There are plenty of things you can do to save time in OS X
Mac OS X
is the best-looking operating system around, but it's also one of the
most capable. Underneath all the eye candy is a serious amount of
functionality and although you may not have realised it, there are many
different ways to carry out everyday tasks using your Mac.
The
Finder and the other tools and apps that run on OS X are a treasure
trove of shortcuts, tricks and techniques that can help you do more and
do it faster.
As the OS has changed it's added features from iOS and also taken on many more online features with the inclusion of iCloud
in 10.7 Lion. As is the Apple way, these features tend to fit
seamlessly together and it's often possible to sync, share and send
files and information between lots of different devices with ease - if
you know how.
Some of these tips may be shortcuts that will save
you time. Others could be things you may not have even known were
possible, like compressing an iMovie project for lots of different
devices with a single click or sending iPhoto albums directly to
Facebook. With more and more people using their Macs both at home and at
work, there's never been a better time to unlock the true potential of
your system with these insider tips…
1. Send items directly from the Finder
If
you are using OS X 10.7 or 10.8 you will be able to open a Finder
window and then select one or more items in a folder or on your Desktop,
then use the Share button from the window's title bar to send those
items.
There are three options available. Email opens a new
message in Mail with the files included as attachments. Messages opens a
new iMessage with the items attached, and lets you specify one or more
recipients. AirDrop shows you the shared folders of nearby users who
have AirDrop enabled, and lets you fire the files to them. Obviously
Mail and Messages work better with smaller files, and AirDrop is capable
of dealing with larger ones.
2. Learn more about your wireless connection
If
you hold down the Option key while clicking on your Airport Wi-Fi icon
in the menu bar, you can make OS X show you more detailed information
about your current connection. Above the list of available networks it
will display the wireless mode, wireless channel in use, wireless
security type and transmit rate, all of which can help to troubleshoot
problems with your connection.
3. Change your default Finder view
When
you open a new Finder window, OS X 10.8 defaults to showing you 'all
your files'. To change this, go to Finder > Preferences from the menu
bar and locate the option 'New Finder windows show'. From its drop-down
menu you can choose your boot drive, Home directory, Desktop, Documents
or a custom folder, all of which offer a clearer idea of what you're
looking at.
4. Reveal your Library folder
OS X 10.7 and
10.8 hide your User > Library folder by default but it's sometimes
necessary to access it for troubleshooting or other reasons, since
important items live in it.
In the Finder, choose Go > Go to
Folder. From the resulting window, enter the folder's path, which will
be /Users/username/Library. Once the folder appears you can drag it to
your Favourites list to the left of the Finder window and it will then
be permanently accessible.
5. Take advantage of Quick Look
Quick
Look can preview multiple documents at once. Select a number of items
in the Finder then hit the space bar. Pressing the left and right arrow
keys on the keyboard will now cycle through them, and pressing the Grid
button in the Quick Look window will display all items in a single
window.
It's possible to open a document in its associated
application by using the Open In button at the top right of the Quick
Look window.
6. Use Smart Folders effectively
Often
overlooked, Smart Folders can be really useful. Select File > New
Smart Folder in the Finder and then add criteria to the folder as you
would if performing a search. For example, 'kind is image' and 'last
opened is in the last one month'. Then click Save. This folder will
always show files that match those criteria, automatically updating
itself so it stays current.
Another great timesaver is to select
several items in the Finder then choose File > New Folder With
Selection, which places the items into a new folder automatically.
7. Collect items together in an archive
Multiple-select
items in the Finder then right click on them and choose Compress Items.
This creates a smaller-sized zip archive that is much easier to email,
send by iMessage or upload to a file sharing service like Dropbox than
lots of individual files. If you need to add password protection to the
archive, use a third-party compression app instead.
8. Customise your desktop & screen saver
Go
into System Preferences and locate the Desktop & Screen Saver
section. Under Desktop, you can choose from the included images, or
select one from your iPhoto library or a custom folder. You can even
specify times changes if you like, to keep things interesting.
In
the Screen Saver tab, you can assign hot corners to start your
screensaver as well as showing a clock whenever it's running. In the
Security & Privacy tab of System Preferences you can choose to
require a password to stop the screen saver, which is still the simplest
way of securing an unattended Mac - extremely useful in an office
environment or one in which kids are apt to fiddle.
9. Harness the power of right-clicking
More
or less anything on a web page in Safari can be right-clicked to reveal
extensive menu options. Right-click on a link for example, and you can
open it in a new window or tab, download linked files, or add the link
to your bookmarks or to your reading list.
For any text you can
right-click and choose to run a Google search for that text without
having to copy and paste it into Google first. Select text and from the
right-click menu, choose Speech > Start Speaking and your Mac will
read the text out to you. Right-click on an image and amongst the many
options is the ability to add it straight to your iPhoto library or use
it as your desktop picture.
