5 macOS Tips You’ll Definitely Use
In 2012, I bought my first Mac and plunged into a completely different world. The operating system seemed so friendly to me that Windows caused incredible rejection for some time after that. And it was based not just on appearance, but on small life hacks that greatly simplified life. One of them is the preview of the file by pressing the space bar. Windows has not yet mastered this function, although it greatly speeds up the process of finding the desired document in the folder.
And the whole system is literally crammed with these little things. In this way, you can set a copy of a document to open without spoiling the original, and return to Safari search results, regardless of the number of links you clicked. Here’s how these features work and three more macOS tips you’ll definitely use.
How to open a copy of a file
Surely each of us has ever encountered such a situation that you opened some text file in order to make some changes to it and save a copy. But fixes were accidentally kept in the source code, and important information was lost. This happened to me when I was writing my diploma, and I had to leave both the initial version and the corrected one. Except I forgot to “Save As” and the original file was lost. To avoid this, you can use a cool setting that comes with macOS. It allows you to immediately open a copy of the file and work in it. This is done as follows:
- Right-click on the required document.
- Select “Properties”.
- Check the “Template” box.
Now you don’t have to worry about losing something. For each opening, a separate document will be created, which will reliably save the original file. Keep in mind that the “Template” mark must be put on each document. It does not apply to the format, but to the file.
Back to search results
We noticed that when you start looking for something on the Internet and follow the links, you can forget how this search began. But if you use the Safari browser to surf the web , then it will not be a problem for you to easily return to the beginning of the search:
- Use the keyboard shortcut cmd+alt+S.
- Click on the “History” button in the status bar and select “Snapback to search results”.
This function has only one limitation: the search query must be entered in the address bar. If you first went to conditional Google and started searching there, then returning to the results will not work, and the button will simply be gray, and the keyboard shortcut will not lead to any result.
How to view recently launched apps
By default, the Dock on Macs displays not only shortcuts to the applications that you have placed there, but also recently launched ones. They are located behind the vertical line. But the number of them is strictly limited. But thanks to the Terminal, you can increase it, for example, up to ten. Just paste the following commands:
You can replace 10 with a smaller number if you need or just like it will be more convenient. If you want to return to the standard three, then simply repeat this set of commands, but with the number 3, and everything will look the same as before.
How to change window size on macbook
Everyone knows that in macOS it is very easy to resize a window by simply dragging its corners or edges. In general, this allows you to optimally customize the appearance of each application. But you can do it even faster and more conveniently:
- Hover your mouse over any corner to display an arrow that allows you to expand the window.
- Hold the Alt button on your keyboard and resize the window.
When the button is held down, not only the corner you drag will move, but also the other three, proportionally increasing the size of the window in each direction. This will allow you to quickly adjust the size of a particular application to the one you need.
Shortcuts in Finder
Finder is a very powerful file manager that allows you to conveniently manage any files and applications. But even it can be improved by adding any folders, files, or application shortcuts to the Finder toolbar . This is done as follows: