macOS Tips and Tricks (2022)
135 comments
·February 28, 2025tannhaeuser
tgv
> when I click a window, Mac OS brings to top all windows of the respective app
I don't have that, and I can't remember having done anything to stop it.
LeChuck
Are you looking for this? https://hypercritical.co/front-and-center/ Found it further down the comments.
lwouis
You may be interested in https://alt-tab-macos.netlify.app/
soulofmischief
I'll never get over the fact that I had to pay $8 just to have two windows split side-by-side without using the obtuse and intrusive fullscreen mode.
lelandfe
> when I click a window, Mac OS brings to top all windows of the respective app
vladvasiliu
tannhaeuser presumably talks about clicking the corresponding button in the dock. Although, granted, that's the "app" button.
tacker2000
Yea I also hate that. If i have two terminals on two screens then click on one, all the terminals are now in the foreground and blocking the IDE/whatever…
nomilk
Love that this is straight to the point.
My tips:
- Use Alfred. Game changer. It's an immediate improvement on spotlight search, you can run commands with three keystrokes (rather than opening a terminal, just command + space, then > <cmd>), it gives clipboard history and fast append (lets you press command + c twice fast to append to clipboard, and opt + command + c to search clipboard history), and lets you make 'workflows' to make frequent tasks extremely streamlined (I use one to open LLM prompts in five LLMs, so I press command + space 'llm <prompt>' and 5 browser tabs open with the same prompt in grok, claude, chatgpt, perplexity, and (local) deepseek.
- Itsycal: an 'install and forget' calendar for your menu bar (it also uses vim keybindings to move around the calendar which is a fun yet practical easter egg)
- There's still no good window manager for macOS. Rectangle is as close as it gets, but it's not good IMO because it only works on non full size windows. (the solution is just get ninja-like with three finger swipe, and endure using the mouse/trackpad more than you'd prefer)
- Vivid for double the screen brightness
mike1o1
I used to use Alfred, but I've since switched to using Raycast as I liked some of the UI integration a bit better. I recommend trying it out!
cpa
The product is good, but there’s a lot of telemetry that I was not comfortable with given that search bar like those may see very sensitive information.
I guess that’s the modern way to approach development.
donmcronald
There’s so much AI cruft on that page that I can’t even tell what the product is supposed to be.
wingerlang
Only one AI section out of 12 total sections, and while the second section has an AI example, it's only one out of five.
It's basically Alfred with more (?) functionality. Which is basically Spotlight with more functionality. Which is basically a tool to "do stuff" from anywhere on the device.
lycopodiopsida
Raycast has only rudimentary file workflows. Constant efforts for monetization (VC money) and milking AI hype are just cherries on top.
daggersandscars
> There's still no good window manager for macOS. Rectangle is as close as it gets, but it's not good IMO because it only works on non full size windows. (the solution is just get ninja-like with three finger swipe, and endure using the mouse/trackpad more than you'd prefer)
I don’t know your requirements for good, but I like Mizage’s Divvy. Works on Mac and Windows and can configure gTile similarly on Linux.
Lammy
Divvy+Stay is the magic combo for me: https://cordlessdog.com/stay/ (moves windows back to my external monitor when I plug it in)
krembo
Divvy is great, still working, yet development seems abandoned.
hedayet
I've been using the Amethyst window manager for ~10 years. It's open-source and generally works well, though it occasionally requires a restart (the app, not the OS)
meling
One thing that’s been annoying me about desktop/window management is that whenever I’ve organized my windows that I need for one project on one desktop, I eventually need to upgrade vscode or warp or macOS needs to be updated. And then restarting an app it forgets on which desktop each window was running… I typically have 3-5 projects open that I switch between (and trying to organize them on different desktops has been sort of futile.)
Anyone know how to pin a window to a desktop so that it remembers this across restarts?
kadomony
> - There's still no good window manager for macOS. Rectangle is as close as it gets, but it's not good IMO because it only works on non full size windows. (the solution is just get ninja-like with three finger swipe, and endure using the mouse/trackpad more than you'd prefer)
I use Magnet and it does the job well. If you're familiar with it, I'd love to know why you don't think it's a good window manager. Or do you just mean there's not a good NATIVE window manager for the OS?
percivalPep
+1 for magnet. Indispensable to the extent that on rare occasions I use others Macs where it’s not installed I’ll gift it to them (and they invariably become passionate about it).
nomilk
I only tried the intersection of 'free' and 'trusted' (the latter being subjective, based on a glance at website/repo). I hadn't yet tried Magnet, but I see it's $5 so I'll splash out over the weekend and give it a try. Thanks for the rec! Any newb tips appreciated.
annnoo
Have you tried out aerospace as window manager (https://github.com/nikitabobko/AeroSpace) ?
