ESSENTIAL MAC KEYBOARD SHORTCUTS

CAPTURING YOUR SCREEN ON IOS 12

Taking screenshots

To take a screenshot on your iphone or ipad, press the Home and Side buttons simultaneously. On an iphone X or later, you can take a screenshot by pressing the Volume Up and Side button simultaneously. You will hear a shutter sound to confirm.

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Instantly mark up screenshots Whenever you take a screenshot on IOS, a small thumbnail of the screen will appear in the lower-left corner. Tap on this thumbnail and you will instantly enter Markup mode whereby you can make notes and annotations before sharing the image.

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Hide the thumbnails

Although there is currently no way to turn off the screenshot thumbnail previews in IOS, there is a way to hide them. When the thumbnail of the screenshot appears, simply hold down on it and quickly swipe to the left to make it disappear.

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Make the thumbnail hang After taking a screenshot, if you don’t want the thumbnail to vanish, press on it and drag your finger to the right. The thumbnail will move ever so slightly but will hang on the screen until you remove your finger. It will continue to appear on the display afterwards for longer than normal before vanishing.

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Quick options After taking a screenshot, press and hold on the thumbnail to bring up a set of quick options. Sadly, there is no option to instantly delete the image, but there are many more. Tap ‘Edit Actions’ at the bottom to add and remove them.

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Paste nonformatted text On Mac, when you press cmd+c to copy text to paste into a document, the copied text keeps the formatting of its original source. However, if you press option+shift+cmd+v then the copied text will adopt the same formatting as the document you are copying it to.

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Take calls on your Mac

Open up your Mac’s

Facetime app and then go to Facetime>preferences. Under the ‘Settings’ tab, tick the ‘Calls From iphone’ option. Now, if you’re working at your Mac with your iphone nearby, whenever you receive a call you will have the option to take it on your Mac.

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Send texts to non-iphone users on Mac

You can use your Mac’s Messages app to send texts to non-iphone (non-imessage) users using your iphone. On your iphone, go to Settings>messages and tap on the ‘Text Message Forwarding’ option. Your Mac should be displayed with a switch next to it, turn on this switch to allow your Mac to send and receive texts from your iphone. You may be prompted to enter a code displayed on your Mac to verify the process. As well as sending text messages to non-apple users, your Mac will now also be able to receive them.

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Access itunes store in Music Are you a non-apple Music subscriber that is confused about how to purchase tunes in the new Music app that is seemingly devoid of an itunes Store? Go to Music>preferences> General and tick the ‘itunes Store’ option to have it appear for selection in your Music app sidebar.

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Get your Mac set up on startup To have certain apps launch and to connect to specific servers when your Mac starts up, go to System Preferences>users & Groups>login Items and then click ‘+’ to include whatever you want.

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Jump to app preferences

If you find yourself regularly delving into the preferences of a particular app to tweak the settings, then rather than going through the menu system, simply press cmd+, (comma) and the preferences page will be automatically opened ready for you to peruse and adjust to suit your needs.

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Get directions in Spotlight

As we are discovering here, your Mac’s Spotlight search feature can be great time-saver in so many different ways. Another option is getting directions. Instead of opening your Maps app, type the name of your destination into Spotlight, then, in the results, click on the Maps entry and click ‘Directions’.

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Turn your Airpods into a hearing aid

If you have a pair of Airpods then you can use a handy IOS feature called Live Listen to make them boost the amplification of the noises and voices around you. To access it, go to Settings>control Centre>customise Controls and then add the ‘Hearing’ option to your list of active controls. Now, with your Airpods connected, access your IOS Control Centre and tap on the Hearing button. It is by no means an ideal solution to long-term hearing problems, but it can certainly be useful.

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Use a mouse with ipados Thanks to the release of ipados, you can make your ipad more Mac-like. While you have been able to connect a keyboard for a while, the option to connect a mouse has also been added. Go to Settings>accessibility and, under ‘Touch’, tap Assistivetouch>devices> Bluetooth Devices to connect it.

