in the Context Menu also exists in the Menu Bar. They just work only if the item is selected. So, for instance, for this file since it is selected I can go to file and then use Open or I can go to Edit and then use Copy. But without anything selected, like this, then you can see menu items are grayed out or sometimes they are active but don't actually work on anything because the Menu Bar doesn't have a selection. I has no context of its own. However if you were to Control Click, Right Click, or two-finger click on the item there, even with it not selected, there is context. So you can access these items. 

Now often people ask me, well what about Keyboard Shortcuts. There doesn't seem to be any indication of Keyboard Shortcuts for these things here in the Context Menu. Keyboard Shortcuts aren't in Context Menus because with the keyboard there is no context. The keyboard is not pointing at anything, like the mouse or trackpad is. However, as I pointed out before, a lot of those commands are in both the Context Menu and the Menu Bar. You do have keyboard shortcuts there. So, for instance, for Open you can see it's Command O. So as long as an item is selected you can use the keyboard shortcut for the Menu Bar. You don't need a keyboard shortcut for the Context Menu version of that command. So most things that people want to perform with keyboard shortcuts are possible, you just have to select the item and then find the keyboard shortcut in the Menu Bar. 

Another question I often get is can you customize the Context Menu. The answer is basically NO. The main items here that you see in the Context Menu can't be changed. They are part of the system and they're augmented sometimes by third party apps that will add things to the Context Menu. However, there are some sub menus that can be customized. Quick Actions is one of those. If you look at Quick Actions you see you can customize it and it will launch System Settings and take you right into an area where you can  customize what is available in the Quick Action's part of the Context Menu. So you can see I've got a bunch of things turned On here. This is inside the Text File selected. Things like Rotate Left and Convert Image Don't Apply. However, if I were to select, say, an image, like this one, you can see under Quick Actions those are there. There is also a shortcut that I created that I added there.

So if you do want to add something to the Context Menu the best you can usually do is to create a shortcut in the Shortcuts App. Then set it so that it is available as a Quick Action on that type of file. Likewise, you've got the Services Submenu here which also has some additional things provided by the System and you can also, inside of Shortcuts create a shortcut and then make it available in the Shortcuts Menu particularly for the Finder so it's available here in the Submenu. So you can customize these two parts of the Context Menu. 

Now I talked about four ways to bring up Context Menus. Control Click, Right Click, two-finger Click, and sometimes with things like the Dock you can Click and Hold. But there's actually a fifth way. Using the keyboard. Brand new Apple Keyboards, the ones with the numeric keypad on the right, have a special key for bringing up the Context Menu. It's to the left of the Home Button. But you don't need that special key because you can also use Control. That's Control, not Command, and return to activate the Context Menu on the selected item. So remember the keyboard doesn't have context. It is not pointing at anything. So instead of relying of where the Pointer is located, it's going to take the selection. I'm going to click to select this file here. Then I'm going to use Control and Return. It will bring up a Context Menu for that particular item. The one that is selected. Not the one that the pointer was over. 

Now you can use this Keyboard Shortcut in many places but not all. So, for instance, we see it in the Finder here. In Pages I've got a selection and if I use Control Return it will bring up the Context Menu for that selection. In Safari it is a little more difficult because you don't typically select things. So, for instance, putting the pointer over this link here, I can do Control and Return and the Context Menu works on the whole window giving me some items here that are the equivalent to Control clicking on a blank spot on the page. But if I were to select an item, like that, and use Control and Return you can see it does bring up a Context Menu using the selection rather than what is under the pointer. 

Some apps don't do this at all. For instance here I can make a selection in Pixelmator Pro and Control and Return does nothing. Or I can go to the layers here on the left, Control and Return does nothing there. So Control and Return or that special Context Menu Key on newer large keyboards is useful but it doesn't work everywhere. Now once you use Control and Return you can then use the Arrow Keys to navigate through the menus here. Right arrow will take you into a submenu and then Return will activate that. 

So if you haven't been using Context Menus much before your next step is to go into the apps that you use all the time. For instance if you use Numbers all the time go into a Numbers document you're working on and try bringing up Context Menus in different places. For instance, do it for a cell. Do it for some text. Do it for one of the sheet buttons up here. See what happens when you do it to the background there. See what different things you can do with the Context Menu. Then see if there are ways that the Context Menu can make your everyday tasks a little bit easier. Also, remember in the future if you need to do something with an item on the screen in any app or in the Finder to try the Context Menu to see if you can do it from there without having to go and select it and find a command in the Menu Bar. 

Hope you found this useful. Thanks for watching.