7 Hidden Mac Tricks You Probably Never Knew About

If you knew these tricks, you’re no less than a macOS pro

Many of my pals refused to buy Macs saying they aren’t very customisable, and lack tricks they got used to with the Windows machines.

But that’s false. Bold period.

Apple has only hidden many tricks — which are to be discovered and used regularly for a cozy Mac experience.

Here I tell you 7 of such hidden tricks that give you a solid Mac experience.

#1. Hide Settings you don’t use

Observe the picture above. Do you find any difference between your System Preferences and the above one?

(Obvious) A. It has lesser settings.

I hid my lesser used settings so the window looks cleaner. Here’s how you can do it too.

Go to System Preferences ⚙️ < View (At the top) < Customise . Now uncheck all the settings you don’t need on the page. And click Done at the top.

#2. Accurate Brightness

A Mac has 16 levels of screen brightness. Pressing F1 or F2 increases or decreases it level-by-level. But, let me tell you your Mac actually has 64 levels of brightness.

How?

Instead of pressing F1 or F2, press Shift + Option + F1 or F2 to have smaller increments and decrements. This gives you granular control.

Quick Tip: This also works for volume. Try 'Shift + Option + F11 or F12'

#3. Easy Snip a Selected Portion

I always use ‘⌘+Shift+5’ and select the Capture Selected Portion to snip a specific portion of my screen. This is difficult as I have to align the existing snipper to the portion I need.

However, I lately discovered an easier alternate way to do it.

• Press ‘⌘+Shift+4'.
• Click and drag the pointer over the area you want to capture.
• The portion will copy to clipboard or save to a folder as per the setting you’ve set in the ‘⌘+Shift+5’ menu.

Simple.

#4. Use Spacebar to Preview Files

Say you’re about to get your Mac rid of unnecessary files and would like to know if a file is really needed. What would you do?

You double click and wait for the default app to open it. Right? It’s tiring.

Rather, try this: Select a file and click Spacebar to quick preview it. Click Spacebar again to close it. This is formally called Quick Look.

If you’d like to preview multiple files, select all of them and click Spacebar. You can switch among them with the ⬅️ and ➡️ keys.

#5. Easy Split Screen

The method most people use to Split Screen is to hover the pointer over the green button (at the top-left corner), click Tile Window to Left or Right of Screen , and choose another open window that shares screen.

But there’s an easier way. Do this:

• Have windows on different desktops by clicking their green buttons.
• Swipe three fingers up the trackpad.
• Drag a window towards the other to get them into Split Screen mode.

#6. Empty Bin with this Simple Shortcut

Emptying a trash bin doesn’t need you to enter it. Wait, I’m talking about macOS.

Simply press ‘⌘+Shift+delete’ on Desktop (or Finder) to get this menu.

#7. Mirror iPhone to Mac

This is the most underrated trick I see no one using.

Even most white-collar people in board meetings use third-party apps to mirror their iPhone content to Macs, ignoring the easier way involving just two clicks.

To do this,

• Connect your Mac and iPhone to the same Wi-Fi network.
• Open the Control Center of your iPhone.
• Click on this icon that indicates Screen Mirroring .

• Click on the Mac’s name you want to mirror to.

That’s it!

Best part, if you’re watching videos on your iPhone and you do this, the audio also gets transferred to your Mac, thereby giving out louder sound.

Quick Tip: This also works between iPhone and Smart TVs.

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