General Mac tips

General Mac tips

Managing desktop

Use Expose to help access open windows: System Preferences…Dashboard & Expose.  I use the upper left corner of the screen to show all windows and the lower left corner to view desktop.

Keyboard shortcuts

<fn><delete> will do a forward delete
<fn><option><delete> deletes word to right of cursor
<Left Arrow>/<Right Arrow> to open/close folders in finder
Cmd+[, Cmd+] to move backward and forward in finder history
Cmd+<Up Arrow> to navigate up the folder hierarchy

Copy file path to clipboard

While in the right-click menu, hold down the OPTION key to reveal the “Copy (item name) as Pathname” option, it replaces the standard Copy option

How to Print Screen to a file on the desktop in Mac OS X

The basic functionality of taking a screen capture of a window or desktop in Mac OS X takes an image and dumps it to a file on the Mac desktop. Each uses the pressing of Command and Shift keys concurrently as the basis for execution, followed by a number:

  • Command+Shift+3: takes a screenshot of the full screen (or screens if multiple monitors), and save it as a file to the desktop
  • Command+Shift+4: brings up a selection box so you can specify an area to take a screenshot of, then save it as a file to the desktop
  • Command+Shift+4, then spacebar, then click a window: takes a screenshot of a window only and saves it as a file to the desktop

How to Print Screen to the Clipboard on a Mac

This functions a lot more like Print Screen in the Windows world. If you want to do the equivalent of Print Screen to the clipboard so that you can paste it into another app, these are the commands you’d want to use:

  • Command+Control+Shift+3: take a screenshot of the entire screen (screens if multiple monitors), and saves it to the clipboard for pasting elsewhere
  • Command+Control+Shift+4, then select an area: takes a screenshot of selection and saves it to the clipboard for pasting elsewhere
  • Command+Control+Shift+4, then space, then click a window: takes a screenshot of a window and saves it to the clipboard for pasting

Copy files skipping files that exist

Normally you are only giving the choice to Replace/Stop/Keep Both By  holding down the <Option> key when you drag and drop, Replace is “replaced” by Skip

Move Files in Finder

Command + C
Command + Options + V (Command + V will Copy)

Change default location for screenshots

  • Create new folder in finder.
  • Open up terminal and type in:  defaults write com.apple.screencapture location
  • Making sure there is a space after “location”, drag the folder you created to the terminal window to append the folder path
  • Hit Enter
  • Type killall SystemUIServer and hit enter

Show hidden files

Since the release of macOS Sierra, when in Finder, it is now possible to use the shortcut:

 CMD + SHIFT + .

Press once to show hidden files and again to hide them.

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