We have been offering you the best guides on iOS and iPadOS for many years, guides like this fabulous compilation of iPhone keyboard tricks that help you better understand and adapt the use of the operating system of your mobile devices. These tricks are really useful when it comes to making the most of all the complexity of Apple’s software and they also allow you to save time in your daily tasks.
But this time we are going to focus on macOS, the operating system of Apple’s Mac computers. Today we are going to know a series of Hidden macOS tricks that are very little known by the average user of the system. If you have recently bought a Mac or a MacBook, we are sure that these little tips will be very helpful.
With these tricks for macOS we are going to teach you how to quickly find the mouse cursor, how to play thumbnail videos with the PiP function or how to assign shortcuts to some system features related to sleep, the lock screen or the screensaver. That being said … shall we begin?
MacOS tricks to get the most out of your Mac computer
1. Shake the mouse to find the cursor
If you’ve only been using macOS for a short time, you might have been surprised to see how your mouse cursor became gigantic. This is a feature that Apple has implemented so that users can easily find the cursor.
Maybe you have a lot of windows open or you are at a somewhat far distance from your Mac screen, if so, start shaking your Magic Mouse to make the cursor bigger so you can find it instantly. It also works by quickly sliding your finger on the trackpad in various directions.
To turn this macOS functionality on or off, go to System Preferences> Accessibility> Display> Cursor and enables or disables the function «Shake the mouse pointer to locate it». Additionally 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. One of the many decisions was, as we have been told since MacWorld, in making the scroll bars disappear from the applications.
However, even though they don’t appear by default in the macOS user interface, they are still there. So if you want to use a scroll bar to quickly find what you are looking for on a web page or in a document, we have a trick for you.
To retrieve the scroll bars of an app, go to System Preferences> General and look for the option «Show scroll bars». You can choose between automatically, while scrolling or always.
3. View thumbnail videos with Picture-in-Picture
The Picture-in-Picture (PiP) feature allows macOS users to continue to play an overlay and thumbnail video while performing other actions in the background. It is an especially useful function if you are consulting the news or working on a project and you need to continue watching the video without having to use two windows.
The method of enabling foreground video overlay with the “Picture in Picture” function may vary depending on which 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 the videos. But on websites like YouTube or Netflix this feature is not available.
If you want to activate the playback of videos with Picture-in-Picture on Netflix or YouTube, there is a very useful trick that will be very helpful. When you are watching a video, right-click on the volume symbol from Safari’s address bar and select the “Enable 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. Using the 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 didn’t know about this functionality yet. It is very useful.
If you access System Preferences> Desktop & Screensaver You can enable the function from the “Activated Corners” button. Here you can assign to each of the four corners of your Mac’s screen actions such as opening Mission Control, opening Launchpad, starting the screensaver, returning to the desktop, opening the Notification Center, locking the screen or putting your Mac to sleep, among other functions.
5. Preview file content
The macOS Preview application is an excellent 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 a single click on any file and hit the space key on your Mac computer’s keyboard. A small preview window of the file’s content will open. To close the preview simply press the space key again.
And these have been all cheats for macOS that we have compiled for today’s guide. Most of them are very little known to the average Mac user, while others – such as the use of the Picture in Picture function – are very popular but not everyone can master all aspects. We hope these Mac tricks have been useful for you and you can get the most out of your computer’s operating system.
If you want to know more about your Mac software, we recommend you visit this list of macOS Big Sur tricks with 10 fantastic tricks that will make you a true Mac master.