I’ve tried multiple different tools, but none really felt right - probably because I was using i3 on my desktop. And then I found aerospace, which is inspired by i3 and uses a lot of clever tricks to achieve this
kefirlife
I find rectangle to be pretty good after needing a replacement for sizeup when development stopped there. My solution is to just ignore the existence of the full screen windows in favor of using the max window size shortcut to fill the current display. Then I can send a window to another display or resize it with shortcuts that are easy enough to get used to and avoid all the transitions that take seconds. The whole full screen experience is so bad otherwise, and this is from someone that is very used to the trackpad and all their gestures.
gluteart
I lived with Alfred for many-many years, but Raycast seems much better this days. Simpler yet richer and constantly developed, many plugins, it's simple to do your own and... it has window manager
wlesieutre
Is Raycast open source at all? With nearly $50M of funding (most recently $30M series B last fall) I have to wonder about the long term sustainability and whether I want to invest my time and workflows into the whims of a VC backed “free forever” plan.
Alfred has been around for ages and I’m reasonably confident the developers aren’t going to screw me.
cosmic_cheese
This is a concern of mine as well. Alfred is also just so ridiculously lightweight and efficient compared to, well, everything these days. At 18MB on disk and sitting at 0% CPU and 42MB RAM on my machine right now with no spread of support processes, it feels almost like an endangered species Tiger-era Mac app that’s managed to survive to the current day.
mherrmann
My favorites:
To quickly find text, select some text and press ⌘E followed by ⌘G.
In save dialogs, press ⌘= to switch between the compact and expanded layout.
In save dialogs, press ~ to open a Go To File dialog prefilled with the home directory. Press / to open it prefilled with the root directory.
Hold Option while opening the Wi-Fi and Bluetooth menus to access extra options.
After copying a file, press ⌥⌘V to move the file instead of pasting a copy of it.
Terminal:
Press ⇧⌘A to select the output from the previous command.
Press ⌘L to clear the output from the previous command.
Press ⌃⌘V to paste and format text that is properly escaped for the shell.
Press ⌃T while a command is executing to view runtime statistics about the execution so far.
georgeck
> To quickly find text, select some text and press ⌘E followed by ⌘G.
This is really nice. Once I am in this 'search' mode, I couldn't figure out how to get out of this mode.
- Edited to make question more descriptive.
Philpax
Does anyone have any advice for making the most of the Dock? I find it pretty unhelpful coming from an older Windows / Linux background: I just want easy access to the windows that are open on my current workspace on my current monitor, and it seems ill-suited to that. I usually have it on auto-hide because it takes up space without providing much value.
I'm aware that I can do the three finger swipe to look at all of my windows, but that takes over my full screen and the previews constantly move location, so I can't build any muscle memory for it.
Really, I'm just looking for a classic, unobtrusive task switcher that lets me quickly navigate through what's on my screen without having to muddle through anything else (i.e. the Windows taskbar with all collapsing turned off)
Edit: I appreciate the suggestions about using Cmd+Tab or Raycast or Exposé or such, but I'm really just looking for a taskbar equivalent that doesn't require me to use a hotkey or switch "visual contexts". I want something that's persistent and shows the visible applications and their windows, and lets me click on them to raise them. A big part of this for me is being able to see what I have open at a glance, especially due to macOS's historically poor window management.
Edit edit: This is on me for using the words "task switcher" - that brings to mind Alt-Tab when I really meant to refer to the taskbar.
jacurtis
I hide the dock and basically never use it.
Install Alfred or Raycast and Command+Space your way to everything. Its 100x faster. I can launch any app in about 3 key strokes, which takes < 2 seconds and often less than a second with muscle memory.
For example cmd+space+c will launch or switch to chrome. cmd+space+py is pycharm, cmd+space+go is goland, cmd+space+fi is finder, cmd+space+me is messages, cmd+space+1 is 1Password. cmd+space+1p+space will start searching 1Password.
That launches apps. You can also just start doing math problems (calculator) by just cmd+space and start typing out a math equation. cmd+space+ai+space and just start asking a question to AI.
These only scratch the surface. But cmd+space, which is an easy modifier combo that you can do anytime, will basically unlock unlimited power. Once you get the muscle memory down you can literally launch any app in less than a second without even looking. If the app is already open, it just brings that app to foreground. Once you have that, you can use alt+tab to switch between apps that are already open. This is useful if you are just swapping between two or three apps for reference quickly. Furthermore alt+tilde (the squiggle key above tab and below escape on most latin keyboards) will switch between open windows of the same type. FOr example if you have 2 chrome windows open, it will switch only between those windows.
rcarr
I also take this same approach on my phone. I'm on Android atm so I can use Nova Launcher for a completely blank home screen and then set a swipe gesture to bring up the search panel. On iPhone you can achieve similar by enabling removing everything from the home screen and using the app libary or search although it does look weird with the empty dock section at the bottom so I tended to just leave stuff like the browser in there.
andelink
I feel like I achieve the same app opening speed with built-in Spotlight e.g. `cmd+space me` opens Messages for me too, without any third party software
SkiFire13
> cmd+space+1 is 1Password
FYI shift+cmd+space is also 1Password's quick access shortcut
treetalker
- +1 for Stage Manager - check out Witch (https://manytricks.com/witch/) - you could also use Keyboard Maestro and build your own interface
ttepasse
John Siracusa has an app which is extra and opinionated Dock, although not directly for windows:
https://hypercritical.co/switchglass/
There's a detailed FAQ.
p_ing
You can try dockdoor to get Windows-style hover previews.
com2kid
Contexts has both hotkeys and a visual side bar that may do what you are asking.
chii
You can try https://alt-tab-macos.netlify.app/
See if that suits your needs
mig39
For me, the dock is a drop target for files. Got a PNG and want to open it in Photoshop? Drag it to photoshop on the dock, for example.
mathieuh
The dock just annoys me. I’ve been a Mac user for almost 15 years and it has never seemed useful for me. I cmd+tab or use Alfred to switch apps. To switch between windows of one application it’s cmd+`.
Note that you can also use cmd+tab and then while continuing to hold the chord use the pointer to select an application switch to.
_thisdot
There are also very good third-party replacements for cmd+tab. the one I use is called Contexts. Improves the experience massively
CharlesW
> Note that you can also use cmd+tab and then while continuing to hold the chord use the pointer to select an application switch to.
You also do things like (for example) start a drag, ⌘+tab to show running apps, then drop on an app icon without using the dock.
fiddlerwoaroof
The command-tab switcher has a lot of hidden functionality:
I always only use cmd-tab to open the switcher, then I use arrow keys to pick an application, up/down arrows to view an application’s windows (arrow keys and enter to select a specific one)
You can also hit Q to quit an application from the switcher and probably more things I’m currently forgetting.
abhaynayar
Personal-Bookmarks::
Press ⇧⌘/ to search all of the current app's menu items. Then use the Up/Down arrow keys to navigate the results and press Return to execute that menu bar action.
Hold Option while resizing a window to resize from the center of the window. Hold Shift while resizing a window to lock the aspect ratio.
When a window is inactive, use the Command key to interact with it without making it active.
If an app has windows in multiple spaces, click the app's Dock icon repeatedly to cycle through the spaces with that app's windows.
Quickly move the Dock to a different side of the screen by holding Shift while dragging the resize handle.
Press ⌘B to search the web for the current query. Press ⌘⏎ or ⌘R to reveal the selected file in Finder. Use the name: filter to only search in the filename. Add kind:folder to only search for folder names. Hold Command to show the path to the currently selected file.
QuickTime Player: Grab a single frame from a video by pausing on the desired frame (using the Left and Right arrow keys to navigate individual frames) and pressing ⌘C.
Photo Booth: Hold Option while taking a picture to skip the countdown. Hold Shift while taking a picture to disable the screen flash.
vbezhenar
"Hold Option while double-clicking a window's corner to expand the window to fill the screen." - this is the most important tip for macOS, IMO. I still don't understand what's in their heads that they don't maximise Safari/Preview to the full width by default.
