Hi, this is Gary with MacMost.com. Today let
me show you five basic techniques that every Mac user should know.
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So the first technique I want to show you is Context Menus. Context Menus are
what you get when you hold down the Control key and click on an object on your screen.
You get this menu here that allows you to perform actions on that object. You could also get Context
Menus by using two fingers on the trackpad or right clicking on a mouse. Anytime you need to
perform an action and you're not sure how to go about doing it think of the object on the screen
that you want to perform the action on and try bringing up its Context Menu. You could
see it works for Files here but it works for other things as well. I can Control click on the Toolbar
at the top for instance. I can Control click on the blank space here in the Finder window.
I can Control click on items in the Sidebar. I can Control click on the Desktop. In other apps
like Pages here I can Control click on an image. I can Control click on some text. You can Control
click just about anywhere and it will show you commands that can be performed on that object.
So often I get questions from people about how they would do something and the answer is often
Control clicking on that object and then that command is revealed in the Context Menu.
The next technique I want to show you is the App Switcher. The App Switcher is what you get when
you hold down the Command key and then you press Tab. That brings up the App Switcher and shows you
all the apps that are currently running on your Mac. As long as you continue to hold down the
Command key the App Switcher will stay there and you could press Tab to continue to move along it.
When you get to the app that you want to use simply release the Command key
and it brings that app to the front. So while you're using your Mac and you have various apps
open it's easy to use the App Switcher to switch between them. You don't need to go and try to
relaunch the app if it's already running. You could also do other things with the App Switcher.
A quick Command Tab will simply switch to the previous app and Command Tab will switch back.
So you can switch quickly between two apps with quick presses of Command Tab. You can
also use Command Tab and then keep holding the Command key down as you tab through you can use Q
to quit an app and H to unhide and hide it.
Which brings me to my next technique which is hiding apps. A lot of people will just quit an
app when they want to get to something behind it of use another app. But you can just Hide an app.
Keep it going and this keeps the window in the current position, the Dock or Docks you have open
opened, even things like selected text selected ready to go. You could just use Command H to hide
an app. Then you could bring it back with the App Switcher or you could just go into the Dock
and click on the app in the Dock and you could see was still there with the same thing selected,
the same position in the document, and everything. Sometimes people quit apps
still thinking like it's twenty years ago when memory management was an issue and leaving an app
running, even if it was hidden, was taking up some sort of chunk of memory.
But that's not how macOS works. It manages memory really well and it's perfectly fine
to leave lots of apps running at the same time and Hide the ones you're not using currently. I
only really quit apps if I know I'm not going to be using them again, say, for the rest of the day.
Now sometimes it's not necessary to run an app at all. For instance if you want to view an
image file you can select it and simply bring up QuickLook. You can do so by pressing the Spacebar.
That brings up the QuickLook window. It's a window you can move around.
You can resize and you can view an image. But not just an image. You can also view other
things. For instance, here's a Numbers document. I could pretty clearly see what's inside of it
just by pressing the Spacebar to use QuickLook. I can press the Spacebar again to dismiss it.
I can even listen to sounds, view videos, and do something with just about every type of file.
You could even leave the QuickLook window open and use the arrow keys to move between files.
So if I move the QuickLook window over here you could see I've got this file selected.
If I use the right arrow you can see it moves over to the next file. If I switch, say, to List View I
could simply use QuickLook and then down arrow to go between all the files and view what's in there.
There are other ways to view previews as well. For instance, if I take this Finder window here
I could go to View and then Show Preview. It will show me a preview, just like QuickLook, here on
the right side. I can do that in List View. I can see that in Column View as well. Even Icon
View can have a preview here on the right. You can always turn it off by going to View, Hide Preview.
Now the last basic technique I want to show you is Mission Control. This allows you to have multiple
desktops instead of just one. Think of it like having multiple screens. Say you have a MacBook.
You've got one screen. But let's pretend you have two but you can only see one at a time. If you use
Control, not Command but Control, and up arrow you could see at the top here Desktop 1. I can
add another desktop by clicking the Plus button here. Now it's like I have two screens on my Mac.
I could drag a window or even more over to the second desktop. Now let's go to that second
desktop and you could see I've got these two app windows open here. Control up arrow brings me back
and I can go back to Desktop 1 where I've got these windows open here. An easier way to get
between them is to use Control right and left arrows. So Control right arrow brings me over
to this desktop. Control left arrow brings me back over to here. Mission Control also works with Full
Screen apps. So, for instance, let's take Calendar full screen by clicking on the green button here.
Now when I do Control up arrow you could see I've got Desktop 1, Desktop 2, and then the full screen
app Calendar. So now I can choose which one I want to see and I could still use Control
right arrow to move between them in one direction and Control left arrow in the other direction.
So those are five basic Mac techniques that every Mac user should master.
Doing so will increase your productivity and allow you to get the most from your Mac.