Useful Mac Tips and Tricks that You Should Know

Introduction

If you purchased a Mac not long ago or just switched from Microsoft Windows to macOS, you have a long way to go in terms of exploring the macOS. It is known to all that macOS delivers an excellent user experience with loads of features.

Some might be well-known to you but some may sound unfamiliar. This post reveals multiple Mac hidden tips and tricks that help you greatly improve work efficiency. Read on to know all the mysteries.

Talk to Siri on your Mac

Siri is always a great feature in Apple’s ecosystem and it finally marks a position in the Mac lineup. Users who run macOS Sierra and later are allowed to talk and listen to their Macs via Siri. Take macOS Monterey for example, click on the Siri icon at the right corner in the menu bar and you can start chatting with Siri. Alternatively, you can long-press the command and space bar together to turn on Siri.

More impressively, if you have a newer Mac, say, a 2018 MacBook Pro, you can directly wake up Siri by saying, hey Siri, similar to how you do it on your iPhone. The questions you ask can vary from the weather, date, to complicated ones such as turning on/off Wi-Fi and the Bluetooth. Switching songs is also an easy task for Siri.

Take screenshots in any size you want

Unlike Windows, macOS gives you full access to take screenshots in any size. Windows users can only capture the whole screen by holding the PrtSc key or using some tools to take a portion of the screen, however, macOS offers a simple way to capture the window by pressing some keyboard shortcuts.

Press Command + Shift + 3 and you can get the screenshot of the entire screen. Press Command + Shift + 4 and you can get a customizable portion of the screen. To capture a certain window, for example, an app interface, you can press Shift, Command, and 4, then press Space and click on the window you want to save screenshots of. After taking the screenshot, a preview window should pop up at the right corner of the screen with multiple options to do if you right-click on it, for instance, save to designated folders, open in different apps, and move to trash.

Right-click on Mac with adjustable settings

If you are running a MacBook without a mouse, right-clicking could be a little tough for you to accomplish if you make no changes to the Trackpad. In fact, right-clicking on Mac can be super easy without a mouse if you adjust the settings. Here’s how you can right-click on Mac with Trackpad.

  • Navigate to the Apple icon at the left corner of the menu bar and open System Preferences…
  • Find Trackpad in line three and open it.
  • Under Point & Click, tick the box in front of Secondary click. Under it, you can decide how you want to perform right-click. Clicking with two fingers or clicking in the left/right bottom corner is all possible.

You may close the window after making setting changes. Try to click with two fingers on your trackpad to fulfill right-click on Mac. Besides, there are also other ways to right click on Mac, for example, using an effective third-party tool, iBoysoft MagicMenu.

Split-screen to boost productivity

If you are into multitasking, splitting the screen among Mac is really worth trying. Just imagine you can type in Word on the right screen while looking up in Google on the left. Follow the steps below to split the screen among Mac with a few clicks.

For macOS Catalina and later:

  • Open the two windows you want for multitasking and click on one of them.
  • Go to the top-left corner and hover the cursor above the green button. A menu will show below.
  • Choose between ‘Tile Window to Left of Screen’ or ‘Tile Window to Right of Screen’ to decide which side you’d like the current screen to be located on.
  • All existing windows should pop on another side and you can choose which one to display.

In case you want to exit the split-screen mode, simply press Esc on the top-left corner of the keyboard.