I have 32" display and I'm using all my windows maximized, I just don't ever want them side by side or something like that.
vages
That is because the green button is a «zoom» button, which maximizes the window to display its contained document: https://blog.xoria.org/macos-tips/#window-management
I am not sure if I agree with the choice either, but that’s the explanation.
frizlab
That’s how you work, though. Having Safari fullscreen is really not great for me. Nor Preview. Actually the only thing I have fullscreen not in its Space is Xcode.
notpushkin
> Press ⇧⌘/ to search all of the current app's menu items. Then use the Up/Down arrow keys to navigate the results and press Return to execute that menu bar action.
Kinda like command palette for every app, I like it. Would be even better if it preselected the matching option.
Unfortunately, this is broken in Firefox – they’ve bound ⌘ ? to their help page, and it opens then immediately closes the Help menu. You can rebind it to something else (e.g. ⌥ ⇧ ⌘ /) in System Settings → Keyboard → Keyboard Shortcuts → App Shortcuts → Firefox, menu title: Get Help.
One other problem is, it doesn’t always find the command I’m looking for. E.g. when I typed “dev”, it didn’t show “Web Developer Tools” at first. I then checked Tools menu (it was there), then tried typing it in the Help menu again, and sure enough, it found it this time.
mingus88
Remember when Mac was intuitive?
I dig these cheat sheets but wow, what a total shift in paradigm from when you had one mouse button and if a feature wasn’t discoverable then it wasn’t shipped
dkga
I think the issue goes beyond this. I get that Apple was always opinionated and wanted to ship intuitive features. Now they lost track of the intuitive and continued with the opinionated part, which degrades the experience in my opinion.
achairapart
There are so many hidden/obscure keyboard shortcuts in macOS, from time to time a post with a nice collection (and usually some hidden gems) appears on the front page here.
But I always wondered if there is a place where you can find all of them, for reference.
f_allwein
Also pity that macOS makes very little effort to communicate these, so they almost feel like Easter eggs…
azinman2
Here’s my tip: Messages stuck with a badge but you have no idea what’s unread / how to clear it? Ask Siri for your unread messages. It’ll go through them and remove the badge.
p_ing
For a mouse-first OS, there sure is a heavy dep on keyboard modifiers. Day to day it doesn't bother me so much, and I even like some of them, but so much functionality is hidden with no mouse-based option. Opt-Shift-V? :/
Windows does this much, much better. I can't think of a feature where you need to use the Windows key to modify the options presented in the GUI (though the Windows key has some unique shortcuts). I'm sure someone else will correct me.
Apple has a concise list of keyboard shortcuts/modifiers listed here: https://support.apple.com/en-us/102650
jez
Many of these features Windows has no analogue for. Consider:
> By default, clicking inside a scroll bar will scroll partially towards the clicked location. Hold Option while clicking in the scroll bar to jump directly to the clicked location.
There is no way to present this option in the GUI without cluttering up the scroll bar, so neither Windows nor macOS do so. But at least this feature is available for power users.
I admit that in places where there IS space in the UI (menu bar, right click), I find it odd that the option-variants are not listed unless option is actively being held.
cosmic_cheese
> I find it odd that the option-variants are not listed unless option is actively being held.
Most likely to keep menus reasonably short and usable, which is particularly important on the smaller Macbooks and on iPads in Sidecar mode which can easily turn long menus into scrolling messes.
Also, progressive disclosure. This way allows the options to exist without overwhelming less technical users.
treetalker
- I love Shortcat (https://shortcat.app/). It lets you do almost anything on your screen without having to leave your keyboard.
- Also, Houdahspot (https://www.houdah.com/houdahSpot/) for advanced searching and file-filtering (you can even exclude results from certain folders). It has search templates, saved searches (which appear as files in Finder), and the ability to export the current search as a Smart Folder (amazing!).
I just wish that Smart Folders worked on iOS and Dropbox …
All I want is an app that can fix the "broken window" focus management. Like when I click a window, Mac OS brings to top all windows of the respective app, and when an app (say, Finder) has no window open currently, bringing it to front also unaskedly manipulates the stacking order such that other app's windows become the top most one, completely destroying the visual context. Also, back in the days I used Expose a lot to navigate, but it has completely lost any spatial determinism and usefulness for me. These issues are very noticable, and feel gross and like a team of ignorants has messed around; it's very irritating that nobody is speaking about it.