10. Use an ad blocker for cleaner browsing
If your browsing is blighted by too many ads cluttering up the screen and flashing away at you, try installing AdBlock from safariadblock.com.
This identifies and blocks almost all ads, showing simply empty space
instead. It has an Easy setting, or it can be customised to allow
specific domains to pass unfiltered. You can even block ads specifically
for certain domains but have them shown everywhere else.
11. Reset specific parts of Safari
If
Safari is behaving oddly, maybe loading very slowly or crashing while
other browsers or devices are working fine, you can use the Reset Safari
command from the Safari menu to clear out some or all of its cached
data.
In the vast majority of cases, this action restores speed
and responsiveness to the browser. Bear in mind that you might want to
uncheck the option to remove all saved names, passwords and autofill
data since many people rely on the browser to remember the many logins
they have.
12. Switch between search engines fast
If you
click on the magnifying glass icon in Safari's address bar you can
access a list of recent searches and quickly re-run any one. You can
also clear the recent searches without having to reset the whole of
Safari, and also change the default search engine from Google to Bing or
Yahoo if you like. In Safari 6, typing a search term directly into the
address bar and pressing return will run a search in your search engine
of choice. There's no longer a dedicated search field in Safari.
13. Master your browser's tabs
Tabbed
browsing is a great way to manage multiple web pages. If you have
bookmark folders, hold the Command key while clicking on one to open all
the links contained inside in new tabs. Pick tabs up and drag them left
and right to re-order them, and drag a tab up or down to open that page
in a new window. Right-click on any tab just by its name and see
multiple options including the option to close all tabs but that one.
14. Share web pages the smart way
You
can send pages to people really easily from within Safari. On any open
page, click the Share button at the top left corner of the window and
(assuming you've already set up these accounts in System Preferences
> Mail, Contacts & Calendars) post a link straight to FaceBook or
Twitter, or send a link in a new iMessage.
Even more usefully
you can email a page in several ways. Select Email This Page from the
Share button and a new mail message will open with the page contained
inside. You get the option to send the page as a regular, working web
page, a text link only or a PDF (Portable Document Format). The PDF
option is great for ensuring that whatever device someone reads the
email on, they should be able to open it.
9. Harness the power of right-clicking
More
or less anything on a web page in Safari can be right-clicked to reveal
extensive menu options. Right-click on a link for example, and you can
open it in a new window or tab, download linked files, or add the link
to your bookmarks or to your reading list.
For any text you can
right-click and choose to run a Google search for that text without
having to copy and paste it into Google first. Select text and from the
right-click menu, choose Speech > Start Speaking and your Mac will
read the text out to you. Right-click on an image and amongst the many
options is the ability to add it straight to your iPhoto library or use
it as your desktop picture.
10. Use an ad blocker for cleaner browsing
If your browsing is blighted by too many ads cluttering up the screen and flashing away at you, try installing AdBlock from safariadblock.com.
This identifies and blocks almost all ads, showing simply empty space
instead. It has an Easy setting, or it can be customised to allow
specific domains to pass unfiltered. You can even block ads specifically
for certain domains but have them shown everywhere else.
11. Reset specific parts of Safari
If
Safari is behaving oddly, maybe loading very slowly or crashing while
other browsers or devices are working fine, you can use the Reset Safari
command from the Safari menu to clear out some or all of its cached
data.
In the vast majority of cases, this action restores speed
and responsiveness to the browser. Bear in mind that you might want to
uncheck the option to remove all saved names, passwords and autofill
data since many people rely on the browser to remember the many logins
they have.
12. Switch between search engines fast
If you
click on the magnifying glass icon in Safari's address bar you can
access a list of recent searches and quickly re-run any one. You can
also clear the recent searches without having to reset the whole of
Safari, and also change the default search engine from Google to Bing or
Yahoo if you like. In Safari 6, typing a search term directly into the
address bar and pressing return will run a search in your search engine
of choice. There's no longer a dedicated search field in Safari.
13. Master your browser's tabs
Tabbed
browsing is a great way to manage multiple web pages. If you have
bookmark folders, hold the Command key while clicking on one to open all
the links contained inside in new tabs. Pick tabs up and drag them left
and right to re-order them, and drag a tab up or down to open that page
in a new window. Right-click on any tab just by its name and see
multiple options including the option to close all tabs but that one.
14. Share web pages the smart way
You
can send pages to people really easily from within Safari. On any open
page, click the Share button at the top left corner of the window and
(assuming you've already set up these accounts in System Preferences
> Mail, Contacts & Calendars) post a link straight to FaceBook or
Twitter, or send a link in a new iMessage.
Even more usefully
you can email a page in several ways. Select Email This Page from the
Share button and a new mail message will open with the page contained
inside. You get the option to send the page as a regular, working web
page, a text link only or a PDF (Portable Document Format). The PDF
option is great for ensuring that whatever device someone reads the
email on, they should be able to open it.