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Change Siri’s voice on IOS

If you want to change the gender and accent of Siri on your IOS device, go to Settings>siri & Search and tap on ‘Siri Voice’. You will see a selection of variants, including Irish and South African, so if you want to try something different, tap on your choices and they will be downloaded and set.

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Use external flash drives with your ipad

If you have an ipad running IOS 13/ ipados then you can now plug in external storage devices to your ipad’s Lightning port and then access them in the Files app. When you connect a drive, open Files and the device should appear in the left-hand column. You can drag and drop files to this device to back them up, create new folders on the device and organise files within them.

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Create a Mac printer pool

If you work in an office and urgently need to print out documents, only to find that your regular printer is busy, go to System Preferences>printers & Scanners and select multiple printers to create a pool. If you then select this pool when printing, your print job will be sent to the next available printer.

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Save an IOS webpage to Books

If you are researching topics using Safari and want to save a particular webpage, then rather than bookmarking it or saving it to your Reading List, you can save it as a PDF and then read it at your leisure in your Books app. To do this, tap on the Share icon and then swipe through the lower selection of options (including Airdrop, Messages, etc) and tap on ‘Books’. The webpage will then be hastily turned into a PDF and your IOS Books app will be automatically opened to view it in. These will also be accessible through Books on your Mac.

CAPTURING YOUR SCREEN ON MAC 30

Quick screens You can take a quick screenshot of your Mac desktop by pressing cmd+shift+3. Alternatively, if you only want to capture a portion of the screen, press cmd+shift+4 and your cursor will turn into a reticle. Drag over the area you wish to capture and then release.

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Access the special utility

If you press cmd+shift+5 you will call up the macos screenshot utility. From here you can access tools to capture the whole of your screen, a specific window or a selected portion, and you’ll also find options to record your Mac screen, too.

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Set screen capture timers When working with the screenshot utility (see above), select the style of screenshot you want to take and then click ‘Options’. Here you can set a five or ten-second timer to begin when you perform the capture action before the screenshot is taken.

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Disable the thumbnail

Like IOS, macos displays a thumbnail of the screenshot you have just taken at the bottom of the screen that you can click on to access Markup mode. If you don’t want the thumbnails displayed, then in the screenshot utility, click on ‘Options’ and then de-select the ‘Show Floating Thumbnail’ option.

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Capture your Touch Bar

If you have a Macbook with a Touch Bar then you can press cmd+shift+6 to grab an image of what is displayed on it. This extra-thin image will then be saved, by default, to your desktop like a regular screenshot.

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Define a word

Whatever you are reading on your Mac, you can highlight words and then press cmd+ctrl+d to get an instant dictionary definition. You can also configure which dictionary you use from within the pop-up window.

36 Minimise all

Is your Mac desktop cluttered up with open windows and you need a bit of breathing space? Then press cmd+option+m and all open windows will be instantly minimised and brushed out of the way to your Dock.

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View desktop

Along the same lines as the previous tip, if you just need to take a quick peek at your desktop, perhaps to check a file name, then press cmd+f3 and all open windows will be temporarily pushed to one side.

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URL access In Safari, if you want to type a new search or URL without using your mouse to click on the bar, simply press cmd+up arrow+l. The text currently in the search/url bar will be highlighted ready for you to type over. 39

Navigate Finder There are a few shortcuts to help you jump to places on your Mac quickly. Press cmd+shift+a to go to your Applications folder, cmd+shift+u to go to your Utilities folder and cmd+shift+d to access your desktop folder. 40

Fast shut down If you want to shut down your Mac without going through the Apple menu, press cmd+ctrl+option+eject and your Mac will be instantly turned off in a responsible, and swift, manner.

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Rename Mac files in bulk Renaming files can be very labour-intensive, but there is a way to speed up the process on your Mac. Click and drag to highlight all of the files you wish to rename and then right/ ctrl+click on any of them and select the ‘Rename X Items’ from the menu. In the rename utility that appears, click on ‘Replace Text’ and change the option to ‘Format’. You can type something like ‘Holiday Photo’ into the Custom Format field and click ‘Rename’ to label the images in numbered order.

