There are probably a million and one things your Mac can do, so these are just 10 cool
mac tips and tricks.
Hey friends!
I’m Tasia Custode and welcome back to my YouTube Channel where I share tech tips and
app reviews.
Today, I’m sharing some Mac tips that will hopefully make your life easier.
So, let’s go.
Tip number one: picture in picture.
This is super helpful for when you are working on something, but need to be watching a video
at the same time.
This sounds counterintuitive, but it’s not I promise.
Like sometimes I’m reviewing client videos and taking notes simultaneously and this is
really helpful, especially if you don’t have multiple screens.
For this trick, we are going to utilize Safari.
So, when you’re playing a YouTube video in Safari, you should notice a little sound
icon in the top right of the address bar, or the top right of the tab, if you have multiple
tabs open.
All you have to do is right click on the speaker icon and then select enter picture in picture.
Your YouTube video will pop out and you can click and drag that to where you want it on
screen.
So, if you’re working in Google Docs or word or something, you can drag the video
right over top and it’ll continue playing while you work, all on the same screen.
You can re-size it as well, and you can pop the video back to the original YouTube player
as well if you want with just a click.
Picture in picture for the win!
Mac tip number 2: Airdrop.
This is a great, handy beginner's tip for those of you that are just getting your feet
wet with the Apple ecosystem.
This is how to transfer photos or videos from iPhone to Mac or vice versa with just a few
taps.
So, to do this you’ll open up Finder and click on Airdrop.
You may not see anything at first, so all you have to do is unlock your iPhone.
And just like that, you’re iPhone should appear here.
If for some reason, your phone is not appearing, make sure your devices are on the same wifi
network.
Or, you can adjust your discovery settings as well.
Once your device appears, you can open another finder window and select the files you want
to add to your iPhone and drag and drop them over your iPhone icon, and those will instantly
be copied to your iPhone.
And of course, the reverse can be done as well.
So, from your iPhone, you’ll select the images and/or video you want to share, tap
on the share button, then select your mac from the share list.
Your Airdrop option should appear first on the list.
Once your files are transferred, they’ll be added to your downloads folder on your
Mac where you can move them as you wish.
This works across devices by the way, so you could do the same thing with your iPad, for
example.
Alright, Mac tip number 3: Live Text.
Yes, the same iPhone and iPad feature is available on Mac and it allows you to copy text from
an image.
So let’s say you have an image on your Mac that you want to copy out the text from, well,
as you move your cursor over the text, it changes from a pointer to a text selector
tool.
All you have to do is select the text and hit cmd c to copy it.
Or you could right click to copy.
Then, you can cmd v it or right click and paste the text wherever you need it.
But that’s not all you can do with Live Text on Mac.
Oh no!
If you’re image happens to have a phone number, that’s going to be automatically
recognized as such and you’ll notice a little box around the phone number and a downward
facing arrow to the right of the number.
If you click on that arrow, you’ll have the option to add that number to your contacts,
or call, facetime, or message that number directly.
How neat is that?
Mac tip number 4 is to quickly access your emoji keyboard.
And yes, this is one I use every single day, without fail.
Don’t judge me.
It’s probably my most used keyboard shortcut.
What can I say?
I love me some emoji.
When you’re ready to insert emoji into your note or email, just hit control, command,
space to bring up your emoji picker.
You can hit command, control, space, the order doesn’t matter, as long as you hit all three
together.
Then, just pick your desired emoji to spice up your note.
Now I will say, this used to work totally fine for me in Google Docs, and it no longer
does.
So, is anyone else having that problem and if so, let me know in the comments below.
Why can’t Google and Apple just get along?
Anyway, moving on to tip number 5: dictation.
This is major accessibility alert.
Rather than type, you can just talk to text on Mac.
First, you’re going to make sure you’ve enabled the dictation feature.
For this, you’ll head to your system preferences, then select ‘keyboard’.
Click on the dictation tab and then simply toggle it on.
Here, you’ll follow the on-screen prompts to enable dictation.
You can adjust your language and shortcut preferences here too, as well as your mic
by the way.
Now, all you have to do is hit the shortcut key, which is F5, unless you set it as something
else.
And now everything you say, will be dictated for you period.
Remember, just like on iPhone or any talk to text, you’ll need to verbalize certain
grammar aspects like commas and periods, period.
It does a pretty good job off the bat, but you should go back through your text and adjust
any errors as needed.
And before we move on to tip number 6, if you’re liking this video so far, please
go ahead and give this video a like and subscribe to my channel for more content like this.