15. Upload and share from QuickTime When
you open a movie in QuickTime Player and mouse over to reveal the
playback bar, you will see a Share icon to the right-hand side of this
bar. This can be clicked on to reveal options to mail or AirDrop the
file as well as uploading it to FaceBook, Twitter, YouTube, Vimeo or
Flickr.
There are limits imposed by some of these services, like a
15-minute maximum for YouTube, for example. You can choose Edit >
Trim and reveal iOS-style trim controls to shorten your video, then
upload it.
16. Take advantage of Preview
Preview gets
more features in every version of OS X and in 10.8 it's really quite
adept at working with images. Open a picture in Preview and there's a
Share button that in addition to emailing or AirDropping, allows import
to iPhoto, and upload to Flickr, Twitter or FaceBook.
Click the
Edit button in the toolbar to reveal a range of drawing, captioning and
text tools. You can even resize images by entering specific new
dimensions and export to a number of formats. In fact Preview now offers
many of the basic features of a professional image editor like
Photoshop.
17. Quickly switch iPhoto libraries
In iPhoto
you no longer have to use the trick of holding the Option key while
starting the app to switch between libraries, although this still works
if you choose to use it. You now have the additional option of starting
iPhoto then going to File > Switch To Library, which reveals the same
Library chooser window. You can even create a new library from here as
well.
18. Convert movies with QuickTime Player
If
you have a movie file that iTunes won't read, you could use a
third-party utility like MPEG StreamClip to convert it. QuickTime Player
X is also able to do this and you can choose File > Export To >
iTunes and then select a target option.
Compress for iPod and
iPhone, iPad and newer iOS devices and also create larger versions for
Mac or PC playback. If you have the older QuickTime Player 7 installed,
you get a wider choice of export options for different devices.
19. Tag multiple items in iTunes
You
might have a lot of television shows in iTunes, maybe even part of the
same series, that you have ripped from DVD to watch on your Apple TV or
iOS device. To tag them all at once with a show or series name or other
criteria, simply hold the Shift key while selecting a range of items in
iTunes, or hold the Command key to select non-continuous items.
Then
press Command+I or choose File > Get Info. You will see a window
called Multiple Item Information and any tags that you add here will be
applied to all the files at the same time, saving you lots of effort in
the process.
20. Manage pictures with Smart Albums
iPhoto
can use Smart Albums, which work like Smart Playlists in iTunes or
Smart Folders in the Finder, in that files are automatically collated in
virtual folders based on the criteria you define.
To make use of
them, create a new one and specify some criteria, for example 'camera
used is iPhone' and 'Face contains John'. This album would automatically
update itself as you added or removed images, to always show pictures
of John taken with an iPhone.
21. Have a backup media player
QuickTime
is great but it can't open every kind of media file and now that the
excellent Perian has ceased development, you can find yourself sometimes
struggling to open movie files. The best alternatives, which also
happen to be free, are VLC Player and MPlayer, both fairly small
downloads.
Locate your troublesome file and right-click on it.
From the menu, choose Open With… and OS X will show all compatible apps
on your system. To permanently associate a file type with an app, say
for example to make AVI files always open in VLC, Get Info on an AVI
file by pressing Command+I or clicking File > Get Info, then select
VLC from the Open With menu and click Change All. You can always change
this to a different app at any time.
22. Export from iMovie's Project Library
In
iMovie you can export a project directly from the Library section by
simply right-clicking on its name. From the menu that appears, choose to
export to iTunes, iDVD or the Media Browser, send the video to YouTube
or export it to a media file using your own specific settings.
In
the Media Browser section you can choose to compress versions for
several devices at the same time, from mobile right up to full HD.
Choose your options, hit Publish and leave it to render. That's all
there is to exporting your movie.
23. Mirror your desktop to your Apple TV
If
you have a Mac released after mid-2011 and an Apple TV connected to
your HDTV, you should be able to use AirPay Mirroring to send your Mac's
desktop to your TV. Anything showing on your Mac's screen is mirrored.
Any pictures or movies that you play on the Mac should therefore play on
the TV, saving you having to convert them or build them into slideshows
first.
Note that AirPlay Mirroring won't work on older Macs due
to processor requirements. In this case, the alternative is to try a
third-party utility such as AirParrot.
24. Use Preview's Thumbnail view
When
you open a number of images at the same time in Preview you may find
they all open in separate windows, which can be a pain. In Preview's
Preferences go to the General section and select 'Open all files in one
window'.
Now when you open multiple files they will display in a
thumbnail list, making them easier to scroll between and to compare. Of
course, you can always set this back to 'open each file in its own
window' to force Preview to keep images separate.
25. Edit multiple images in iPhoto
Select
several images in an iPhoto album by Command-clicking on them, then hit
Edit. iPhoto will display the selected images in its main window and
you can edit or apply changes side by side. It's a great way to quickly
make changes to groups of pictures without having to create a new album
for them first.
No comments:
Post a Comment