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Change your Mac icons

If you want to replace the icons of your Mac files or folders then the process is very simple. Find the icon you want to use, a photo for example, and then highlight it in Finder (if it’s a photo there is no need to open it). Now press cmd+i to open the info panel, click on the thumbnail icon at the top and press cmd+c to copy it. Highlight the item whose icon you want to replace, press cmd+i and then select the thumbnail and press cmd+v.

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Quickly turn on Do Not Disturb If you need to knuckle down to some intensive work on your Mac and want to instantly disable all notifications, simply hold down the option key and then click on the Notification Centre icon in the top-right corner of your menu bar. The icon will be shaded out to indicate that it’s worked.

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Get the latest sports scores Need to know how your favourite team is getting on? Then ask your Mac’s Spotlight search feature. Just type in the name of your team and the result of their most recent match will be displayed as the first hit in the search results. You will then be able to scroll down for upcoming fixtures.

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Record your iphone screen with sound

Go to Settings>control Centre> Customise Controls and make sure that Screen Recording has been added to your ‘Include’ list. Next, access your IOS Control Centre and force-press on the Screen Record icon. You should now see the option to turn the microphone on. By taking calls on your iphone speaker you can use this method to record important calls.

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Using Handoff On your Mac, go to System Preferences>general and tick the ‘Allow Handoff between this

Mac and your icloud devices’ then do the same on your IOS device (Settings> General). Now, for example, if you have a webpage open on your iphone and it is close to your Mac, you will see this icon in your Dock. Click it to open the page.

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Airdrop files from your Mac In Finder, click on Go>airdrop (or press shift+cmd+r) and an Airdrop window will appear that shows all of the nearby devices (that have Airdrop enabled) that you can send files to. Simply drag a file over your intended destination and it will be instantly ported across.

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Use Siri by typing

If you are self-conscious about asking Siri stuff verbally then there is a way to type your questions on Mac instead. Go to System Preferences> Accessibility>siri and you will see the ‘Enable Type to Siri’ option. Tick this and then you will be able to type questions when you click on the Siri icon.

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Access Safari’s Picture-inpicture mode

In Safari on your Mac, navigate to an online video, like a Youtube clip, and when it is playing, right-click the speaker icon in the Url/search bar. Choose ‘Enter Picture in Picture’ and the video will start playing in a separate window.

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Stop IOS music with a timer

This trick is useful for anyone who enjoys falling asleep to the gentle music playing on their IOS device. Launch your IOS Clock app and tap on the ‘Timer’ mode, then you will see the ‘When Timer Ends’ option. Tap on this option and then scroll right down to the bottom of the resulting menu screen to discover the ‘Stop Playing’ option – select this and then tap on the ‘Set’ option in the top-right corner. You will be taken back to the previous Timer screen, so set the preferred length of time you want to elapse before your device automatically stops playing your music, audiobook or podcast and then hit the ‘Start’ button. Now lay back and relax.

ESSENTIAL MAC TYPING TIPS 51

Instant There are no doubt numerous times when you feel the need to type an Apple logo, well there is a quick and easy way to do it on Mac. Just press option+shift+k and the familiar icon will be typed in the app that you are using.

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Type characters Just like on IOS, holding specific keys down on your Mac keyboard will produce a menu of alternative characters for that key. For example, hold down A or C for a menu displaying å and ç variants, plus many more.

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Character viewer If you need to type a character that isn’t immediately accessible from your keyboard, press ctrl+cmd+spacebar to bring up the full character viewer. This provides access to emojis, symbols and much more.

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Text shortcuts

To create your own custom text shortcuts, go to System Preferences>keyboard>text, and then click the ‘+’ icon. Now, under ‘Replace’, type in the shortcut followed by the text you wish to shorten under ‘With’. Exit to save.

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Dictate text

To dictate text for your Mac to transcribe, go to System Preferences>keyboard>dictation and turn it on. You can also create a preferred shortcut here so that you can turn Dictation on or off at will when you need it.