And speaking of content like this, if you want even more mac tips, let me know in the
comments below and I’ll make another list of tricks for ya.
Alright, tip number 6: bulk rename files.
Yes, this is a major time saver.
Let’s say you’ve just transferred a bunch of terribly named files over and you want
to quickly organize and rename things.
From Finder, simply select all the files you want to rename, right-click, and select rename.
From this popup, you can choose whether or not you want to replace the text, add text
or reformat the name.
So, as an example, if you choose replace text, you’ll choose which text you want to find
and what you want that to be replaced with.
If you choose, add text, you can choose the text you’d like to add and then whether
or not you want it added before or after the current file name.
If you choose format, you can rename the entire file.
So, you could number your files here for example, and that way instead of random files, you’d
have them all organized per number.
Mac tip number 7 is to quickly convert images.
Yes, you can convert a jpg to a png in a few clicks.
So from the image you want to convert, right click on it and hover over the quick actions.
Here, you’ll have a convert image option.
Click on that.
In this popup, you’ll have the option to convert the file to either jpg, png, or heif,
and you can adjust the image size as well.
Then just hit convert and it’s instantly converted for you without even having to open
the file.
But wait, there’s more!
You can also quickly make a pdf file, which you might have noticed already.
But, you can do this with one, or select multiple photos, right click, hover over quick actions,
and this time select ‘create pdf’.
A pdf will automatically be created for you, so if you open it, you’ll have a preview
of all the images you selected in the PDF.
Pretty neat.
Alright, tip number 8 is trackpad gestures.
OK, so I’m lumping in a few trackpad tricks into one tip for ya.
You’re welcome.
But, in seriousness, there are a couple of trackpad gestures I adjust whenever I set
up a mac.
First, to access your trackpad settings, you’ll head to your system preferences, then click
on ‘trackpad’.
Here, you’ll have three tabs at the top.
Point and click, scroll and zoom, and more gestures.
In the point and click tab, I like to have tap to click toggled on.
All of these trackpad recommendations are my preferences by the way, you may like different
haptics and gestures and that’s just fine.
But anyway, I like a tap to click, where on your trackpad you don’t have to actually
push down on the trackpad to click.
You can just tap, as the name suggests.
Next, in the scroll and zoom tab, one of the first things I do when setting up a new mac
is to toggle off the natural direction scroll.
I don’t know why, but it drives me nuts, and feels actually backwards and not natural,
when natural is toggled on.
So, with it off, and you scroll down the page, the page moves up.
Which to me, is actually natural.
I’m scrolling down so therefore the page should go up.
Am I making any sense here?
Anyway, there are some other settings in the ‘more gestures’ tab you might want to
play around with, and discover what works for you, based on your preferences.
And this brings us to tip number 9: hot corners.
Much like some of the trackpad gestures, this is one of the first things I setup on a Mac.
I’m obsessed with hot corners and I think everyone should use them.
To set hot corners, you’ll once again start in system preferences and then head to mission
control.
From here, in the bottom left select the hot corners option.
Here, you can set all four corners of your screen to trigger a different response when
you move your mouse there.
So, for me, I can pull up a new note when I move my mouse to the bottom left corner
of my screen, and I can quickly put my display to sleep when I move my mouse to the bottom
right of my screen, and so on.
There are lots of hot corner options for you to choose from, so again, I’d encourage
you to dig around in here and set the actions that work best for your workflow.
Like I love having quick access to mission control in my hot corners cuz with one flick
of the mouse I can see all my open apps and windows in one go.
And we have made it to tip number 10.
If you’re on a Mac that supports touch id, you can actually add more than one fingerprint
to unlock your computer, just like you can on iPhone.
Again, we'll start in system preferences.
From here, click on touch id.
Then select add fingerprint.
Here, you’ll follow the prompts on how to place your finger on the fingerprint scanner,
just like you’re familiar with on iPhone.
I believe you can add 3 fingerprints to Mac, but don’t quote me on that.
So those are some of my favorite mac tips and tricks for 2022.
I’ve got links to more Mac tips and keyboard shortcuts below.
And remember, if you just can’t get enough and still want more, just comment below and
let me know and I’ll make another list for ya.
I swear, I’ll do it.
So those are my picks for 10 Mac tips should know.
What do you think of these macOS tips and tricks?
Let everyone know in the comments below.
As always, if you liked this video, I want to know so give it a like, a share, or leave
that comment below.
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for even more Mac tips.
Thanks for watching and see ya next time.