How to Use Hot Corners on Mac

Want to quickly lock a screen, open Launchpad, go into Mission Control, enable a screen saver, or prevent screen sleep, all with just a gesture or movement of the mouse? If so, Hot Corners on Mac might be for you.

Hot Corners are a useful feature on Mac that allows you to use each of the four corners of your screen to perform a designated action. For example, you could assign Launchpad or Mission Control to the top-left corner of the screen, and starting a screen saver to the bottom left, and you can then quickly access those by flicking your mouse cursor to that assigned corner. For many users, Hot Corners are not only convenient, but they’re faster than using keyboard shortcuts too. Hot Corners aren’t turned on by default, so if you want to use them you’ll need to configure them to your usage intentions. Let’s run through the steps to setup and use Hot Corners on your Mac.

How to Use Hot Corners on Mac

Setting up Hot Corners is a pretty simple and straightforward procedure on macOS. You don’t have to be on the newest version of a Mac operating system to use this feature either, as it has been around for a while. Just follow the steps below to get started.

1. Head over to “System Preferences” on your Mac from the Dock or  Apple menu.
   
   
2. Here, click on “Mission Control” as shown in the screenshot below.
   
   
3. This will open a new window on your screen. Click on “Hot Corners” located at the bottom-left corner of the window.
   
   
4. Now, you will be able to assign actions to each of the four corners of your screen. There are a total of nine actions that you can choose from. Once you’ve configured this, click “Done”.
   
   

That’s pretty much all there is to it, now you’re ready to be using Hot Corners on your Mac.

Depending on your configuration, you’ll be able to flick your mouse or trackpad cursor to any of the four corners to perform tasks like opening Launchpad, starting screen saver, putting display to sleep, preventing sleep, and so on.

If you want to remove an action from a specific Hot Corner, you can return to the same section of preferences and use the minus “-” option using the above steps. You can also assign every item to the minus option if you want to disable Hot Corners completely.

Sometimes you could trigger hot corners by accident and that might get annoying. If you’re concerned about that, you can add a modifier key like Shift, Option, or Command to avoid this. By doing so, you’ll need to hold the assigned key while flicking to one of the hot corners.

The best way to set up all four of your Hot Corners would heavily depend on how you use your Mac. By assigning Hot Corners for actions that you frequently use, you can save a whole lot of clicks and keystrokes over time.

Do you use Hot Corners? Do you have any particular preferences for how to set this feature up? Share your thoughts and experiences in the comments.