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Keyboard viewer To get more au fait with your Mac’s character shortcuts, go to System Preferences>keyboard and click ‘Show keyboard and emoji viewers in menu bar’. Then from the menu bar choose ‘Show Keyboard Viewer’.

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Instantly hide your Mac Dock If you usually prefer your Mac Dock to be ever-present but need to hide it, just press cmd+option+d. Not only will this hide the Dock, it instantly triggers the ‘Automatically hide and show the Dock’ option in System Preferences>dock. Press the shortcut keys again to disable the option again.

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Instantly delete your Mac files Do you still manually drag unwanted items to the Bin? Speed up the process using a simple keyboard shortcut. Select the file that you want gone and then press cmd+delete to instantly move the file to the Bin. Press cmd+shift+delete to instantly empty the Bin and remove all unwanted files.

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Cycle through open Mac apps Rather than using your Mac’s Dock to access open apps, hold down cmd and press the tab key. An app viewer will appear on your desktop and, keeping cmd held down, you can then repeatedly press the tab key to cycle through your open apps.

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Take photos when recording When you are recording a video on your iphone there will be a secondary shutter button present that allows you to snap static images during the recording process. You will hear the familiar shutter sound to confirm that a photo has been taken.

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Silence unknown callers Recently introduced to IOS is a new feature that allows you to essentially silence incoming calls from unknown callers and send them straight to your voicemail. Go to Settings>phone and then scroll down and enable the ‘Silence Unknown Callers’ option. Now be bothered by nuisance calls no more!

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Create a Mac signature using your iphone

You probably already know that you can save your signature into your Mac’s Markup tools to use when signing digital forms. But whereas previously this was done by using a trackpad or signing a piece of paper and scanning it in using your Mac’s isight camera, it can now be done using your iphone. Open a PDF in the Preview app, click on the pen nib icon in the toolbar to access your Mac’s Markup tools, and then click on the signature icon. By clicking ‘Create Signature’ and choosing ‘iphone’, you can sign using your iphone screen.

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Look up words in IOS

On your IOS device, go to Settings>general>dictionary and add your preferred dictionaries by tapping them. Now, when reading (in Safari, Books, etc), press and hold on a word that you wish to query and then lift off to highlight the word. A floating toolbar should now appear over the highlighted word, tap on the ‘Look Up’ option. You will be presented with a definition of the word from your chosen dictionary/ies.

ESSENTIAL MAC TERMINAL HACKS 64

Keep your

Mac awake

If you want to override your Energy Saver settings to keep your Mac active for longer, simply open your Mac’s built-in Terminal app and then type caffeinate -t followed by the number of seconds you would like to keep your Mac awake for. Then press enter.

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Get a local weather report You can also use Terminal to get local weather reports. Type in curl http://wttr.in/london (you can replace ‘london’ with your local city) and then press enter. A three-day forecast for your chosen area will be returned complete with a selection of in-depth data.

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Make your Mac sound like IOS

A bit of a strange one this, but you can make your Mac make IOS sounds when you connect it to a power source. Just type defaults write com.apple. Powerchime Chimeonallhardware -bool true; open /System/library/ Coreservices/powerchime.app.

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Add spaces to your Dock

If you would like to add blank spaces to your Mac’s Dock so that it separates the app icons a little better then type defaults write com.apple. dock persistent-apps -array-add ‘{“tiletype”=”spacer-tile”;}’ and then type killall Dock. Now have fun applying spaces to custimise your Dock.

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Stress test

If you feel as though your

Mac isn’t firing on all cylinders then you can perform a stress test by typing yes > /dev/null &. If you have a multi-core Mac then you will need to type the command multiple times to match the number of cores before pressing enter.

