Please share your hidden OS X features or tips and tricks

Question

Do you know any hidden or little-known nice feature of Mac OS X? It doesn't matter what it is—maybe just a short terminal command or a keyboard shortcut. Share your experiences on hidden Mac OS X features with us..

Please post one tip per answer. Please also check to see if your answer has already been posted - duplicate answers will be deleted. To search answers for this question use inquestion:400 (or inquestion:this, directly from the question page) in addition to your search terms in the search box in the upper right hand corner of this page.

Also provide details on how to achieve that feature, and if possible, include a relevant image too!

Answer 1

If you are a recent convert to osx and miss the mouse/cursor acceleration of a windows mouse? OSX mouse doesnt feel quite as good as the windows mouse?

Give SteerMouse a try!

Answer 2

If you drag files while holding the command key, the contents move but don't copy. Great for cutting the copy - then delete original process.

Answer 3

If you connect two Mac's directly using a standard ethernet cable, you can quickly transfer files between them. It automatically configures the connection, and is much faster than doing large transfers over wireless.

Answer 4

I am new to Mac so this might be common knowledge but in snow leopard if you hold 3 and 2 during boot you will boot into 32 bit mode and the same goes foe 64 bit when holding the 6 and 4 keys during boot. Macfuse for example did not like running in 64 bit mode

Answer 5

Target Disk Mode lets you mount a Firewire-enabled Mac as an external disk, without even booting into the OS. Useful for quick transfers, large transfers (it's quite fast), recovery, etc.

Answer 6

Want to move back and forth through Safari pages or Finder windows?

⌘+[ to move back.
⌘+] to move forward.

Answer 7

You can ⌘-click and drag many OS provided icons from your menu bar to rearrange or remove them if it's getting too crowded. Doesn't work with all 3rd party ones, but many built-in ones (like volume, battery, sync, bluetooth, etc) can be removed this way. Many of them can be removed from the control panel, but this is the only way some of them can be removed once activated (that I'm aware of).

Answer 8

When resizing columns in Finder, hold down ⌥ whilst dragging, and you'll resize all columns and reset the default width.

Answer 9

Ever wanted to stop the iTunes visualizer at that really cool moment and take a picture? In iTunes 10 (and previous versions really) you can control what your visualizer is doing. You need to have a song playing to notice changes.

Simply press the ? key to see a help menu of the controls. On most visualizers press f to see the current FPS. (all except the default)

To freeze the default iTunes visualizer press F to freeze the mode, then press L to freeze the camera. Now that your visualizer is completely stopped, press M to change the mode. Turn the fog on and off with N (only works with certain themes). Change the color palette with P before freezing the mode or locking the camera or it has no effect. ⌘ + F for full screen, then ⌘+⇧+3 for full screen grab.

Viola, instant custom desktop pattern!

Answer 10

⌘ + ctrl + "two finger swipe" = change the opacity of the window under the cursor

Answer 11

In iTunes, it’s possible to make ⌘ + F focus the search input instead of toggling the full screen mode.

Simply enter this command in Terminal.app:

defaults write com.apple.iTunes NSUserKeyEquivalents -dict-add "Target Search Field" "@F"

Then, restart iTunes.

Disclaimer: This is just one of the many goodies in my .osx file.

Answer 12

LaTex from Grapher:

Answer 13

Also TinkerTool shows some hidden features

Answer 14

If you use random Backgrounds, there is a quick way to make them change when you want.

type in the terminal

killall Dock

This will make your random Desktopbackground change.

Answer 15

alt + ⌘ + left click in the dock hides all windows except application currently in focus. Great if you find window clutter distracting.

Answer 16

Secrets by Blacktree is a preference pane which enables many hidden OS X and specific application preferences (e.g. change Dock to 2D, change iTunes stoplights back to horizontal). Saves you a couple of trips to the Terminal.

Answer 17

There is a fast way to create a hidden folder on Mac OS. Hidden folders a created by typing "." on the beginning (e.g. ".hiddenfolder")

The Finder won't let you do this though. So we gonna use the terminal.

to create a new folder:

mkdir .hiddenfolder

first of course you have to navigate to the location, you want the folder to be. For example the Desktop:

cd /Users/USERNAME/Desktop/

or drag a folder into the Terminal to get it's address

To know where you are right now, type:

pwd

Another way is, to rename a folder. To do so type:

mv ActualFolderName .hiddenfolder

To open a hidden folder, make hidden files visible like described earlier, or use terminal (navigate there first, or type open absolute path)

open .hiddenfolder

or if you are in the hidden folder already, just type

open .

to show hidden folders/files in terminal type

ls -a

Answer 18

Not sure if it's posted already but you can drag folders and files from the finder into an application's open / save dialogue. It sets the save or open path to that of the folder or file you're dragging. Excellent when you prefer to use the finder to navigate but don't want to repeat the process in your app or vice versa. Also, on many cases, whilst in the open / save dialogue, you can hit command R to reveal the files in the finder.

Answer 19

You can adjust the scale of all windows (sizes of buttons and menus and toolbars) to fit more on a smaller screen. It was really helpful on my TV setup, because I couldn't see the bottom items in the System Preferences.

defaults write NSGlobalDomain AppleDisplayScaleFactor .75

to reset simply

defaults write NSGlobalDomain AppleDisplayScaleFactor 1

Or you can change it per Application

defaults write com.apple.iTunes AppleDisplayScaleFactor .7

Answer 20

You can force Expose to only show windows that are on the current Space (instead of all windows open on any Space). Type the following into Terminal:

defaults write com.apple.dock wvous-show-windows-in-other-spaces -bool FALSE

then, to restart Dock:

killall Dock

Answer 21

When closing an unsaved document ⌘+D will invoke Don't Save for you.

Use with care though.

Answer 22

Hold ⌘ you can drag icons to reorder on Status bar. Drag out of status bar mean delete it from status bar.

Answer 23

Hold ctrl and scroll with the mouse/trackpad in order to zoom the view at any time. Extremely handy in order to discern pixel differences of a UI.

Answer 24

When ⇧+clicking on an open app in the Dock the application hides.

Answer 25

Safari also supports a subset of Emacs keybindings

Answer 26

One of the most amazing things I know to do in the terminal is "doctor terminal" I just love it! :D I know it's a silly program that's easy to make but, no other operating system has it. I'm trying to get hold of the command now...

Answer 27

⌘ + ⇥ = switch between applications. Press ⌥ before releasing ⌘ and it will un-minimize minimized windows from that application.

Answer 28

In order to navigate with the keyboard in the menu bar, press ctrl+F2. The Apple icon in the menu bar will light up, and you can navigate through the menus using arrows and the ↩ key.

Answer 29

If you want to Open/Close FrontRow just use ⌘ + esc

Answer 30

When you're in the ⌘+Tab task switcher selecting the Finder and pressing ⇧+Q will restart the Finder.