On the surface, macOS has remained unchanged throughout generations of updates. Dig deeper, however, and you’ll find a string of handy features Apple has added to its desktop operating system every year. Whether you’re new to macOS or have owned a macbroo for ages, these lesser-known features can help you save a few clicks and potentially make your workflow more productive.
On your Mac, you don’t need to constantly switch back and forth between what you’re doing and the audio source to control media playback. macOS allows you to pin a universal media player to the menu bar. With this widget, you can pause/play and adjust playback on just about every platform, from the Apple Music app to a YouTube video playing on a browser.
Go to System Preferences > Dock & Menu Bar > Now Playing and check the “Show in Menu Bar” box to enable the media player widget. From the dropdown underneath this option, you can choose always to have this on display or only when there’s an active playback.
2. Turn your screen’s corners into shortcuts
There are only so many keyboard shortcuts you can learn and remember. macOS, though, has a better alternative for you: hot corners.
macOS lets you link a handful of actions to your screen’s four corners. When you hover your cursor over any of them, your Mac will automatically execute the shortcut you’ve set it to.
To set up hot corners, visit System Preferences > Mission Control and click “Hot Corners.”
Select the dropdown next to the corner you want to configure and pick what should happen when you bring your mouse pointer to it. You can take a quick note, lock your computer, and pull out the notification center by simply hovering over one of your desktop’s corners.
3. Pin files and folders to the dock
The strip of icons at the bottom of your Mac’s screen can hold much more than your favorite apps. You can also instantly access your files and folders from macOS’s dock.
To pin a file or folder to the macOS dock, head over to its location in the Finder app. Single-click the item and open the “File” menu at the top. Hold down the Shift key on your keyboard to reveal a hidden “Add to Dock” option and click that to create a shortcut to the selected file or folder on the dock. Alternatively, you can also press the Ctrl+Cmd+Shift+T keyboard combination.
4. Use macOS’ full-fledged screenshot and recorder tool
You may be familiar with screenshotting a portion of your display or QuickPlayer’s screen recorder, but your Mac also has a separate all-in-one tool for screenshots.
MacOS’s dedicated tool for taking screenshots and recording screen content is probably its best-kept secret. It launches a dashboard-like interface where you’ll find all the options you’d need to capture your screen in one place. You can record a particular area of your display, specify whether you want microphone input and the mouse pointer, and more.
You can access the macOS’ screenshot app either from the launchpad or with the “Cmd + Shift + 5” shortcut.
5. Double-click a window to minimize it
By default, when you double-click an app’s window on macOS, it maximizes to fit the screen size. In my experience, I’ve found little use for this behavior, but thankfully, macOS lets you switch to a different action. Instead of maximizing the window, you can alternatively choose to minimize it into the dock when you double-click its title bar. To do this, go to System Preferences > Dock & Menu Bar and select “minimize” from the “Double-click a window’s title bar to” dropdown. Here is our latest article karket