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Change file formats

By default, any screenshots that you take on your Mac will be saved in the PNG format, but you can change this by typing defaults write com.apple. screencapture type JPG and then pressing enter. The change will take effect when you restart your Mac. You can also replace ‘JPG’ with ‘TIF’ or whatever file format you would prefer. 70

Show hidden files and folders There is a variety of hidden files and folders on your Mac. Most of the time we have no need to know of their existence but you can reveal them in your system folders by typing defaults write com.apple.finder Appleshowallfiles -bool TRUE Killall Finder. Change ‘TRUE’ to ‘FALSE’ to reverse the effects. 71

View your download history Our Macs keep a meticulous record of every file that we download. To view this list, type sqlit3 ~/ Library/preferences/com.apple. Launchservices.quarantineeventsv* ‘select Lsquarantinedataurlstring from Lsquarantineevent’. 72

…And delete it!

If you have previously downloaded files that can be incriminating, for any reason, type sqlite3 ~/Library/preferences/com.apple. Launchservices.quarantineeventsv* ‘delete from Lsqarantineevent’. When you press enter, your entire download history will be removed from your Mac, completely covering your tracks. 73

Make your Mac say something Although there are plenty of other ways of doing this, you can make your Mac say anything in its default system voice simply by typing say followed by whatever you want. For example: say “I love icreate”. 74

Create custom text responses

If you are currently unable to take a call then you can respond with a stock text to let the caller know why you can’t talk. You have full freedom to customise these stock responses to suit your needs and personality by going to Settings>phone>respond with Text.

You will see the three default responses listed, so tap on one and you will be able to type what you want over the top. When you have finished, simply quit Settings to store them and they will be become available under the ‘Respond with Text’ menu when you receive a call. 75

Use swipe typing on IOS Apple introduced Swipe Typing with IOS 13, which can be a great time-saver. The way it works is that you press and hold on the first letter and then basically draw your finger across the screen to each letter in sequence. When you see your word form in the toolbar, release your finger. 76 Type with one hand on iphone For those times when you want to quickly respond to a text without putting your bag down, simply longpress on the emoji key on your iphone’s IOS keyboard and a Keyboard Settings menu will appear. From there, you can opt to shift the on-screen keyboard to the right or left to enable you to type what you need one-handed. 77 Enable Dark Mode instantly To instantly turn on Night Shift or Dark Mode on your iphone or ipad, simply access your device’s Control Centre and then long-press on the Brightness control. You will see options to instantly override your default settings and turn either option on immediately when required. 78 Invert your Mac’s colours

If you’re burning the midnight oil working on your Mac and Dark mode isn’t really doing it for you then it is possible to instantly invert the colours of your Mac display to make them easier on the eye. Go to System Preferences>keyboard>shortcuts> Accessibility and tick the ‘Invert Colours’ shortcut. Now, whenever you want to quickly invert your Mac’s colour display, press cmd+ctrl+option+8 and the change will be instantaneous. You can press this keyboard shortcut again at any time to restore the colours to their normal appearance.

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Capture the web in IOS

We have already outlined how to take screenshots on your IOS device, but did you know you can also capture full webpage? Navigate to a website and take a screenshot as normal, then tap on the thumbnail to enter Markup mode and then tap on the ‘Full Page’ tab.

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Use the Watch Dock as an app launcher

By default, your Apple Watch’s Dock (accessible from the Side button) is used to display your most recent apps. However, if you open the Watch app on your iphone and select ‘Dock’, your can change the Dock’s display from ‘Recents’ to ‘Favourites’, thus creating a cool new app launcher for your Watch.

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Instantly lock your Mac

If you thought that the only way to lock your Mac on demand was to put it to sleep then you’re in for a nice surprise. By pressing cmd+ctrl+q, you will instantly lock your Mac meaning that it will require your password/ Touch ID to unlock again.

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Record IOS on your Mac

Before IOS incorporated its own internal screen-recording software you had to rely on your Mac to record your IOS screen. Connect your IOS device to your Mac and launch the Quicktime Player app and then go to File>new Movie Recording and choose your device as the camera source.

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Spy using your Airpods

We have already told you how to turn your Airpods into a hearing aid, but how about going one step further and using them to spy? Just turn on Live Listening (see #24) and hide your iphone in a room to listen in.

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Close all open Safari tabs

You can remotely close open Safari tabs on any device that you have signed into using your Apple ID. Just press/click on the overlapping squares icon in Safari and then scroll down to the bottom of the tabs list to view/close open tabs on other devices.

