Do you want to make your Mac into a highly productive device that can help you streamline your workflow? If yes, you are in the right place. Though Macs work fast, learning new time-saving tricks will enable you to finish your work on time and keep up with the pace.
So, let’s see how you can turn your Mac into a productivity booster.
Manage Files & Folders on Mac
Open Folders Quickly:
To open a folder on the desktop or in the Finder app, hold down the Command key and press the down arrow key on the keyboard. If you wish to go back, hold Command and press down the Up arrow key.
Delete Files Instantly:
To delete a file permanently and bypass the Trash on your Mac computer, select the files and press Option + Command + Delete keys from the keyboard and delete the item instantly without moving it to the Trash folder.
Create an Auto Duplicating File:
You can create a duplicate file for any file on your Mac by right-clicking the file, navigating to Get Info, and ticking the Stationary Pad box. From now onwards, whenever you open that particular file, Mac will launch its duplicate version.
Clean Up Your Desktop:
If the Mac is running macOS Mojave or a later version, right-click on the desktop and select Stacks to let your computer automatically organize the files and folders by kind, date, or tags. It will help you declutter your desktop making it more organized.
Use Text Editors:
Text editing applications allow you to edit the text of the file for adding notes, images, etc. These apps are used for writing codes or creating blogs, articles, white papers, or other marketing collateral. Check out https://setapp.com/ for more information about text editors of macOS.
App & Desktop Management on Mac
Activate Spotlight for Search:
Spotlight is a handy search interface that allows you to find files and folders on Mac. Press Command + Space, and it will let you search almost all kinds of things, such as solving mathematical problems, answering user questions, and locating files on Mac.
Use the Dictation Feature
Sometimes, your hands might be too busy because you are holding a bunch of documents and a smartphone and cannot type efficiently. Or, you might be too tired from all the typing you did already and are looking for an alternative.
The dictation feature is just the solution. You can enable it in the Dictation tab by going to System Preferences and clicking on the Keyboard section.
When you want to record text with your voice, press the Fn key twice. After the feature activates, you will see a microphone icon on the computer’s screen, which indicates that the dictation feature is active. After you finish, click Done.
Switch Apps with App Switcher:
App Switcher in macOS allows you to switch between applications opened on the computer by pressing Command + Tab keys. Your computer will cycle through all the open apps. Release the keys once the app that you wish to access opens up.
Activate Hot Corners:
If you haven’t checked Hot Corners on your Mac, you should activate them now to improve your productivity. You can assign each corner to four different apps, and once you hover on any corner, the app will open.
Hide a Window:
Press Command + H to quickly hide a single window and then get it back by pressing Command + Tab keys. Press Options + Command + H to hide all the windows that are open except the one that you are working with.
Switch Between Multiple Desktops:
For better security over your data, you can set up multiple desktops for different users. If you are using multiple desktops, you can switch between them efficiently and quickly by pressing the control button.
Rely on Keyboard Shortcuts
As you have probably noticed, this article has a few examples of keyboard shortcuts that you should be using on a MacBook for more efficiency. At first, you might feel a bit reluctant to use the keyboard as much and would rather stick to the trackpad.
Having said that, if you set out to memorize relevant keyboard shortcuts, your finger memory will get the hang of them and provide you with a great way to save time while you are using the MacBook.
Useful Tips on Deleting & Managing Data on Mac Drive
You can manage your hard drive space by following these tips.
- Delete redundant data regularly from the hard drive to make more space for important files, folders, and applications.
- Delete custom fonts, languages, and dictionaries that you have not used in the recent past and are not required in the future.
- Set reminders to clear cache files, erase app installers, remove unnecessary data or redundant applications on sensing low storage on drive.
- Free up storage space on the Mac hard drive by moving data to the iCloud drive. You get 2 GB of free space on iCloud media on signup, and you can buy paid storage later.
- Move files to the external storage drive to make more space on the internal hard disk on Mac.
- Install a reliable anti-virus application to ensure better security over data stored on the hard drive and prevent unauthorized access.
- Adding additional data to duplicate files and then deleting the file will only free up the space that has been occupied by additional data.
- Compress all the large files such as the PDF or PNG to easily share them with colleagues and free up storage.
- Turn on the optimized storage option on Mac to automatically remove watched movies and TV shows.
- Back up data regularly to be able to restore it in the event of data loss. Set up Time Machine on Mac to back up data.
- On creating new backups, make sure to delete old and redundant backups to free up disk space.
- Remove resource-heavy applications and high-resolution images from the Mac drive and store them with external storage, iCloud, Dropbox, or Google Drive.