We’ve been bringing you the best guides on iOS and iPadOS for many years, guides like this fabulous compilation of iPhone keyboard tips that help you better understand and adapt the operating system usage of your mobile devices. These tips are really helpful when it comes to taking full advantage of all the complexity of Apple software and also save time in your daily tasks.
But this time, we’re going to focus on macOS, the operating system for Apple’s Mac computers. Today we are going to know a series of Hidden and little-known macOS tips by the average user of the system. If you’ve recently purchased a Mac or MacBook, we’re sure these little tips will come in handy.
With these tips for macOS, we’ll teach you how to quickly find the mouse cursor, play thumbnail videos with the PiP function, or assign shortcuts to certain system features related to sleep, the lock screen, or to the screen saver. That being said … shall we begin?
MacOS tips to get the most out of your Mac computer
1. Shake the mouse to find the cursor
If you’ve been using macOS for a short time, you might have been surprised at how gigantic your mouse cursor has become. This is a feature that Apple implemented so that users can easily find the cursor.
Maybe you have a lot of windows open or you are quite far from your Mac screen, if so, start shaking your Magic Mouse to magnify the cursor so that you can find it instantly. It also works by quickly sliding your finger on the trackpad in different directions.
To turn this macOS feature on or off, go to System Preferences> Accessibility> Display> Cursor and activate or deactivate the “Shake the mouse pointer to locate it” function. In addition, you can also change the size of the mouse pointer.
2. Redisplay the scroll bars
A few years ago, Apple software engineers and developers decided to clean up the user interface of the Mac operating system, and one of the many decisions was, as MacWorld tells us, to do away with the scroll bars. .
However, even though they don’t appear by default in the macOS user interface, they’re still there. So if you want to use a scroll bar to quickly find what you’re looking for on a webpage or in a document, we’ve got a tip for you.
To retrieve the scroll bars of an application, go to System Preferences> General and look for the option “Show scroll bars”. You can choose between automatically, while scrolling or always.
3. View video thumbnails with Picture-in-Picture
Picture-in-Picture (PiP) allows macOS users to continue playing overlay and thumbnail video while performing other actions in the background. This is especially useful if you are reading the news or working on a project and need to continue watching the video without having to use two windows.
The method of enabling foreground video overlay with the “Picture in Picture” feature may vary depending on the application or video player you are using. Typically, the default method is to press a button in the shape of two squares located in the lower right corner of videos. But on websites like YouTube or Netflix, this feature is not available.
If you want to enable video playback with Picture-in-Picture on Netflix or YouTube, there is a very useful tip that you will find very useful. When you watch a video, right click on the volume symbol in the Safari address bar and select the “Activate picture in picture” option.
Finally, other video players will allow you to use the function by right clicking on any area of the video.
4. Use corners
macOS gives users the ability to use the corners of the screen to access shortcuts to different functions. If you are new to Mac, you probably weren’t familiar with this feature yet. It’s very useful.
If you access System Preferences> Desktop & Screen Saver You can activate the function from the “Coins enabled” button. Here you can assign each of the four corners of your Mac screen to actions such as opening Mission Control, opening Launchpad, starting the screen saver, returning to the desktop, l opening the action center, locking the screen or putting your Mac to sleep, among other functions.
5. Preview the contents of the file
The macOS Preview app is a great tool for viewing the content of images and PDF documents, with the ability to edit files quickly and efficiently. However, it is more convenient to preview the contents of the files with a very interesting macOS trick.
If you are looking for a specific file or just want to take a look at an image, click click once on any file and press the space key on your Mac computer keyboard. A small preview window of the file contents will open. To close the preview, press the space key again.
And these were all tips for macOS that we have compiled for today’s guide. Most of them are very little known to the average Mac user, while others – like using Picture in Picture – are very popular but not everyone can master all aspects. We hope that you have found these Mac tips helpful and that you can get the most out of your computer’s operating system.
If you want to learn more about your Mac software, we recommend that you visit this list of macOS Big Sur tips with 10 fantastic tips that will make you a true Mac master.
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