If you press the Option key when the menu is visible, you'll notice the dots disappear from Restart, Shut Down and Log Out commands.
Its menu lets you restart or shut down your Mac and view system information. On the other side of the menu bar, in the upper-left corner of your Mac, sits the Apple icon. Option-click the Dropbox icon, for example, and you can see how much of your storage allotment you have used. The Option key also works with third-party menu bar icons.
For the Wi-Fi and Bluetooth buttons, Option-click reveals more in-depth information about your network and connected devices, respectively. Option-click the volume icon and you'll get a menu that allows you to change the input source or output device. You can use the Option key with other menu bar items to access different or expanded menus. When the icon is grayed out, Do Not Disturb is on when the icon is black, Do Not Disturb is off. You may need to try each direction: left to right, then right to left, top to bottom and lastly, bottom to top. Just hold down the Option key when you click the Notification Center icon. I would hold the system upside down and using a can of can’ed air with short soft blasts spray the keys starting on one side and work across. You can reduce this click-swipe-click process to a single click by employing the Option key. You need to click the Notification Center icon in the upper-right corner of your Mac and then scroll down a bit to reveal the Do Not Disturb toggle switch at the top. You can also use the Command-Q shortcut in the app switcher to quit the app you have highlighted.ĭo Not Disturb is oddly hidden in Notification Center. Just above the tab key is the ~ (tilde) key you can use it to move left through your open apps while continuing to hold down the Command key. While continuing to hold down the Command key, hit Tab again to move right through your open apps. Hit Command-Tab to open the app switcher. You can use the Dock to switch apps, but your Mac also has an app switcher. To perform this maneuver on a Mac, press Function-Delete.
The delete key on a Windows keyboard does the opposite and deletes the character to the right of the cursor. That is, it deletes the character to the left of the cursor. The delete key on a Mac, however, acts like the backspace key on a Windows keyboard. On a Mac keyboard, you get only a delete key. Windows keyboards have a backspace key and a delete key. The missing backspace key on a Mac keyboard is another difference that might trip up Windows converts. To quit the app, use the keyboard shortcut Command-Q. Unlike with Windows, the X button on a Mac closes the window but does not quit the app. If you are coming to Mac after a long tenure with Windows, then you might get tripped up when you click the red X in the upper-left corner of a window only to discover that the app is still running after the window closes. Here are ten shortcuts for general Mac use that didn't fit in any of the above apps. Not every question will be answered, we don’t reply to email, and we cannot provide direct troubleshooting advice.I've covered shortcuts for Finder, iTunes, Safari and Spotlight.
If not, we’re always looking for new problems to solve! Email yours to including screen captures as appropriate, and whether you want your full name used. We’ve compiled a list of the questions we get asked most frequently along with answers and links to columns: read our super FAQ to see if your question is covered. This Mac 911 article is in response to a question submitted by Macworld reader Mike.
Sadly, macOS omits Control-U, which in Terminal shells deletes everything from the insertion point to the start of the line, a useful complement to Control-K.
Other software is more literal, and deletes only the characters on the same visible line. Some software interprets that as the end of the paragraph (until the next point in the document or email at which you pressed the Return key). Add the Option key to forward or backward delete (including Fn-Option-⌫), and macOS deletes a word at a time, or when you’re not dealing precisely with words, anything up to the next white space in the direction you’re deleting.Ĭontrol-H and Control-D also substitute for backward and forwards delete, owing a debt to macOS’s Unix underpinnings.Ĭontrol-K, another Unix relative, deletes everything from the insertion point ot the end of the line.