MAC WINDOW MANAGEMENT TIPS

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Resize options

In macos Catalina, hovering your cursor over the green circle in a Finder window will display fullscreen and tiling options. Hold option while hovering to see old-school options for displaying and moving the window. 86 Proportional resizing If you also hold down the option button when manually resizing a window (by clicking and holding on the lower-right edge), the window will be resized proportionately. Try it to see what we mean.

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Proportional shrinking

Try holding down option+shift when resizing a window. Doing so will cause the whole thing to shrink down proportionately around the centre of the window. Again, try it out!

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Quickly delete words on Mac

If you have typed something by mistake on your Mac then rather than pressing delete to erase it letter by agonising letter, simply press option+delete to instantly delete the last word typed. You can repeat the process as many times as you want to delete scores of words.

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Share location in Messages When using your IOS messages app, type ‘I’m at’ followed by a space in your message and the ‘Current Location’ option will appear in your keyboard toolbar. Tap on this and your current location will be immediately sent to your intended recipient. Remember, if you contacts have shared their location with you (Settings> Location Services>share My Location) then you can also track their movements in the Messages app by tapping on their avatar followed by the small ‘i’ icon.

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Search for songs by lyric

If you’re staring blankly at your Music app’s search field without being in knowledge of the song title or artist of the track you want to listen to, then all is not lost. If you only know scraps of lyrics then type those into the search field and your Music app will try its hardest to match them up.

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Get iphone flash notifications

If you want to add another level of alert to your iphone then go to Settings>accessibility and scroll down to the Hearing section. Tap on ‘Audio/ Visual’ and turn on the ‘LED Flash for Alerts’ option. Now, whenever you receive a new notification, your iphone’s camera flash will blink, providing a more subtle alert than a sound/vibration if you are in a meeting, for example.

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Cure your Mac’s insomnia If you find that your Mac often doesn’t go to sleep when required, launch Activity Monitor and, while in the CPU tab, go to View>columns and then tick the ‘Preventing Sleep’ option at the bottom of the menu. The new column will spell out exactly which apps are keeping your Mac awake.

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Name your Mac Message conversations If you have lots of message threads going on in your Mac’s Messages app then it can be hard to keep track. Luckily, there is a hidden feature that could help. Click on ‘Details’ in the topright corner of a conversation and then you can name the thread for reference.

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Merge all of your Finder windows

If you have loads of open Finder windows open on your Mac desktop then you can tidy them up by going to Window>merge All Windows. All of the open windows will now be moved into one and made accessible via tabs.

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Find words on a webpage

You can find words or phrases contained within webpages easily by typing them into Safari’s search/url bar. Scroll down to the bottom of the list of results and you will find a ‘On This Page’ section.

MAC MENU BAR SHORTCUTS 96

Change sound devices quickly Rather than going through your System Preferences to change your sound input and output devices, simply hold down the option key and then click on the sound icon in the menu bar. There is only a limited number of outputs that can be displayed here, mind.

97 Re-arrange menu bar icons If you aren’t keen on the default order for the icons on the right-hand side of your Mac’s menu bar then you can re-arrange them to suit your needs. Just hold down cmd and then click, hold and drag an icon left or right to reposition it in the menu bar.

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Check your Mac’s info Clicking on the Apple icon in your Mac’s menu bar allows you to access the ‘About This Mac’ feature. However, if your hold down option while clicking this menu, the option will change to ‘System Information’ and provide a shortcut to your system info.

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Preserve webpage data There are a couple of cool menu bar secrets that you can access in Safari, too. Hold down option and click on the ‘Safari’ menu to see new options to ‘Clear History and Keep Website Data’ (to preserve site settings) and ‘Quit and Keep Windows’, which will re-open your current windows when you relaunch.

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Close all Mac windows

If you have a bunch of open windows in Finder, hold down option and click on the ‘File’ menu. You will now see the option to ‘Close All’, which you can also do by holding option and clicking on the red circle.