in How To's, macOS |

Here are some crazy useful shortcuts for macOS users. Of course there are plenty more (full list linked at the bottom), but knowing these in particular will help a lot to increase a user’s productivity. I’m skipping most of the most common ones, like those used to create new documents, print, copy/paste, etc.. For reference, here’s the symbols used by Apple (in bold are the notations I’m using throughout):

  • ⌘ = Command / CMD
  • ⇧ = Shift
  • ⌫ = Backspace
  • ⌥ = Option / ALT
  • ⌃ = Control / CTRL
  • ←↑→↓ = Arrow Keys
  • ⇪ = Caps lock

 

Global (where not overridden):

  • CMD + Space bar: launch Spotlight search
  • F3: Show all current Desktop windows
  • CMD + F3: Show Desktop
    • Extra tip: while on show desktop, select and start dragging any file, press CMD+F3 again and you can drag the file to an open window
  • F5: Show all windows of the current Application (across Desktops)
  • CMD + Q: Quit an application
  • CMD + W: Close the active window/document
  • For keyboards that do not have a full set of keys:
    • CMD + ALT + Eject: Sleep a computer with no specific Power key on the keyboard (like the Apple Wireless Keyboard)
    • Fn + Backspace: serves the same purpose as a Delete key
      • Extra tip: It also works when using a virtualised Windows OS, for issuing CTRL + ALT + DEL when required
  • CTRL + Left/Right arrows: move to next/previous Desktop

Screenshots:

  • CMD + Shift + 3: Screenshot of the current screen (saved as PNG on the Desktop, by default)
  • CMD + Shift + 4: Screenshot of a selection (including cursor and active selections)
    • Bonus tip: press Space bar to make a screenshot of a single window

Finder / OS File Prompt Dialogs:

  • Shift+CMD+D: Show the Desktop folder in Finder or an open Open/Save dialog window
    • Extra tip: for the dialog windows CMD+D will also work, but it’s easier to memorise just one shortcut for this.
    • Extra tip: Drag a file or a folder onto an open Finder dialog box (such as a Open or Save As prompt) and it will browse instantly to that container
  • Space bar over a file: launch Quicklook and see a preview
  • CMD + Backspace: Move file to Trash
  • CMD + D: Duplicates a File
  • In a file Save prompt (screenshot below), the blue filled selection (Save) can be issued with Enter / Return, and the highlighted border (Don’t Save) with Space bar:

Quicklook:

  • Press ALT to zoom in at 100% and then you can touch and drag around
  • Press any of the directional keys to move the file/folder selection from where you launched Quicklook
  • Click on a thumbnail and then you can use the Up/Down arrows to move within that document.

Writing text:

  • CMD + ALT + V: paste plain text (works where supported, which is in most apps)
  • CMD + Left Arrow: Move to the beginning of the current line of text
  • CMD + Right Arrow: Move to the end of the current line of text
  • CMD + Top Arrow: Move to the top of the current document/textarea
  • CMD + Down Arrow: Move to the bottom of the current document/textarea
  • ALT + Right/Left Arrow: Move one word at a time
    • Extra tip: on any OS this type of shortcut will go over underscore characters “_” but not over dashes “-“, making the latter a better option as a suffix, prefix or divider for filenames you know you will edit.
  • Fn + Up: Page Up
  • Fn + Down: Page Down
  • Fn + Left: Home (beginning of the document)
  • Fn + Right: Eng of the document
  • Combine all the previous shortcuts with Shift to make a selection of text
  • Ctrl + CMD + Space bar: add emojis to your text! 😀
  • One pretty nifty for those of you who write in multiple languages: if you long press a given character key it will present you with the alternative accentuation possibilites, for which you hit the related displayed number. Here’s a screenshot:

In Terminal:

  • Ctrl + R: type to search through the last issued commands
  • Up/Down arrows: iterate through the last issued commands
  • Use TAB to fill in file/folder names while typing

Spectacle:

  • It’s not builtin; this is a 3rd party open source app, download here) that brings desktop window organisation to your macOS. Can’t live without it.

  • I have mine setup to do the following:
    • CMD + ALT + Arrow keys: Move the current window to occupy half of the screen (Left -> left half of the screen, and so one)
    • CMD + 2 (or 3,4,5): place and resize window to a quarter of the screen (in my case: top-left, bottom-left, top-right, bottom-right)
    • Bonus tip: Issue any of the previous shortcuts again and the window will enlarge by an extra 1/6, and again to reduce it an extra 1/6

Want More?

Here’s the full macOS shortcut list from Apple:

  • https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201236

And here’s the shortcut list for your Mac while booting up:

  • https://support.apple.com/pt-pt/HT201255
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